MP3 Software

[robgmn]

Winamp is dead. FOOBAR is terrible. JRiver is decent but has TOO MANY options.

TOO MANY options? Huh?
It's software. Anything you don't need, you don't use.
It's not like hardware, where you are paying a lot extra for stuff you don't need.

 

[rwartner]

I rip with Windows Media Player (Lossless WMA) and play it with JRiver.
Windows Media Player is easy to use. However when you have a large library (over 500 CDs) it gets slow browsing.
JRiver can handle large library. It has more features.

 

[imral3]

I rip with Windows Media Player (Lossless WMA) and play it with JRiver.
Windows Media Player is easy to use. However when you have a large library (over 500 CDs) it gets slow browsing.
JRiver can handle large library. It has more features.

That's why I don't allow my WMP to import my music collection (over 11,000 albums) into it's library... it's too damn slow!!!

 

[Walter R]

Any decent media manager/player will do that for you, and much more. Once you start using metadata searching, you will get used to it, and find it more natural.

I'd suggest MediaMonkey. It presents both physical (as per your folders) and logical (based on metadata) views of your library, with equal prominence. Some tend to be biased towards the logical/metadata view. Within the physical view, you can still order by whichever metadata field you want; track number, track name, date, file size, track volume, etc. etc...

A lot of my MP3 files don’t have metadata. I have over 40,000 old time radio programs with no metadata at all. Also I have a lot of classical music files and the metadata you get from ripping the CDs is inconsistent from disk to disk. For my rock collection metadata is fine, but I still prefer selecting from the folder structure.

 

[imral3]

Uncheck all boxes on the Library tab of WMP settings (more options). Simply use windows for selection of music playback, select and hi-light the music you want and hit play.

 

[Tom White]

A lot of my MP3 files don’t have metadata. I have over 40,000 old time radio programs with no metadata at all. Also I have a lot of classical music files and the metadata you get from ripping the CDs is inconsistent from disk to disk. For my rock collection metadata is fine, but I still prefer selecting from the folder structure.

WMP can handle this. On the left side (navigation panel) it should give options for Artist, Album, Genre, Folder, etc. (If it doesn't then right-click "music" and choose to customize the navigation panel. It will allow you to change the choices listed.)

Just choose "folder" and go on from there. When you have selected the folder you want, the track listings should show. If they need further sorting you can do that just by clicking the different headers above the listing.