[LAU] Decent and attractive audio player

[pete shorthose]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 15:06:40 -0400
Rob <lau at kudla.org> wrote:

> On Sunday 27 April 2008 08:38, pete shorthose wrote:
> > > all way. I like all my music to be easy to search and there is
> > > 200gb of it.
> > so like you, i'm still waiting for the RightThingTM to come along.
> > until that day, it's xmms for me.
> > sad but true.
> 
> I'm in the same boat (100GB+ of music, all ripped over the course of 
> several years from CDs I own.)  I also listen to music more on my 
> Archos jukebox than any of my PCs.  So, rather than use one style of 
> organization on the PCs (maintaining a separate database for each 
> one, or using MPD which means I have to use a different program to 
> play files from the network than local files) and another on the 
> Archos, I navigate my collection using Konqueror, play songs or 
> playlists with xmms

yeah, Thunar + xmms for me. i may just be stuck in my ways though,
and no player developer can work around that.

> (I'd rather a simple, native-UI player that 
> supports playlists and EQ but doesn't feature retarded teenage 
> boy "skins", but have yet to find one) and rsync those same songs and 
> playlists over to the Archos to play in the car. 

retarded teenage boy skins uber alles. heh.
 
> Additionally, I have scripts that allow me to rip, encode and ID3-tag 
> CDs on all my PCs simultaneously, saving them on the server and 
> updating a MySQL database with CD and track info to avoid duplication 
> or name collisions in the case of reissues.  Instead of taking 4 
> years to rip all my CDs, it probably wouldn't have gotten done at all 
> if I had to rip one CD at a time. (At one point, I was ripping 8 at a 
> time thanks to multiple drives on multiple machines.)

i hear that. i'm gearing up to digitize my 1300 strong jazz LP collection
at the moment. even with 3 decks running in parallel, i'm looking at
over 300 hours of recording time to schedule. i inherited the collection but simply
don't listen to vinyl. ripping it is the only way i can do it any
kind of justice. (..and then, it was as if millions of vinyl enthusiasts
cried out in horror and were suddenly indignant..)
 
> I keep my per-song and per-album content tags in the MySQL database 
> too, and can generate playlists based on them.  I'm working on a 
> rating system so I can say "give me 2gb of songs from this playlist" 
> and it takes out the lowest-rated ones till it fits.  Finally, I have 
> a second, parallel copy of all my music in heavily compressed (both 
> bitrate- and audio-wise, like FM radio) form for use in noisy cars 
> like mine, since the Archos and most other players don't feature 
> built-in compression.  
> 
> Every "music database" system I've seen makes most or all of this 
> stuff a huge pain in the ass, but using Konqueror to navigate and 
> xmms to play works just fine.  But yes, xmms is old, like GTK1 old, 
> and the skins reek of Incredimail.  Whatever happened to music 
> players that are about playing music and not maintaining a library?  
> Consider that in Amarok, the main window is the library view and the 
> actual player is a little popup thing you have to open manually.  I 
> think that's very telling.

the main window has player controls embedded in it though no? 

i've seen numerous people claim that iTunes is the best thing since
sliced beats. never used it myself. anyone else rate it?
(sorta on topic. i think it runs in wine)

i looked at slimserver some time ago too. that was interesting but, again,
i always missed the simplicity of file browser + simple media player.

cheers,
pete.