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Advertisement For Mac users, iTunes is the undisputed king of media managment and playback. Every new computer comes with it pre-installed, and if you have an iPod, iPhone, or iPad, then you’ll need it for syncing media and backing up your device locally. There are valid reasons to dislike iTunes though. The rise of Spotify and other similar services have Spotify is no longer content to just compete with radio, now they're competing with the idea of even owning music. Another big issue is the Streaming media is convenient, but you're giving up something important: ownership of digital media.
But perhaps most pressing of all is the fact that iTunes is bloated and slow. Yes, you can iTunes is a rich and feature-packed music management application, but that doesn't mean there's not room for improvement. Some simple changes and additional features can make the application even better. But it’s not enough for everyone. Unless you’re absolutely tied to the iTunes ecosystem and have no choice but to use it, you may want to consider switching to one of these alternatives. If you want a modern cross-platform music player that’s feature-complete and smooth as cream, then Tomahawk may be the one for you.
We mentioned it as one of the Which Linux music player is the best? We compare four excellent music players you may not know about. And that’s certainly true for OS X as well.
The real draw of Tomahawk is that it aims to be an all-in-one solution for all of the various music services available on the web. Why juggle half a dozen different apps and sites when you can Some users may wonder whether they should stick with music streaming services and ditch downloading songs to their local drives, or simply rely on the streaming options, because let’s face it, music streaming services are.? It’s just easier that way. Tomahawk supports plugins that let you “plug into” different media networks, including Spotify, YouTube, Google Play Music, Deezer, and even Amazon Music ( There are several reasons why you might want to give Amazon Prime Music a second chance. It certainly deserves much more credit than it's currently getting. Read on to find out why.). Spotify support, for example, lets you sync playlists into Tomahawk.
![Music Music](https://images.wondershare.com/images/play/toplist-a19-37.png)
If you’re going to use Tomahawk, we recommend going with the because it’s the most up-to-date and has the most cutting-edge features. The downside is that it may be prone to bugs and crashes. If you only need basic functionality, the may be better. A lot of Windows-to-Mac converts tend to ask about any good music players that are similar to Foobar2000. Unfortunately, at this time, no such alternative really exists.
Vox Player is probably the closest we’ve got, but more so for its minimalist design than its resource usage. Indeed, Vox Player can be quite greedy at times with CPU and RAM, sometimes even on par with iTunes!
But Stop iTunes from launching, and use your media keys with a program you don’t hate. Because it doesn’t have much feature bloat. Vox Player comes with all you’d expect in a music player and it’s fast. Not only does it support FLAC playback, but it can also play High-Resolution Audio is new and impressive, but does it live up to the hype and excitement?
Is it a gimmick? Or even a scam? If you’re into that. Music management is clean and straightforward, it has built-in internet radio, and you can also connect it to SoundCloud and Last.FM. There’s a lot to love about it. One other feature to note: Vox comes with a 14-day trial of Loop, a cloud music storage service. With it, you can easily keep Vox for Mac in sync with Vox for iOS, and music you’ve stored in the cloud can be downloaded to either device for offline playback.
Loop usage is optional. If you’re looking for a, then you really can’t go wrong with Clementine. This nifty application is all of the power that you need without any of the excess. It gets updated about once a year, which is nice as well.
Music management is probably Clementine’s top selling point. It comes with a cover manager, queue manager, playlist management tools, music format transcoder (with FLAC support), CD ripping tool, and an advanced tag editor for batch editing music files. Out of the box, Clementine can integrate with about a dozen different internet services, including cloud storage services (Amazon Cloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, to name a few) and music streaming services (Spotify, SoundCloud, Last.FM, Subsonic, plus more).
It’s not the prettiest application, and it’s plainly obvious that it’s based on Qt4, something you’ll recognize if you’ve used Qt4 applications before. You can tweak the appearance a bit, but nothing major so you’re stuck with the clunky default interface.
