Tell us why have you chosen foobar2000, or why don't you like it Options

[EugeneE3RD]

Well, I've been a supporter of Winamp for several years. I've heard about Foobar2000 for a while but several days ago, I decided to download & try out Foobar & I love it. Last Saturday, I got rid of Winamp in favor of Foobar2000. First of all, this program isn't full of crap like Winamp is & best of all, Foobar is more stable than Winamp & uses less memory. The Winamp versions which I have used are Winamp versions 2 & 3 but I don't like Winamp 5 cause it's full of stuff which I would probably never use. This is the main reason why I like Foobar. Foobar isn't full of stuff which I would never use.

But the main reason why I got rid of Winamp (version 2.91) is that it would lock up frequently & it wouldn't allow me to stream audio from the Internet (it would lock up when I stream).

This post has been edited by EugeneE3RD: Jun 15 2004, 18:10

[R2D2]

I have been a user of Winamp since I got to know about it (about 3 years ago), I loved the skinning-possibility...that's what I liked.
Now I am more of a geek, and I continued to use Winamp, til version 5 came, it was buggy, slow, and froze many times a day....

Then I got my broadband, but only on my slow computer, we haven't fixed network yet, it is only 300 mhz. I tried Winamp, but it was way too slow for my computer, even with classical skins.
I remembered Foobar2000 from when I tried it 1 year ago, but then I hated it, it was soo ugly.
I downloaded it, and first I hated the playlist-formatting, but after a few days, I had downloaded a few formattings from that formatting site, and then I loved it. I loved how you could have multiple dsp plugins at the same time, not just one as in Winamp.
I have programmed in C++ earlier, but it never went anywhere, I just wrote a few console programs that did nothing fun, but I started with foobars playlist-formatting, and then I was caught. I installed Foobar on my fast computer, even though it can handle Winamp.

+:
Great sound quality
Always looks like mine WindowBlinds theme
Advanced Title Formatting
File Converter
FreeDB
All the great plugins
Not eating resources
Nice and helpful people on the forums
Highly customizable
Starts in like 3 seconds, Winamp starts in 20
Tab-playlists
Recording

-
No video playback

[MC Escher]

I'm also a converted Winamp user. WA 5 is a bit buggy and Foobar uses less memory.
The only thing I don't like about Foobar is that I still haven't gotten my media keys to work, wich worked well with Winamp.

[WarBird]

I'm sure I could have come up with more good reasons for loving Foobar2000 But here goes;

• Plays everything I need it to play
• Gapless MP3's with newer lame
• lightweight
• Replaygain
• Powerful (mass)tagging support
• No crappy skins, but conforms(?) to the standard Windows UI
• Crappy skins through plugin
• Great diskwriter for easy transcoding (I transcode a lot from flac -> ogg for my portable)

Things I miss

• Plugin to boil tea... I drink a lot of tea

Thats about it...

This post has been edited by WarBird: Jun 16 2004, 15:51

[John Doe]

This seems to be like a hymn to FB2K!

Ok...my pro's and con's:

+ the careing community (THX to all of you)
+ the typical things like DSP's, quality, simplicity
+ I used it for quite some time now without complications!!!
+ components or in other words...plug-in's (without it Foobar would b dead!!)

------------

- no simple/advanced mode for newbies: predefined settings (i.e. eq, formatting strings)
- terrible "Preferences" window; from the point of usability
- NO useful documentation/help/description of SDK or components AT ALL
- it's supposed to be most flexible but some ideas are just called BAD (like cover art in ID3)
- standard icons..uhh kiddie style! [sorry but doesn't really fit the simplicity concept]

---i like it---


JD



//edit: one more con

This post has been edited by John Doe: Jun 17 2004, 16:16

[jlaczko]

I don't use it because it can't handle DirectX/VST plugins.
There isn't Adapt-X like plugin for foobar2000, or any direct support.

I can't live without "iZotope Ozone" plugin, without it, all sound is "crappy".


Every other is absolutely perfect!

