Alternative Audio Players?

[Azure]

Am I the only one that doesn't like Exaile? I hate how it doesn't have gapless playback (unless it does and I'm doing something wrong??) and how it loves to crash (maybe this has something to do with the OS not being stable?). Having little pauses makes listening to some trance CDs and stand-up comedy much, much less fun I also have a hard time running Exaile in the background while playing mupen64plus (Exaile eventually closes after a song or two, and while it *is* playing it slows down mupen64plus like crazy).

Is there anything more minimalistic/stable and to the point? What happened to XMMS (not sure if it would be better than Exaile having never tried it, but it's something different...)?

 

[EvilDragon]

Umm... mplayer?

 

[atomicthumbs]

 mpd and gmpc (client and server) is the best I've tried. 

 

[Azure]

Umm... mplayer?

Not gapless?

Also, more gripes with Exaile: Anybody else have trouble skipping into sections of songs by clicking on the little "progress bar"? I can click somewhere and the progress bar will move to where I click, but when I "let go" the progress bar jumps back to where it was as if nothing happened. In addition, Exaile loves to keep playing for a few more seconds (sometimes it has been 10+ seconds...) after I click the little "X" to close it.

Alerino: Unless I did something wrong, it tells me:

"* opkg_install_cmd: Cannot install package xmms."

 

[SomeGuy99]

My favourite is currently Cmus. It requires compiling from source, but I could share the binary I made if you like?

Don't be fooled by the old-school looks. It can be controlled entirely from the buttons/keyboard, supports playlists, library importing (which takes seconds and runs in the background) and plain old directory navigation/play.

If you're in a hacking kind of mood, Mplayer can apparently do Gapless:

http://snipplr.com/view/18353/gapless-playback-for-mplayer-linux/

sudo!
i've just installed it

I found XMMS was too quiet, I had to raise the volume in the pre-amp settings.

 

[Unfathomable Depths]

Trance CDs and stand up comedy?

Genius :lol:

We should do an album... what jokes do you know? I know the chords of C and F

 

[Azure]

Aleirno: I don't know what I'm doing wrong :unsure:

Someguy99: Ooh, I like the old-school look! Does it do gapless? Please share the binary if you can

 

[SomeGuy99]

Aleirno: I don't know what I'm doing wrong :unsure:

Someguy99: Ooh, I like the old-school look! Does it do gapless? Please share the binary if you can

Good news! It claims to support gapless playback:

http://cmus.sourceforge.net/#download

It has some dependencies. You'll have to install Ncurses and (IIRC) madplay (mp3 library) which are both in the Angstrom repos. I install all mine manually, and it's only two or three files.

I only compiled it against madplay, and didn't bother installing the dev libraries for OGG, FLAC etc. which it can support. Still want it?

 

[VRAndy]

xmms works pretty well.

I did have to crank up the "pre-boost" setting on the mp3 plug-in though. Otherwise it was pretty quiet.

(May just be my pandora. My physical volume knob doesn't seem to do anything.)

 

[second exodous]

If VLC runs on the Pandora right now you could try that. In fact if it does I would try that before anything else. It is really basic audio playback though.

To get gap-less you could combine them into one long track, that is what I used to do in the day with classical music. I don't know how big of a file that will make, depends on what you rip to, but it will probably work.

I just thought of something, could you put the tracks in a .mkv wrapper and just have chapter markers? Kinda out there but I have sticked together videos in .mkv in one 'movie'. then again maybe it was VLC playing gap-less, try VLC first.

 

[SomeGuy99]

xmms works pretty well.

I did have to crank up the "pre-boost" setting on the mp3 plug-in though. Otherwise it was pretty quiet.

(My just be my pandora. My physical volume knob doesn't seem to do anything.)

Nah. If you check the preamp setting, it's on -9 or something. If you put it too high though, you get crackling.

 

[Azure]

Aleirno: I don't know what I'm doing wrong :unsure:

Someguy99: Ooh, I like the old-school look! Does it do gapless? Please share the binary if you can

Good news! It claims to support gapless playback:

http://cmus.sourceforge.net/#download

It has some dependencies. You'll have to install Ncurses and (IIRC) madplay (mp3 library) which are both in the Angstrom repos. I install all mine manually, and it's only two or three files.

I only compiled it against madplay, and didn't bother installing the dev libraries for OGG, FLAC etc. which it can support. Still want it?

