Need an "audio browser" for XP to listen to wav & mp3.

January 21, 2004 5:31 PM

Need a sound browser for XP, should have an explorer-like interface, where I click on a WAV or MP3 and I can hear how it sounds. Speed and simplicity would be nice, too. Having to "process" whole folders would be a no-no.
posted by signal to (9 comments total)

Doesn't the media sidebar in Explorer offer preview functionality for files which are supported by Windows Media Player, including sounds? It's not much, but it's about as explorer-like as you could ask for.
posted by majick at 6:01 PM on January 21, 2004

majick, yeah, but it doesn't play them when you click on them, but rather after you press "play", and then it keeps playing the rest of the files in the folder. It's not any better than loading the files in winamp.
What I need is something that allows me to just click on the files I want to preview.
It might seem like a minor issue, but it's not when you have to search through a large amount of sound files.
posted by signal at 6:14 PM on January 21, 2004

Why not just make a Winamp playlist for all files, and using the Media Library or Playlist window to browse and search the files?
posted by riffola at 6:52 PM on January 21, 2004

because that still wouldn't play the files when I click on them, and it would add a series of extra steps each time I need to find a file.
posted by signal at 6:54 PM on January 21, 2004

Fair enough. How about this: Set the default action in the media player of your choice to be "play" instead of "enqueue," and then double click (instead of single click) any media file you want to get a quick listen? Next one you click, it starts playing instead.

I know what you're getting at -- you want a sort of audible equivalent to the thumbnail preview of pictures -- but audio is inherently serial. This might be about as close as you're going to get.
posted by majick at 7:19 PM on January 21, 2004

sound forge 7 does that when you're at the open files dialogue. Just hover over the name and it previews.
posted by JohnR at 7:19 PM on January 21, 2004

Total Commander it's a two windows file explorer (based on the old Norton Commander). You can have one panel in a "quick view" mode (CTRL-Q) and the other in standard mode. When you click on a file it will display/play the file in the other window.

The software is shareware, you have to press a button every time you start it unless you want to buy it. It's very easy on registries, and can work in network environments.
posted by MzB at 6:03 AM on January 22, 2004

MzB, I catually already have Total Commander, but had no idea it could do that. Thanks!
posted by signal at 6:31 AM on January 22, 2004

ACDSee is not free, but it's an excellent image and *media* preview and display app. There is an option they call "Picaview" so that whenever I right-click on a media file (sound or video) it will start playing a preview in a tiny micro-player. Another click and the player pops up with full controls (rewind, pause, etc.) It's a nice piece of software.
posted by sixdifferentways at 2:26 AM on January 27, 2004