[Columbo]

ok, after using Winamp for - well, it's so long, I don't remeber - ..., I changed two days ago to Foobar 2000. I already experimentated with a little bit with title formating and other options... and now Foobar is my (default) audio-player! Here my first impressions:

+ simple, understandable, logical design
+ Album List - better than Winamps library, because of:
+ title formating / strings. Now I'm able to sort my Albums in the Album List by year ([1992]Opiate, [1993]Undertow, [1996] AEnima, [2000] Salival, [2001] Lateralus, not AEnima, Lateraus, Opiate, Salival, Undertow ) and I can see the remaining and the elapsed time of the played song at the same time...
+ fast
+ free
+ often new releases, as I observed it
+ playing shoutcast
+ tabbed playlists
and so more things that I just don't remember now

Anyway, there remain some things that should be improved, are negative, are missing:
- ugly interface. Well I don't want skins. But these Icons (play, stop, etc.) and this visualizer (grey on grey???!!!) are horrible.
- there should be more buttons - e.g. open / close Album List or Options-Menu in the toolbar. I tried foo_tunes, but don't like it somehow
- maybe it should somehow be possible to integrate the album list into the main window. I use it very often. So have it nearly always opened. I don't need the playlist to be as wide as my screen. There is enaugh space for the album list.... Hope you understand what I mean!

[JEN]

A wolf in sheeps clothing. What I mean is, foobar looks so simple/streamlined at first sight, but when you look deeper, you realise how powerful it realy is.

[yandexx]

- ugly interface. Well I don't want skins. But these Icons (play, stop, etc.) and this visualizer (grey on grey???!!!) are horrible.
- there should be more buttons - e.g. open / close Album List or Options-Menu in the toolbar. I tried foo_tunes, but don't like it somehow

Try ui_columns by musicmusic, if you haven't tried yet. This component supports real columns, different foreground/background colors for visualizer and this plugin is alot cooler than foo_tunes and less crappy.
For now here version 0.1 is available, but there're links for 0.1.1 beta version on ui_columns forum thread at HA.

[viveztigrou]

why i love Foobar2000?

+ > kernel streaming, strong ATH noise shapping dithering
+ > masstagger, rename files, and freedb
+ > simple formatting string
+ > few memory RAM usage
+ > musepack and vorbis native core

[Columbo]

Try ui_columns by musicmusic, if you haven't tried yet. This component supports real columns, different foreground/background colors for visualizer and this plugin is alot cooler than foo_tunes and less crappy.
For now here version 0.1 is available, but there're links for 0.1.1 beta version on ui_columns forum thread at HA.

I had tried it before... Now I tested it again. Chagend the colours of the visualizer. And somehow these columns are quiete good, though the simple look of the playlist was ok for me... And columns are very ugly, when I listen to a http-Stream, because then nearly all of the columns are empty or there are questionmarks... For now I will use cloumn_ui...

And it was quite difficult to change the colours of the paylist (216216216|555555555$if(%_isplaying%,$rgb(103,136,201),$rgb(028,062,125))|$if(%_isplaying%,$rgb(103,136,201),$rgb(103,136,201))|$if(%_isplaying%,$rgb(204,208,212),$rgb(103,136,201))) now... I'm not a programmer, it was not easy for me to get my blue (stolen from Winamps default skin...)... But thanks for your hint, yandexx.

It would be really cool, if they would implement the album list into the main-window, as it is discussed in the thread you gave a link to...

[manusate]

I have yet to find a better tool. Nothing I know comes close to it.

Clean, simple, fexible and powerful.



Enjoy!

[DeepDose]

foobar is THE BEST.....with my 5.1 setup nothing can touch it.....with all the DSPs and 24 fixed point with dithering.....it's hardcore....and the playlist formatting and everything u can customize!!!!! theres no reason for anything else!

[R2D2]

I agree to JEN, it is more powerful than it seems to be, the orginal title-formatting looks like crap.
It sounds better than winamp with my 4.1 setup, even better than winamp with the sound enhancer that takes 45 % cpu, foobar takes 0% for me (!!)

[Otto42]

I don't use it much at present. I may switch to it eventually. Right now I mainly use it as the swiss army knife when I'm trying to do something with a tune and I don't have any specific program to do it.

My main objection is that it starts out overly simplistic and takes way too much effort to make it actually have a useful interface. Okay, configurability = good, but I think foobar takes it a bit to extremes in this aspect.

If it looked good and was more usable from the inital install, I might use it more. But the interface to a new user consists of a list of songs that you put into it and a few buttons. Not even a EQ or volume control or anything. Look, I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel and design my own music player here. Give me a nice interface that does everything I want it to do. Make plugins have logical locations in the menu hierarchy instead of being all over the map. Organize, man. It's just too chaotic for everyday use and I don't want to spend all my time changing the way it works.

[ilikedirtthe2nd]

I researched in Trillian as well.
About the components problem: I edited my post...but
Foobar exists of components so the headline "Components" is rather imprecise because you'd expect ALL comps to be gathere there or not?
(It's really difficult to put myself in a 1.timers place!)

What is more important; to sort the prefs by origin or by function?