Sure! Err...as long as you can explain to me how to install Ncurses and madplay

second exodous: That seems like such a hassle and a PITA (especially if I only want to play specific songs one time, or want to go through the whole album another time) just to make up for the lack of what I think isn't really an advanced feature anymore and should be expected from an audio player in this day and age.

 

[SomeGuy99]

http://drop.io/3te5auh

Step 1 - Install

Copy these files to a folder somewhere, either your home folder or SD cards (or USB storage) is fine.

Open a terminal in this folder by right-clicking in Thunar and selecting 'open terminal here'.

We'll test the program works now.

Type this in and hit enter:

./cmus

./ - This refers to your current directory (the one you are in).

This will probably fail and produce some errors. Let me know what it asks for! I have the files needed backed up on my SD card, so you don't even need the Angstom repo to be online (it's not loading for me either).

Let's install it now anyway!

Type the following in and hit enter

sudo cp cmus /usr/bin/

Sudo - This stands for 'Superuser Do' and means 'please let me do this admin command!' after which you will be prompted for your user password. The area we are installing to is locked out without being an admin (or root).

cp - Copy, first part is the original file, second part is destination.

/usr/bin - Where apps and system commands (which are the same thing kinda) live! They call be called from anywhere in the system.

 

[Vitel]

 mpd and gmpc (client and server) is the best I've tried. 

+1, and mpc for keyboard bindings.

 

[second exodous]

That seems like such a hassle and a PITA (especially if I only want to play specific songs one time, or want to go through the whole album another time) just to make up for the lack of what I think isn't really an advanced feature anymore and should be expected from an audio player in this day and age.

Try VLC, I don't know if it is putting the video onto .mkv that makes it gap-less or VLC. I don't know if VLC runs yet but if it does try that, you'll probably want it for video also anyway. I'm using Rhythmbox right now and I don't notice gaps, but I'm sure that isn't ported to the Pandora yet and it might be a little heavy on space and processor.

 

[JDGBOLT]

I personally use mpd for my main system, such a nice little music playing daemon, can get the interface out of the way, only using it to change playlists or whatever. Personally I am partial to ncmpcpp for my frontend, works very nicely and has decent enough keybindings within it. Main music server I think takes about 6 MB of ram or so. Haven't used it on the pandora though, as I don't yet have mine, but it's what I plan on using when I get it. It is gapless, can support a wide variety of file types, and since the client is different from the thing that actually plays things, you can always be having the music playing, even if changing user interfaces, being purely in the console, or whatever else. Supports random playback, shuffling with ncmpcpp if you wanted to do it that way, playlists, lastfm, shoutcast, all kinds. Well, enough of my plug.

 

[JeanLouSchmidt]

+1 for mpd

 

[skyeyemachine]

I also use MPD, and interface with it via MOC. Maybe that's one to try? I'm not sure if it has gapless playback. There are other console-based interfaces out there as well.

 

[second exodous]

Wow, a lot of choices out there. Music playing has advanced a lot. I just used XMMS or Winamp for my music needs back in the day and then bought my iPod and have since not needed to worry about music apps since I only really use my computer to rip music. It will be different having a small computer to play music on again, it puts the choice back into the mix.

 

[MonkeyChops]

http://drop.io/3te5auh

Step 1 - Install

Copy these files to a folder somewhere, either your home folder or SD cards (or USB storage) is fine.

Open a terminal in this folder by right-clicking in Thunar and selecting 'open terminal here'.

We'll test the program works now.

Type this in and hit enter:

./cmus

./ - This refers to your current directory (the one you are in).

This will probably fail and produce some errors. Let me know what it asks for! I have the files needed backed up on my SD card, so you don't even need the Angstom repo to be online (it's not loading for me either).

Let's install it now anyway!

Type the following in and hit enter

sudo cp cmus /usr/bin/

Sudo - This stands for 'Superuser Do' and means 'please let me do this admin command!' after which you will be prompted for your user password. The area we are installing to is locked out without being an admin (or root).

cp - Copy, first part is the original file, second part is destination.

/usr/bin - Where apps and system commands (which are the same thing kinda) live! They call be called from anywhere in the system.

cmus: Error: couldn't open directory `/usr/local/lib/cmus/ip': No such file or directory
cmus: Error: couldn't open directory `/usr/local/lib/cmus/op': No such file or directory
cmus: loading /usr/local/share/cmus/rc: No such file or directory