What's your audio player?
Andy Zhao (he/him)

Andy Zhao (he/him) @andy

About: uh oh where'd my bio go!

Joined:
Mar 28, 2017

What's your audio player?

Publish Date: Feb 11 '20
37 39

When I switched from Windows to Mac to learn code, I missed using the audio player I had. It was a small app called Billy (https://www.sheepfriends.com/index-page=billy.html), and it was this freeware audio player that honestly didn't do much other than the basics.

Anyway, now that I'm on a Mac I use something called Vox (https://vox.rocks/), but am curious what you all use!

Comments 39 total

  • Andy Zhao (he/him)
    Andy Zhao (he/him)Feb 11, 2020

    So there was Billy, which was all I really needed. I liked that it was lightweight and just worked. Never crashed and didn't have a bloated UI -- probably brutalist by today's standards.

    Now I use Vox since I refuse to use iTunes. I'm not a huge music person though and I'm just too lazy to upgrade (unless someone suggests a better one 😁).

    Oh, and on my Android phone I use Google Play Music, and used to use Poweramp. It was a bit buggy on my phone though so I just went with the stock app.

  • Michael Tharrington
    Michael TharringtonFeb 11, 2020

    I'm a big fan of Winamp.

    • Andy Zhao (he/him)
      Andy Zhao (he/him)Feb 11, 2020

      I never got into Winamp; what do you like about it?

      • Michael Tharrington
        Michael TharringtonFeb 11, 2020

        It's lightweight (well compared to iTunes at least), I like the variety of themes, and it holds a special place in my heart because it's the first software I ever used for playing music (back in the Napster days when I was in middle school) ... I also quite dig the minimalistic, old school look of it sans theming.

  • Peter Kim Frank
    Peter Kim FrankFeb 11, 2020

    VLC or Quicktime for opening 1-off files.

    I use Spotify or a browser-based player (Hype Machine, YouTube, etc) about 99% of the time, though.

  • Tyler V. (he/him)
    Tyler V. (he/him)Feb 11, 2020

    Until Google pries it from my hands, I'll continue using Google Play Music - I just love it so much and am not looking forward to the swap to Youtube Music.

    • Andy Zhao (he/him)
      Andy Zhao (he/him)Feb 11, 2020

      They integrated Google Play Music with Maps recently too which is a nice plus!

  • Tomasz Buszewski
    Tomasz BuszewskiFeb 11, 2020

    I use Qobuz for streaming, and Vox for, well, streaming, from Vox Cloud. Spotify for things that either aren't on Qobuz, but this is rare.

    I remember using Poweramp back in the Android and mp3 days. Man, it was so weird, it was the only decent player that didn't add any gaps.

    • Andy Zhao (he/him)
      Andy Zhao (he/him)Feb 11, 2020

      Exactly! I think Poweramp has continued development but it doesn't work well on my latest phone (Motorola Moto G), which is a shame.

      • Tomasz Buszewski
        Tomasz BuszewskiFeb 11, 2020

        I think today local file players are a niché, thank to streaming services like Spotify. 10 years back I remember Foobar 2000, Winamp and all these players that could play my collection. Couple of years ago, when I was trying to rekindle my love for some Polish band and listen to their music from a hard drive, I couldn't find a decent player for Mac (Vox is okay, but I found it late).

        Also, fun fact: I remember Winamp being the music player. Now it's discontinued for years.

        • Jakob Christensen
          Jakob ChristensenFeb 12, 2020

          Yes, Winamp was leader of the pack back in the day. I think it is still alive though? winamp.com

          • Tomasz Buszewski
            Tomasz BuszewskiFeb 12, 2020

            I had the old info, Winamp was acquired by some other company and is, in fact, alive. Sorry for misinformation.

  • Glenn Carremans
    Glenn CarremansFeb 11, 2020

    I don't have any music/audio files anymore on any of my devices, I started using Spotify (premium) 3-4 years ago and never looked back. I really like that it continues playing in the same genre/style after the playlist or song has finished and the weekly album with suggestions based on what I have listened before.

  • Austin S. Hemmelgarn
    Austin S. HemmelgarnFeb 11, 2020

    I generally use VLC (videolan.org/vlc/). In short:

    • It runs on everything I care about (and quite a few things I don't).
    • It offers a great deal of configuration, but doesn't need any manual changes to the config in most cases (that is, it usually Just Works, but you can usually fix it easily when it doesn't).
    • It does videos too, so I don't need extra software for the rare cases I'm watching local media on my computer.
    • Unlike most other media players, almost everything is optional at compile time, which is bit for me since I use Gentoo as my main OS.
  • giftedstan
    giftedstanFeb 11, 2020

    Rythmbox on Ubuntu 😍

  • Thorsten Hirsch
    Thorsten HirschFeb 11, 2020

    Rhythmbox@Linux and Music@macOS using daap to access my music library served with forked-daapd

  • Daniel Madalitso Phiri
    Daniel Madalitso PhiriFeb 11, 2020

    I use Spotify 90% of the time. VLC really works well for local files though

  • Mat Borowiak
    Mat BorowiakFeb 11, 2020

    I'm using Spotify for many years now and it's simply amazing. I need nothing more than this.