It’s not that bad, but it does leave a lot to be desired. Do you remember Songbird? It was an open source music player released back in 2006 that drummed up a lot of hype and anticipation due to its potential. It was shut down in 2013, but by then users had already forked the code and created an alternative called Nightingale. So if you were a fan of Songbird and want something similar, or if you want a lightweight open source music player that still gets updated, then you really ought to give this one a try.
It will likely be everything you expect it to be. Key features include a skinnable interface, advanced library management, gapless playback, replay gain, built-in web browser, and extensions that can add even more features like integration with certain web services. It can also play DRM audio locked by Apple FairPlay and Windows Media. The one big downside to Nightingale is that development has slowed down since 2014.
Yes, it will still work just fine and the important functions are all there, but if you run into any bugs or if you’re looking forward to some other features, fixes will be a long time coming. Quod Libet has a funny name — it means “whatever you wish” in Latin — but don’t let that turn you away. This open source music player, which was designd to be cross platform from the get-go, was released back in 2004 and continues to. Not many people have ever heard of it, which is a shame. It’s a simple piece of software and nothing about it will blow your mind, but it’s intensely practical and easy to use. The simplicity of it makes it the closest antithesis to iTunes currently available on OS X.
And it’s packed with features: supports for all kinds of media formats (including FLAC), smart replay gain, ratings-weighted random playback, Unicode tags, built-in Internet radio, configurable user interface, advanced library management, and so much more. Which Music Player Do You Use? I know there are lots of valid reasons to keep using iTunes.
I don’t want to say it’s terrible and everyone should switch away, because it isn’t. I still use it to manage my podcasts, so I do realize that iTunes has a role to play even despite the bloat and what not. And if you’re using Apple Music, you have no chance but to use iTunes for playback on your Mac.
But if you deal with a lot of I've been a long-time user of streaming music services – from Pandora, to the now defunct online music locker Lala.com, and now as a monthly subscriber to Rdio.com. If you have a computer and a. From lots of different locations, maybe one of these alternatives might actually play out better for you. It’s much more convenient than bookmarking Exploring the web players for various Internet radio services to see which ones offer the best experience in the browser. What good is a great radio selection if the player is frustrating to use?, for example. Which music player do you use on OS X and why? What’s wrong with iTunes? We’d love to hear from you in the comments down below!
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All music libraries are different, and the right free music player can help you get the most out of yours – particularly if you have a large collection. If you're still using a general purpose media player, you're missing out on a wealth of features that can make organizing, expanding and enjoying your music a breeze. A clear winner emerged in our tests, but the other four free music players we've put through their paces are all superb in their own right and well worth a look – especially if your music collection is fairly small, or you really need a free player that can handle video as well. We update this guide frequently so you know you're always getting the latest information and the best advice. Playback optimization is a free music player created for serious music lovers and includes everything you need to manage and enjoy your collection, no matter how large (it's reportedly handled a library of over 500,000 tracks without a hiccup). Switching to MusicBee is easy.
The first time it runs, the app scans your PC for music and lets you import your files from Windows Media Player or iTunes. Tracks are catalogued, but aren't moved unless you've checked that option under Library Preferences so there'll be no surprises. Once your songs are imported, tagging them is a piece of cake; hit Shift+Enter to open the tag editor and go to work.
MusicBee's automatic tagging is superb, or you can update metadata yourself using industry-standard tags for each file format. As in Windows Media Player, adding artwork is as simple as copying and pasting, and it isn't limited to the album cover – you can also add pictures of the artist, lead singer, band logo, and photos from live performances. These additional pictures are used throughout the player as navigation aids, and as visualizations while tracks are playing. MusicBee also searches for song lyrics to display as each track plays. This free music player is designed to make the most of your PC's hardware, including top-end soundcards and surround-sound setups, with upmixing for stereo sound. Continuous playback eliminates silences between tracks (ideal for Pink Floyd fans), and you can choose to add silences or fades, normalize volume, and experiment with the equalizer.
