good MP3 software

Subject: good MP3 software
From: Two_bears
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 11:13 AM

Hello:

I have some MP3 files, and I would like some recommendations for MP3 players that are either share ware or commercial.

Thanks

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 03:34 PM

JetAudio Extention

or Musicmatch Jukebox...

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Two_bears
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 04:01 PM

JetAudio Extention
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   Will take a look.
\
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or Musicmatch Jukebox...
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   I am not a fan of MusicMatch. It will not play WMA and OGG files.
   I have a few of those.

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 04:10 PM

I don't even know what an OGG file is...

I think my version of MM playes WMAs...   but I have a pirate version...

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 04:23 PM

for a dead simple player with few frills, try One-by-One

for an amazing program with more frills than you can shake a stick at, try dbPowerAmp (with fancy database included)

or one that also will do it all try Quintessenial Player

or, get JetAudio, as Clinton suggests....the new version WILL play OGGs, as will dbPowerAmp and QCD...1X1 will play only MP3s, but does it SO easy.

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 04:35 PM

oh, I never recommend 'shareware', when there are so many GOOD free ones out there!

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Ed.
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 04:39 PM

Bill,

I have to say that my experience of dbPwerAmp was most disappointing.

I downloaded it, having read your recommendation in another thread. It kept crashing, and freezing my machine. I've uninstalled it and am back to using Windows Media Player 6.4

The fact that dbPwerAmp changed all my audio file icons to Fender Stratocasters without asking me didn't go down well either.

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 08:21 PM

??? strange...it has never crashed for me on my old Win98 machine, and it is one of the most respected ones out there. I'm sorry you had problems with it. I just got tired of Media Player demanding to be in charge and not having the features *I* wanted, so I went looking.

(and those icon changes are the result of making it (or allowing allowing it to become) the *default* player. I have 4-5 decent players installed, and I specify which one I want to play when I click a song. Then I can open a song file in any other player by opening the player first, then finding the song or group of songs I want.)

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 11:01 PM

by the way...here is one other VERY full-featured (free) player.
XMPlay
It will play everything that most of the others will, and has even MORE tricks than most of them. (Exception-- JetAudio will play RealAudio files)
XMPlay will play files from within compressed files (rar, zip, arc..etc)..it also will use MANY plugins (extra stuff designed for other programs) and many 'skins' (different looks and buttons, etc.)

(yes, yes, yes...I have too many...you know the saying, "A man with a good watch always knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure")

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Two_bears
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 01:02 AM

Thanks very much for the recommendatrions.

I will take a look.

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: treewind
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 04:13 AM

Clinton (and anyone else who wants to know): Ogg Vorbis - the thinking person's alternative to MP3 and WMA, both of which are proprietary formats.

In theory anyone writing and distributing MP3 encoders should be paying royalties to Fraunhofer Laboratories, and WMA is Micro$oft of course.

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Homeless
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 09:32 AM

What I'm looking for is software that will let me change the title, artist, and album on an MP3. I've a collection of MP3s pulled from artists's sites, from CDs I own, from friends, etc., and many of them either don't have this information, or have incorrect information. I've got a player I like, but it uses the embedded info to allow sorts by artist and title. It really sucks when half the files come up with by artist "Unknown." Does anyone know of software that will let me change that embedded information?

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 10:51 AM

Any good MP3 player will let you do that...

Ogg Vorbis?   I don't get it... looks like wankerisim to me... why use a file format that's incompatable with the whole world?

May as well be on a Mac while yer at it...

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 10:54 AM

dbPowerAmp and it's database will do all that, Homeless..as will QCD player. Here are screen captures of one view from each....

dbPoweramp

QCDeditor

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 11:00 AM

Clinton...Ogg is NOT " incompatable with the whole world"...it is simply a slightly better format which is become more widely used every day. A good number of programs are equipped to play it now, and many will record in it and convert to and from it. No, it is not necessary to use it if you are happy with what you have, but that is no reason to call it 'wankerism'. A little reading will show you that it is a top-notch format, and if you DO run into a song you really want that was encoded in Ogg vorbis, it is silly not to be able to get it!