JD

i was only thinking of "general" components listed under components in prefs. input/outpus etc. are already handeled different, as they are more "part" of the main functionality.

regards; ilikedirt

[ATWindsor]

I have one main gripe against foobar, It almost destroys the whole good impression I got of the program, why oh why does it strip the the tags you don't write to? That annoys me alot, I understand why people want it do it, but why not let the user choose, instead of forcing him to strip the tags?

AtW

[Squeller]

- no bloat no unnecessary visual gimmix
- modular
- replaygain, some plugins I need
- I know the dev loves his product an I am heard if I report things

[yandexx]

Try ui_columns by musicmusic, if you haven't tried yet. This component supports real columns, different foreground/background colors for visualizer and this plugin is alot cooler than foo_tunes and less crappy.
For now here version 0.1 is available, but there're links for 0.1.1 beta version on ui_columns forum thread at HA.

I had tried it before... Now I tested it again. Chagend the colours of the visualizer. And somehow these columns are quiete good, though the simple look of the playlist was ok for me... And columns are very ugly, when I listen to a http-Stream, because then nearly all of the columns are empty or there are questionmarks... For now I will use cloumn_ui...

And it was quite difficult to change the colours of the paylist (216216216|555555555$if(%_isplaying%,$rgb(103,136,201),$rgb(028,062,125))|$if(%_isplaying%,$rgb(103,136,201),$rgb(103,136,201))|$if(%_isplaying%,$rgb(204,208,212),$rgb(103,136,201))) now... I'm not a programmer, it was not easy for me to get my blue (stolen from Winamps default skin...)... But thanks for your hint, yandexx.

It would be really cool, if they would implement the album list into the main-window, as it is discussed in the thread you gave a link to...

see here, columns ui formatting strings database
There you will find winamp-look(s) and many other simple and very advanced configs to import into columns UI.

[upNorth]

why oh why does it strip the the tags you don't write to?

I write APEv2 and ID3v1 with foobar2000, and all ID3v2 tags are left alone. Neither modified, nor deleted...

[foosion]

Discussion about preferences redesign split to here.

[ATWindsor]

why oh why does it strip the the tags you don't write to?

I write APEv2 and ID3v1 with foobar2000, and all ID3v2 tags are left alone. Neither modified, nor deleted...

If you don't install id3v2-support, that is true in my case too, but if i do, I loose the tags, besides, that still leaves the problem of writing the RG-info to the id3v2-tags without stripping the APE-tag.

AtW

[upNorth]

@ATWindsor:
But all sane people use either Apv2+ID3v1 or ID3v2+ID3v1, don't they?

Sorry, I couldn't resist, because IIRC you said in another thread that you wanted all three tag types. Thus it occurs to me as a self inflicted problem, caused by, at least to me, unnecessary redundance. The purpose of my last post, was to point out that your claim wasn't the whole truth, that's all. I also expected the ID3v2 plugin to cause it, as I don't use it myself.

I understand your problem though, and as most things in foobar can be configured to suit personal preference, even if everyone else might find it useless, that's not the case here.

Btw: As this is off topic, I won't discuss this any further in this thread.

[scoult01]

I'm YAWC (yet another winamp convert). Been on winamp for well, nearly 6-7 years now and figured it was time for a change. After seeing SO many screenshots of foobar on neowin.net I figured I might give it a go. I really like how it fits in EXACTLY with my theme. Also, the past few winamp versions havent exactly been 'compatible' with my machine, with 5.03 basically not working at all.
The only real 'beef' I have with foobar would be the lack of a media library as such (like winamps). I'm used to having my music seperated first by artist, then by album, but being able to combine multiple albums should I choose to. I may swap back to winamp at some stage, but for the time being i'm loving this new app on my pc

[anza]

The closest thing to the Winamp media library in foobar would be the album list or foo_dbsearch.

If you use foo_dbsearch, you can do something like this:
If you want to search for 1980s music, you'll just search for %date%=1980, then if you can't decide what to listen and want to go for some genre (ie Rock), you can just add there %genre%=Rock (so the pattern would be %date%=1980 %genre%=Rock). If you still can't make your mind and use for example the %rating% tag, you could still add a %rating%>4 to get all 1980s rock songs that you have rated over 4 It's maybe not as easy as Winamp's media library, but I find it even more powerful. And also remember to use quotes when the search has multiple words (so you should use %album%="From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah", not %album%=From the Muddy...).
Oh, and to search for music made in the whole 1980s decade, you could use either %date%~198 (yes, no zero there) or %date%>1979 %date%<1990

This post has been edited by anza: Jun 21 2004, 20:43