[Brooko]

Quote:

How did you set it up as such? I primarily use iTunes, but for FLAC files I use Foobar. I can never figure out a design for it that is simple and clean. Plus I enjoy album artwork being displayed and whatnot.
 
Destroysall.

It's called fooplacebo - link here http://hanulbi.deviantart.com/art/fooPlacebo-0-9a-160345890
 
Mine was an earlier version - which I've since tweaked a little bit to suit myself.  You can find a lot of themes on deviantart.com and other sites.  Then just use the various wikis etc to see how some of the components etc behave, and you can slowly start tweaking.
 
Another example to browse through is customise.org (http://www.customize.org/foobar/skins/popular?page=1)

 

[Destroysall]

Quote:

It's called fooplacebo - link here http://hanulbi.deviantart.com/art/fooPlacebo-0-9a-160345890
 
Mine was an earlier version - which I've since tweaked a little bit to suit myself.  You can find a lot of themes on deviantart.com and other sites.  Then just use the various wikis etc to see how some of the components etc behave, and you can slowly start tweaking.
 
Another example to browse through is customise.org (http://www.customize.org/foobar/skins/popular?page=1)

Thank you! 

 

[AnAnalogSpirit]

Hey Brooko,
 
this fooPlacebo is very nice! thanks for sharing!! I'm a MediaMonkey guy myself, but this will definitely make Foobar a whole lot nicer to look at for me, and make playing with the ABX comparator & other things only Foobar can do much more pleasant!
 
 
EDIT: while pretty, I'm fairly confident I'll continue to prefer MediaMonkey. Not just bc to my ear it sounds better via WASAPI output, but, fooPlacebo, being neat and all, is confusing to use. None of those shenanagins with MediaMonkey.
 
P.S. I've been through a gamut of PC/Windows based players (WinAmp, Windows Media Player (blech), Songbird, various others I cannot recall due to how long ago I tried them, and more recently Foobar 2000, MediaMonkey (MM3, bought the MM Gold Lifetime license, and am now on MM4), tried and despiesed JRiverMediaCenter, and the very nice sounding XMPlay, oh and like everyone went through my fits with iTunes. To me, iTunes is the doppleganger to Windows Media Player (they both are huge, resource hogs, with crap audio layers, and a pita to use). Additionally I was on Linux for a while (yay Xfce 4.x!) and found some of the GTK+ players okay(ish) that were ALSA based (Rhythmbox usable but a bore, Quod Libet interesting but confusing, Exaile was really kind of nice, it had a 31 band EQ), I also tried and liked very much the venerable KDE 3 version of Amarok, and mostly I enjoyed the MPD/MPC setup... i.e. MusicPlayerDaemon/MusicPlayerClient backend/frontend setup. For clients I liked Sonata the best.
 
I ditched Linux after it was just too much manual hard work, when Win7 came out, never looked back and am glad to have functional WMV (vc1 codec) support, and lots of easy program installation (no fricking compilations for those "interesting" programs, on windows, even "beta" stuff comes with installers... LOL). Back to the topic at hand; Additionally, when speaking of the Software Playback Software (ignoring the Library Management, CD Ripping & Secure Rip & Verification, Album Art Lookup & Tagging, and the Playlist & Portable Player/Phone/DAP sync via USB features). Mainly, just focusing on music playback, I did some testing with a few of my primary cans/IEMs on my main PC, with my Auzen X-Meridian Gen1 Soundcard, with the various audio backends (DirectSound (i know, its not bit perfect, but I was analyzing) and the three bitperfect Windows 7 audio backends (ASIO (implemented by my sound card's drivers via the C-Media Oxygen DSP driver), ASIO4ALL (open source ASIO replacement/analogue), and WASAPI (Windows Audio Sound API (for bitperfect, exclusive mode, low latency playback).
 
The players I compared were Windows Media Player, XMPlay, Foobar 2000, and MediaMonkey, and JRiver Media Center, (I'd decided I hate iTunes for its refusal to play FLAC format at this point, plus the thing resets your encoder settings with every update. eew).
 