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Homeless
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 11:08 AM

Maybe I wasn't clear in my request. I don't want to create a database that has that information in it. Like you each said, anything can do that. The *.mp3 itself already has that information embedded within the file. Or should have. I want software that will allow me to change the header within the *.mp3 when it is erroneous, so that the correct information is there. Theoretically, that information should have been put in when the mp3 was origanally burned. I find quite often that it was not. Especially on files downloaded from (the old) MP3.COM.

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 11:31 AM

as far as I understand, that just means having a "tag" editor, which dbPoweramp does..(when I use those editors I posted images of, the information in my MP3s IS changed.)

if you want a stand-alone program, try this http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 12:02 PM

I'm curious, Homeless, as to which player you use that will not edit tags?

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 12:03 PM

iTunes for Windows allows you to modify the file data fields(tags). I assume this occurs in the MP3 file, but I am not positive.

Guess I need to lose an electron, huh? I am not positive.

I'll go quietly...


A

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 12:37 PM

Well, OGG... it seems to me that a little reading will show that EVERY format out there, someone is pushing as a "superior" format... "Slightly better" or lots better... that's what I call 'wankerisim'...

I've never seen an OGG file... and I look for a LOT of music online... so it's 'popularity' is suspect... (not that I'm claiming to be all knowledgeable by any stretch)

so... whatever...

*non-offensive but dismissive hand gesture*

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Homeless
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 01:49 PM

My apologies, Bill. Last time I used dbPowerAmp, it didn't do that, and was a resource hog to boot. From the screenshot you linked to I couldn't tell that it did anything more than build a database behind the scenes.

I have a special purpose machine set up that does not have a mouse, and has only a few keys on the keyboard - the cursor keys, shift, control, tab, escape, space. When it's not in use for it's purpose, I use it to listen to music. The guy who wrote the Jukebox player wrote it specifically for machines with this set up. For obvious reasons it is a very simple, no frills program.

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 04:58 PM

ah...I see! Never used one like that. I can imagine you'd want a specialized program. Do you think that stand-alone tag editor will do and good?

Clinton-- there are indeed lots of wannabe formats, but Ogg is the one that is getting included in major releases (and has it's own binary newsgroup)...you can ignore it or use it, but it is the most respected alternative right now. I have some stuff that was posted in Ogg that I doubt was ever done in MP3..

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:08 PM

FYI..(for anyone who is following this discussion)...here is the short explanation of what the point of Ogg vorbis is, from their pages..

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Cluin
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:41 PM

Another take.

Seems to say MP3 is his choice, but a lot of that appears to be because it is less propriatory. He likes WMA for streaming (less loss from more compression, though stereo image suffers).

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 08:15 PM

yep...that is a good comparison, Cluin...though I note it is 2 years old, which is an eternity in this field. The report seems to say that as of then, only WinAmp with a plugin would play Ogg, and that has changed a LOT...

It makes little real difference to me, as my ears don't hear the nuances of sound variation, so I simply want the bells & whistles of a player that will play the music no matter what format I find it in...(and also for my own encoding from a .wav file, the best compression ratio for space considerations)

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Homeless
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 08:27 PM

Bill- Yeah, I dl'ed the standalone, played with it for a few minutes, and it seems to do exactly what I need. I'll put the info in the files on my working machine, then send them over to the special one. Thanx.

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 09:46 PM

yup! yer welcome...glad it worked.

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Jan 04 - 02:22 PM

I don't do much music recording stuff, so can offer anything on software; but a recent newsletter linked me to a Digital Music Primer that might be of interest to anyone who's into it.

This is a ZiffDavis site, so you'll get a "Doubleclick" cookie. You can delete it later. If you go to the bottom of the page and click on "print this" it gives you a cleaner version that you can read straight through without wading through multiple "next" clicks and all the ads.

More of a glossary than a dictionary, but it does give a pretty good outline of what terminology you need to recognize to get what you want out of your digital music stuff.

John

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 29 Jan 04 - 02:46 PM

Thanks, John.

Interesting article. Here's a direct link to the printable version that you mention.

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Jan 04 - 03:07 PM

Ed - Isn't that making it too easy for 'em?

John

Subject: RE: good MP3 software
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 29 Jan 04 - 03:14 PM

*grin*

For some, maybe...