  • Ghost
    GhostFeb 11, 2020

    videos? mpv, music? mpv, YT videos? mpv!... if it sounds or moves, mpv

  • Transient
    TransientFeb 11, 2020

    I tend to stream Spotify (or less frequently, YouTube) while developing or doing college work now, simply for the recommendations. Any other time I use Google Play Music as I have a huge library on it. The only reason I avoid GPM while working is because I don't like to keep switching tracks and changing up my playlist order to avoid distracting songs. Occasionally I'll use AIMP for anything I'd like to hear in FLAC, but that's often when I'm not doing much else, or if I already have it open.

  • Lautaro Lobo
    Lautaro LoboFeb 11, 2020

    Spotify and VLC. Both great (bah, Spotify if is not premium is total crap).

  • Ben Halpern
    Ben HalpernFeb 11, 2020

    Audio player

    I use Spotify/Tidal mostly 😄 (And Quicktime to answer the actual question)

    • Andy Zhao (he/him)
      Andy Zhao (he/him)Feb 11, 2020

      I forgot I'm in the minority as someone who doesn't stream music 😅

  • Binyamin Green
    Binyamin GreenFeb 12, 2020

    On Ubuntu & derivatives, I use Lollypop

  • Will G
    Will GFeb 12, 2020

    Can we get some love for command line players? For example cmus and I also recommend mps-youtube for easy youtube listening from your terminal. For the macOS folks out there if you liked Winamp this player is pretty cool :) github.com/maculateConception/aura...

  • Raheel Khan
    Raheel KhanFeb 12, 2020

    I use MediaMonkey for music and Foobar 2000 for podcasts. I add notes to the comment tags for podcasts and Foobar lets me see them in the main playlist interface. Also the global hotkeys make it easy to pause/skip back and forward without switching to the app.

  • Stephanie Handsteiner
    Stephanie HandsteinerFeb 12, 2020

    I mostly stream my music using Spotify (or less frequently on YouTube) while working or learning.

    If it's not on Spotify or YouTube I'll use QuickTime Player.

  • Ben Sinclair
    Ben SinclairFeb 12, 2020

    At home I used to use mpc to connect to a box under the sofa.

    At work I play specific things through Google Play Music or Bandcamp.

    I use soma.fm's web-player, too, though I used to use some tray streaming app I can't remember.

    Last, I use reddit.musicplayer.io to play tracks from various Reddit subs. This is a really great piece of work. It's open-source and has some bugs I'd like to help fix sometime, but you know how it is...

    In short, I don't use an app, all my music/talk is done through the browser these days.

  • Ivan Šimičić
    Ivan ŠimičićFeb 12, 2020

    I mostly use Spotify (and sometimes, YouTube) these days but IINA is my go to media player on macOS, and VLC on Linux/Windows.

  • Dian Fay
    Dian FayFeb 12, 2020

    ncmpcpp with mpd.

  • Michael Tintiuc
    Michael TintiucFeb 12, 2020

    music players is a struggle for me, I've tried Rhythmbox, Lollypop, Amarok and a bunch of others, but Clementine seems to be the most flexible and with at least somewhat pleasant UI without being limiting.

  • David Farrell
    David FarrellFeb 17, 2020

    I use SoundCloud as my music source of choice.

    For a long time, I used SoundMate (non-free) which brings soundCloud as a native app to the Mac.

    I tend to get stuck in my ways and forget to checkout alternatives once I settle on something.

    However, whenever I get a new macbook, I use it as a fresh start to re-evaluate configurations, processes, tools, etc.

    With my last update, I decided to try a fresh search for native sound cloud support. This time I discovered SoundCleod which is 1) free and 2) A little bit better in some ways than SoundMate.

    SoundCleod hasn't had a new release in awhile, but the latest stable release is working fine for me so far.

  • 🌌 Sébastien Feugère ☔
    🌌 Sébastien Feugère ☔Feb 18, 2020

    For some reason, I almost only listen to music from my phone with Vanilla Music, and podcasts with Antena Pod. Otherwise I use vynils.

  • Sathyasarathi
    SathyasarathiMar 18, 2020

    Any clementine lovers here?

  • OnFileNotWanted
    OnFileNotWantedSep 10, 2020

    Im a big fan of MPD musicpd.org , clicking the image will take you my always on 24/7 MPD instance running on an old raspberry pi model B the audio is mostly tech talks etc.

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