Music Players (for pc)

[erkishhorde]

Winamp sucks... I've known this for a long time but haven't gotten around to looking for something new. I'd like a player that has a decent shuffle/randomizer. I've got tons of songs that I never put into a playlist of their own and never listen to them because my randomizer just jumps over them all the time.

I'd like to avoid i-tunes. I'd like to find something that remembers how many times a song has been played and adjusts it's shuffle priority accordingly. Suggestions?

[derby]

Winamp sucks... I've known this for a long time but haven't gotten around to looking for something new. I'd like a player that has a decent shuffle/randomizer. I've got tons of songs that I never put into a playlist of their own and never listen to them because my randomizer just jumps over them all the time.

nothing beats winamp for simplicity.

you should be able to find a good shuffle/randomizer plugin for it, too.

I'd like to avoid i-tunes. I'd like to find something that remembers how many times a song has been played and adjusts it's shuffle priority accordingly. Suggestions?

and yet, itunes does exactly what you're looking for.

[erkishhorde]

and yet, itunes does exactly what you're looking for.

I know... 

Randomizer plug-in... I didn't think of that (obviously). Hmmmm....

edit: tried a handful of the randomizers on the winamp site and all of them crashed.  I guess they don't like my non-english file names/tags. 

[il d00d]

I don't like Winamp either and I pretty much loathe iTunes, as capable as both of those apps are.  I like something a bit more stripped down, since I organize my folders to my liking, and don't really use all the built-in "features" of iTunes.  No, I don't want to import all of my music, connect to iTunes, subscribe to podcasts.  It's like the overattentive waiter that ruins your meal.  Just. Play. Music.

[end of screed]

A good non-iTunes, iTunes-like app is Songbird.  I think you do what you want with the randomized list, by creating a smart playlist where "number of plays" is less than one or two.

Check it out http://getsongbird.com/

[Jarvicious]

I've run the gambit and not found anything better than winamp, but I'm curious to find out what everyone else is using (if you EVEN say Windows Media, I will hunt you down).  Have you tried different skins?  I probably wouldn't use it if it weren't for the MMd3 skin.  It just sticks the whole player up in a tiny strip at the top of your screen from which you can access your playlist, visualization (if that's your thing, i don't really care), etc.  It took me a while to find a plug in so that it will play .avi files but if you're looking for something with a wide variety of support, try VLC media player. 

That being said, i guess it depends on how you listen to music.  I have some friends that just build itunes libraries and put them on shuffle which works wonders, but I tend to pick and choose whatever's playing on a daily/hourly basis, so the mass library system doesn't really float my boat.  It's TOO random.  Here's a quick screenshot of that skin

[zarn02]

i use winamp, and have since, uh... i don't know. a long time ago. since sometime in the 1.xx version time period.

most of what itunes does, i don't really want to bother with...

gonna have to check out that MMd3 skin.

[faolan01]

you might want to check out EphPod http://www.ephpod.com/ if you're looking for an iTunes replacement that can work with iPods and other MP3 players.

if you want something cross-platform that can play pretty much anything you throw at it, VLC is hard to beat http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

and another one I've had good luck with is Media Monkey http://www.mediamonkey.com/

one of those should be able to cover what you're looking for 

[derby]

you might want to check out EphPod http://www.ephpod.com/ if you're looking for an iTunes replacement that can work with iPods and other MP3 players.

last i recall, ephpod was really just a conduit to get music onto/off of an ipod.

if you want something cross-platform that can play pretty much anything you throw at it, VLC is hard to beat http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

no advanced playlisting capablity.

and another one I've had good luck with is Media Monkey http://www.mediamonkey.com/

one of those should be able to cover what you're looking for 

good organizer, but i'm not sure how good the random/shuffle works.