Favorite music player for Mac OS X [closed]

Question

Early this year I got a MacBook and I have got to say I've been really happy with it. One thing that annoys me though is that I cannot find what I consider to be a proper music player (I'm not a fan of iTunes). I've had a look at Banshee which looks really good, except I couldn't get it to work.

So for all you Mac OS X people, which player do you use?

Note: Coming from Windows, where I rely heavily on Winamp, what I personally is in search for is a player that comes with a media library and playlist that functions in somewhat the same way as Winamp does. I like to create random playlists (and sometimes very long ones). One thing I haven't been able to find anywhere is the queueing (sp?) system in Winamp where you can make the playlist advance in whatever way you wish without reordering the playlist.

Either way, post your favorite - even if it is iTunes. That way maybe others can make something out of the question too :)

EDIT: For those asking what I don't like about iTunes:

I must admit, granted, I haven't given it much of a chance and it might be that I should revisit it, just to see if my impression of it was wrong. But I don't like how it seemingly decides everything of how my music is supposed to be ordered (ie. reorganizing all my files) - it's great if you WANT all your files to be the way iTunes imagines the world of music, but not if you don't.

Also I don't remember having a playlist system in the likes of Winamp which I really really miss on my Mac, but it might be that I have simply not tried it enough. I might give iTunes another go just to see if I have judged it out without having tried it too much - however I'd still really like to see what other alternatives there are as well.

Answer 1

I use iTunes as well. I didn't particularly like the Windows port, but is as Mac-like as can be, being made by the same people as the OS.

But I don't like how it seemingly decides everything of how my music is supposed to be ordered (ie. reorganizing all my files)

It's doing this because you told it to. On the first launch, it asks you "Do you want iTunes to keep your music folder organised?" or similar. You can change this later in the Preferences:

I like this feature. It basically just copies any new files into .../music_folder/{artist}/{album}/{track number} - {song name}.ext - something tedious and error-prone to do manually.

I don't remember having a playlist system in the likes of Winamp.

The playlist system is a bit different - iTunes' playlists seem a bit more "rigid" than Winamp's. I tend to use the "Party Shuffle" pseudo-playlist most, basically a random stream of music, which you can rearrange, enqueue any other songs and such (I have a "Smart Playlist" with any songs played more than once, but not played in the last two weeks, which the "Party Shuffle" selects from, which works really well.)

Definitely give it a decent try.

As for alternatives, when I looked I couldn't find anything nearly as "polished" as iTunes, most felt incomplete, or were really badly integrated with the OS.

Answer 2

I know you don't like it, but I use iTunes for it's great operating system integration and because it works with my iPhone, I was also a fan of Cassidy and greene's SoundJam which became iTunes.

Other options include Vox, audion, banshee andecoute.

Answer 3

Cog and SongBird

I'm still waiting for Amarok2 to leave the Alpha stage

Answer 4

Sorry I use iTunes too. I the UK it's worth playing with spotify. I suppose I use VLC as well.

Answer 5

The closest thing to Winamp on Mac is Vox. It's still buggy and crashes, but it's small and starts quickly.

http://www.voxapp.net/

I've been looking for a small alternative to iTunes for ages, but Apple has crushed all competition with its 300 lb. gorilla.

The sad state of affairs is when this search:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mac+mp3+player

turns up a player that was discontinued years ago (when the company was absorbed by Apple).

Answer 6

You could try actually running Winamp on OS X instead of looking for a replacement. I haven't tried it myself as I like iTunes, but it seems possible:

• Here's a post (with a comment from) someone who successfully runs Winamp on OS X with the free Winebottler.

• Here's a post about doing the same thing with the commercial Crossover.

Cheers!

Answer 7

Another vote for iTunes. Perhaps if you state what you don't like about it, we can help you out. If you work with it, and add some strategies of your own (smart playlists can be real fun), it's all you need.

Also, can't beat iTunes combined with iPhone and Apple TV, but you may not have those.

Answer 8

Cog. It comes without a media library, so you’ll have to use the file system browser that comes with it. This might be a plus (as it makes Cog rather small) or a minus, depending on your taste. (For me its both a plus and a minus, as I’d like to have both.)

It supports more formats than iTunes and what’s even better is the decent support for playlists and cue sheets. So, in the folder tree, you’ll find your media files as well as the contents to the cue sheets.

Too bad, it doesn’t work together with iScrobbler (it only uses the official and heavier Last.fm client).

You should download the latest nightly, though. The official version 0.07 is about two years old, but there have been several slightly improved preview versions over the last year.

Edit: Just found out: Cog has a search tool, too. It’s based on spotlight and you can set a base folder and then it will just show all the files matching the pattern. Pretty simple but quite useful.

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One tip for the playlist management in iTunes: It is possible to detach them from the sidebar and have them in an extra window. It took me a long time to understand that this was indeed possible because no-one I know of would use this mode. So, I’ll usually detach one unnamed playlist, move the stuff I want to listen to directly to the position I’d like to have it at and then start this playlist. The good thing about it is that it’ll actually stop when the end of the list is reached and not go on forever as it would be the case when playing from the library directly. That way, it’s really possible to use it similarly to Winamp. (Though a file system browser is missing and everything you play will automatically be added to the library in an unstructured manner.)

Answer 9

You can try VLC for Mac.

Answer 10

pico player may help you if you use itunes to organize and just want to play your playlists with minimal resources.