Which audio player would you recommend?

[james3mc]

Which audio player would you good folk recommend?

I have my music organised in a folder structure i.e.

• Home / Music / Abba / Gold / Waterloo.mp3
• Home / Music / Abba / Gold / S.O.S.mp3
• Home / Music / Abba / More ABBA Gold / So Long.mp3
• Home / Music / Annie Lennox / Unknown Album / Why.mp3

When on Windows, I used iTunes because I liked the layout, but found it rather memory hungry (my laptop is old) and I'm not really enjoying Amarok's layout.

So, is there an audio player for Kubuntu, similar in layout to iTunes, but easier on the RAM that folk could recommend?

My current configuration:
Chrome version: 12.0.742.112 (90304) Ubuntu 11.04
Kubuntu: 11.04 Sole operating system (i.e. not Wubi)
KDE: 4.7.00
Grub: 0.97-29
Type: Laptop
CPU: Intel 32-bit i686
RAM: 2GB
HDs: 1 internal 60GB

[The Liquidator]

Re: Which audio player would you recommend?

Hi and welcome to the forum

That looks suspiciously like the specs for my dell inspiron 630m

I use amarok, it has a very wide range of functions (although some would say it's overkill). Just tested - To launch it and start it playing takes 64Mb Ram on my system.

With iTunes I assume you have an iPod? Depending on the model you should be able to sync with it with amarok.

I note you use ubuntu as well. Have you found a favourite player to use in that? If so, there is nothing at all to prevent you using that in kubuntu.

That takes care of managing your collection (and playing it - Amarok can also get the lyrics so you can sing along ) but for the times when you might want something really lightweight where you just queue up a few songs and play them then qmmp might interest you. It's a winamp clone - it's tiny (10mb to launch and play)

Have fun

Ian

[kapil]

Re: Which audio player would you recommend?

i used to like amarok but my new favorite is Clementine.
It is pretty light on resources.. and interface is no fuss.
BUT,
If you want something like itunes.. i would say go for banshee.

[erigais]

Re: Which audio player would you recommend?

I personally like clementine. If you have broadband, why not try all of them?

[Nayar]

Re: Which audio player would you recommend?

clementine FTW!!!

[woodsmoke]

Re: Which audio player would you recommend?

I was introduced to the wonders of "online internet radio" by Amarok.

But, I "cut my Linux teeth" on XMMS.....no...I did not mis-type that.XMMS not XMMS2

But....nowadays....I would go with Clementine.

woodsmoke

[vinnywright]

Re: Which audio player would you recommend?

I had tried Clementine back in 10.04 maby 10.10 and it dident work so well..............but reading all the praises for it hear I installed it in my 11.10 install ............not bad ....not bad at all. I think I will like it

VINNY

[GreyGeek]

Re: Which audio player would you recommend?

Clementine was in the 10.04 repository. After I installed it, it failed to play mp3 files. Apparently it can't use Lame. Guess I'll stick with vlc.

[sithlord48]

Re: Which audio player would you recommend?

i mainly use two players,

qmmp <- this is like winamp2 even can use its skins.. (written in Qt)

amarok <- its amarok need i say more

i've not tried clementine myself.

oh wow XMMS! i remember that, woodsmoke check out qmmp its like xmms , never got to xmms2

[woodsmoke]

Re: Which audio player would you recommend?

Hi Sithlord
Yeppers on the XMMS, I even wrote an article at LinuxForums.com extoling it's virtues as a teaching device for the file structure.

I think there was a lot of "back room" stuff going on with the devs for XMMS, maybe a lot of other people saying that they had to "get with the new program" or just drop it.

It had all those wonderful skins but the file structure box looked like something from Win 3.1 and was just...."not slick enough" for the new tasts of people.

A Linux that I was a developer for a while back actually put it in the repos and there are some current distros that have the original XMMS in their repos today(can't remember which).

But....it did immerse one in the file structure...and was a great learning app.

As to XMMS2 that is just a whole 'nother beast(for the information of others not "familiar" with it.

It is now just a "server". In other words one either has to control it from command line or use one of the two or three GUIS that have been.....RELUCTANTLY developed for it.. And actually, to use the GUIS one really needs TWO of them one of them to get XMMS started and then the other one to use more for "looks" ...LOL.....

And again, as information for people not familiar with music "stuff" a lot of muslc "players" are just front ends for Music Player Daemon or XMMS2 or some other servers.

The folks at CrunchBang do a LOT with "servers" like MPD because they do the controls from within the displays that one sees in their "Conkys".

That whole Conky thing is just REALLY intriguing, but when they went "Debian" they eliminated the original "setup" interactive menu and that removed some of the "hacker" feel to #! but the trade off is more libraries and that one can spend more time on the Conky itself.

I've often tried and failed to get a Conky to work properly with the Plasma desktop, but the "painting" of the multiple "layers" of things cause the thing to crash very often, at least for me, although others have got it to work.

Gkrellm is an interesting app. Again for people not familiar with it, it is an intimately linked "thing" that displays all sorts of system information, and will do things like e-mail checking etc. It is made of "krells" of the user's choice and it "floats" on the desktop and has a multitude of skins also.

gKrellm and XMMS were intimately linked and were SIMPLE to work..... xmms2 can be controlled from it also but it takes some work and has to have PRECISELY the correct libraries in the repos and thereby put in the OS to get it to work hassle free. I've got the combo to work in some distros and not work in MOST distros.. which is too bad.. they are both kewl apps.

And also....gKrellm "looks" ...."old school" even with the plethora of skins and being able to have a transparent skin...for me at least, gKrellm seems kind "out of place" on a Kubuntu Plasma desktop So I only run it on classic desktops.

and yes I have sung the praises of qmmp myself it is a very good small player and very XMMS like.

woodsmoke

[james3mc]

Re: Which audio player would you recommend?

Hmmm, some interesting replies, thank you all.

For now I'm going with Clementine although as far as I can see, it sadly lacks one feature which iTunes did beautifully (for me anyway). iTunes keeps the music folders organised in a way which is totally configurable.

Anyway, I'll see how I get on with Clementine.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Which audio player would you recommend?

Gkrellm is an interesting app. Again for people not familiar with it, it is an intimately linked "thing" that displays all sorts of system information, and will do things like e-mail checking etc. It is made of "krells" of the user's choice and it "floats" on the desktop and has a multitude of skins also.

woodsmoke

I still use gkrellm as I'm not very keen on the plasma monitoring apps. However it no longer monitors temperature, which is a shame.

[kapil]

Re: Which audio player would you recommend?

Hmmm, some interesting replies, thank you all.

For now I'm going with Clementine although as far as I can see, it sadly lacks one feature which iTunes did beautifully (for me anyway). iTunes keeps the music folders organised in a way which is totally configurable.

Anyway, I'll see how I get on with Clementine.

that's why i said, give banshee a try. They have tried to copy iTunes in a way.. should be helpful for your need.