I found WMP to sound generally poor. XMPlay sounded best of the bunch to my ear with every output backend, Foobar 2000 was very nice. It had a smoothness and a density that was pleasing. However it was a bit brighter in ASIO & ASIO4ALL than WASAPI, though WASAPI seemed to have slightly better "resolution" characteristics or "detail retrieval" that I felt I could perceive. That said it sounded smoother and lacking resolution below JRiver, then MediaMonkey3, MediaMonkey4, then XMPlay in that order overall. JRiver had decent resolution characteristics but was "brightish and colder" than the other players. MediaMonkey3 had been my standard for a long time because, like Foobar 2000 it had that appealing "density" to the sound, though it added to it cleaner, more resolving treble that wasn't ever "brightish" MediaMonkey4 (once it came out of beta) sounded remarkably better on WASAPI than on ASIO4ALL or ASIO (which are the modes I used to use for Media Monkey 3 primarily). XMPlay, while it sounds the best to my ear, forced annoying file opening and selection characteristics. For those of you that are familiar with Foobar 2000 having plenty of 3rd party components to manage, keep track of, and juggle to keep features installed, up to date, and configured to taste, XMPlay is like 50 times more complex. You have to manage each codec, etc. Its a RAFT of totally seperated modules that I don't want to deal with. Despite it using SRC code, in software, on top of your output backend, and it having some other nifty sound processing enhancements that just gave it an edge in sheer clarity and detail to the sound.
 
So, for me, I went with the best sound character I could functionally work with, plus when considering all those additional thingies: Library, Ripping, Tagging, et cetera. I really enjoy Media Monkey being a friendly one-stop-shop. It's just BANANAS how simple and reliable it is. For me, sound wise, with one exception, it really APES the competition.
 
Enough of the puns though.
 
There is one thing that make folks shy away from MediaMonkey though, and that is the lack of integrated VST support right out of the box. However its a very easy fix. MediaMonkey supports all WinAmp plugin dll's so you can take the George Yohng's VST Wrapper, which works with Foobar 2000, WinAmp (an since it is WinAmp API Compatible) therefore also MediaMonkey3 and MediaMonkey4, so, put that .dll in:
 
C:\Program Files (x86)\MediaMonkey4\Plugins\foo_dsp_vstwrap.dll  <--- VST wrapper (George Yhong's VST Wrapper): PAGE and LINK
 
and you can then use iZotope's Ozone (expensive but the best) LINK or another Parametric Equalizer VST plugin such as the popular electri-q from AIX-Coustics: LINK
 
C:\Program Files (x86)\MediaMonkey4\Plugins\Electri-Q (posihfopit edition).dll <--- VST version of Electri-Q (posihfopit edition) (the freeware version) of the PMEQ by AIXcoustic.
 
You can also just use the WinAmp API .dll if you won't be using other VST effects with your program, the file would then be grabbed not from C:\Program Files (x86)\VST Plugins\ but from C:\Program Files (x86)\WinAmp\Plugins\ instead.
 
Then, using the WinAmp API plugin for Electri-Q, the path would be C:\Program Files (x86)\MediaMonkey4\Plugins\dsp_eqfree.dll <--- WinAmp API version of Electri-Q (posihfopit edition) (the freeware version) of the PMEQ by AIXcoustic.

 

[edriley]

Quote:

edriley, there are indeed many different options for different purposes and users.

foobar2000, JRMC, MediaMonkey, Winamp, Songbird, MusicBee, Windows Media Player, iTunes, and many others are quite popular, each for different reasons, and each having more or less features, which might or might not be relevant for what you expect from an audio player.

The foobar2000 EQ I'm talking about is found here:
Component page - http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_dsp_xgeq
Discussion page - http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=88505

Do note it's a foobar2000 component, so it's not compatible with other players.

EQs, as well as many other plugins can be found on the form of VSTs. A free and popular EQ is Electri-Q (http://www.kvraudio.com/product/electri_q_posihfopit_edition_by_aixcoustic_creations), but there are many other options. Other popular options are TB Isone (http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-isone/), Redline Equalizer (http://www.112db.com/redline/equalizer/) and Ozone MP (http://izotope.com/products/audio/media/ozone.html), just to name a few.

Interesting idea on having individual DSP settings for individual songs/albums. I can't recall any player doing that out the top of my head, though.

 
Roller,
 
Thanks for the links!  They let me know that there is a lot of good stuff out there.
 
Unfortunately, none of it seems to work with JRiver.  Looks like I might have to wait a while for them to improve theirs.  I'll give them a while before I try another setup.
 
In regards to your quote, "Interesting idea on having individual DSP settings for individual songs/albums. I can't recall any player doing that out the top of my head, though.", it appears that Ozone MP lets one do exactly that, just what I was looking for.   Unfortunately, it only seems geared towards Winamp and the Quintessential Media Player.
 
Watch the Overview Video on the link you provided, about 2/3 of the way into it:
 
http://izotope.com/products/audio/media/ozone.html
 
Quote from the Read More Info area of their site:
 
Ozone can automatically load a preset when specific songs are played. Forget about play lists where each song sounds louder or softer or bassier than the previous one. With Ozone you can make it all just flow together.
*Note: This feature is only available when using Ozone with QCD, Winamp 2 & 5