The free music player supports almost every audio format around and converting files is simplicity itself, with presets for different playback devices (though for MP3 encoding you'll need to ). If all of that isn't enough, there's even an for controlling MusicBee remotely, and support for WinAmp plugins. You won't find a more comprehensive free music player, and although it's not open source, it's completely free to use and tinker with for personal use. Web interface Like all the best free music players, makes organizing your songs a breeze – even if your collection is currently a sprawling mess of tracks in different formats and locations, with incomplete or missing metadata. Your AIMP library can be built using files from multiple directories and ripped from CDs, with automatic track numbering and tag filling to help you get it in shape. AIMP supports a huge number of formats, and additional encoders are available as Most music player extensions are extra visualizations and skins that, although cool, have little practical use.
By contrast, AIMP's plugins include some real gems. Some of the highlights are a YouTube extension that lets you from multiple videos, an add-on for, and an extension for. The app also features some unusual built-in tools, including an alarm clock function that starts playing at a certain time, a wind-down setting that shuts down your PC at the end of a playlist, and a voice remover for making your own karaoke tracks. It's not as feature-filled as MusicBee, but its thoughtful design and carefully curated feature-set earn this free music player a respectable second place.
Some features are paid-only plays and organizes both music and video, and unlike some dual-purpose media players, it does an excellent job of both. It identifies tracks with missing metadata and searches for the information online, and like MusicBee, its superb tagging tool lets you tag files using industry-standard formats.
You can also tag music during playback, which is a great option that avoids the need to preview snippets of tracks before labelling them with a mood or genre to generate playlists. MediaMonkey arranges your music library in a logical hierarchy, and its File Monitor ensures everything is kept up to date as you add, edit and remove files. It works well, but if you want full manual control you'll need a.
As a slightly trimmed-down version of a premium product, MediaMonkey's interface has a little more gloss than its open-source competitors, but at the expense of some features. The paid-for Gold version includes a party mode that locks the interface to prevent guests messing with your carefully curated playlist, built-in conversion for TVs and mobile devices, and MP3 encoding for ripped CDs.
None are essential, but their absence pushes MediaMonkey to third place. No real-time updating 's advanced tagging tool makes light work of cleaning up a messy library, with options including batch processing, automatic metadata completion and track numbering, and copying and pasting data between fields. This free music player will look up metadata for untagged tracks when you rip an audio CD, and can identify and erase duplicated tracks. Foobar2000's library doesn't update in real time, but it can detect changes and remove dead links. Foobar2000 supports all common audio formats, and includes a Quick Convert tool with various presets and options for creating your own profiles.
If you encounter a file that it can't open, extra codecs are available as user-created plugins, which are installed via the Preferences menu. Rather than flashy skins, foobar2000 features a customizable modular interface that gives you the information you want in a format that's convenient for you. Modules include album art, search box, playlist manager and various visualizations, with optional tabs for easier navigation. Custom layouts can be saved as themes for future use, and you can experiment with different settings using a built-in scratchbox. All in all, foobar2000 is an extremely lightweight and adaptable option that suits smaller music libraries. Tagging can be tricky Open source is best known for its video-handling chops, but it's also a superb music manager that can play almost any format without installing any additional codecs – and convert between them, too. VLC can also stream music from a local network or the internet, including internet radio stations, which you can set up as a playlist for quick access.
Managing your music is easy – just drag files and directories into the Media Library, and VLC Media Player will sort them all into folders. You can organize tracks by album, artists, genre of any other metadata, and use the built-in search tool to find the song you want.
VLC also supports extensions. Most of these are designed to optimize video playback, but a few – including ones for on internet radio stations – are specifically for music-lovers. VLC is lightweight and works happily on all versions of Windows from XP onwards. Versions for Mac, Linux, Android and iOS are also available. If you're looking for a single app to handle both music and video then it's hard to beat, but for music alone, the dedicated tools above will serve you better.