Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with winamp

Downsampling to an ipod

woolylambkin — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 01:49:31 -0800

I'm looking for a program that lets me do on-the-fly downsampling to my ipod. Right now I'm still using my trusty 4Gb Ipod mini so I like to downsample my mp3's from 320kbs/lossless to 160kbs so that I can get a few extra albums on. I don't believe Itunes or Winamp has a plug-in to allow downsampling during transfers but I might not have looked hard enough. Right now I'm using a trial version of Sveta portable audio but it seems really cumbersome to me considering that I have to find a folder album and wait for that one folder to transfer before I can even start to look for another folder to queue up which means that I'm stuck transferring one album at a time over the course of a night instead of being able to queue up everything at one time and then just letting it run over night. I also can't seem to get Sveta to work with some of my media files which is also frustrating me though I'm sure that's more my fault than Sveta's. (Then there's the fact that you can't effectively run Sveta in a window which aggravates me to no end because I can't stand any window being full screen [I don't even watch dvd's at full screen on my pc].)

Am I just Sveta wrong? Or does anyone have a program that makes downsampling a breeze? Or should I bite the bullet and make a separate directory of 160kbs mp3's for ease of use?

iTunes, iPod, Winamp, Zune... let's call the whole thing off

Muffpub — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 09:35:44 -0800

Zune, iTunes, and Winamp: is an (apparent) lack of support a deal-breaker? I'm a PC and Winamp user trying to decide between the 80gb iPod and the 80gb Zune. I can't figure out from the internet whether there is at least limited flexibility (3rd party software, hacks) that would allow me to continue using Winamp with a Zune or not, as opposed to the iPod winamp plugin that I hear about. Plus, I may switch back to iTunes one day if I buy a Mac in the future, and I'm having trouble finding out from Google if a Zune would work with iTunes either.

So does this mean no Zune for me? The reviews made it sound like such a refreshing change from the iPod, but I'm not sure if I can handle all these possible compatibility issues. If anyone has experiences to share I'd be grateful...

Why won't my mp3s and videos play?

champthom — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:48:35 -0800

Why won't my mp3s and videos play on my computer...at all? The other day, I load up Winamp to listen to an mp3, except nothing happens. It still stays at the 00:00 mark. I figure maybe it's because I need to update to the new Winamp so I upgrade but still, nothing happens and the mp3 won't play.

I try playing the mp3 in VLC, Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic, and iTunes but no luck in any of them. In Windows Media Center (I'm running Vista), I got an error message saying it's an "unknown audio error." I have a similar problem with videos as they won't play in Winamp or Media Player.

There's nothing wrong with my speakers or anything like that, as I still get sound just fine (like I have no problem getting sound from Flash video).

I haven't toyed around with any of my codecs and frankly, I'm not sure what the problem is, especially since they won't play on any program, and frankly, I'm out of ideas.

How do I shot dsp

cellphone — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 07:57:50 -0800

Does anyone know a good linux/freebsd dsp plugin besides the sc_trans one from nullsoft? It does what I need, which is take a list of mp3s and shuffle them, but it won't play nice with id3 tags. I just need a commandline dsp plugin that'll shuffle a bunch of mp3s and send the title (based on id3) to the shoutcast daemon. Any ideas? The point of all this is to get around needing to have a real copy of winamp streaming crap to shoutcast all the time. Thank you in advance!

Windows Vista mp3 playback errors

Ikazuchi — Sun, 13 May 2007 20:07:46 -0800

I've installed MS Vista on my shiny new computer and everything works. Except mp3 playback. Whenever I play an mp3 file, be it in Winamp, MediaMonkey, or Media Player 11, songs 'skip' and screech every few seconds, mostly during louder or more complex passages, and as a vast majority of my collection is heavy metal and rock, that is almost all of the time. I've done Google searches and everything keeps pointing to turning off sound enhancements in the Vista Audio control panel. I've tried that and I've even tried updating the bios of my nice little Shuttle xpc. I've updated the Realtek drivers. I'm at a complete loss. Has anyone either run into this and fixed it or know of a solution?

Why can't I see song titles of tunes streamed to me by internet radio stations in Winamp?

bitterkitten — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 17:56:02 -0800

Why can't I get song titles to display when I listen to streams as a user in Winamp (for pc)? Googled like mad, checked Winamp forums..most of the info pertains to people who are dishing out the streams, not playing them back. Right now I'm using the brand-spankin' newest version, but I've had this problem for years, I guess, with various versions. Even totally clean installs on other pc's get this result, with a variety of streams (different stations, countries, you name it - all I see is the ip address of the station, ever!).

Surely this is configurable by the Shoutcasters, and I figure they can't ALL be opting to turn this off (or not turn it on). Don't see any setting in Winamp that I can adjust to make this happen.

As an aside.. I have used the Streamripper plugin in the past to record streams, and it seems to be able to identify tunes with little to no problem. Hm.

Thanks!

Why's my old school winamp broke?

Sonic_Molson — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 23:34:24 -0800

My winamp (v2.95) has just started to do something strange; it's creating id3 tags on it's own! For the last few days I've noticed that some mp3's in winamp are now appearing in this format: " - Artist - Title" compared to the previous (and desired) "Artist - Title"

None of my mp3's have(..or had) id3 tags.

But I noted that these files with the weird naming are files that have an id3 tag, and removed the tags and just thought that I had missed them in the first place...until it started constantly happening, and then I realized that *as soon* as a song is played, the id3 tag is generatated, and then the song takes on the annoying " - Artist - Title" format.

What's causing this? I searched through the options for winamp and found nothing that would suggest to this, I also haven't changed any options myself and have been using this same version of winamp for months.

Audio File Sequencing

Raybun — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:01:34 -0800

How do players such as Winamp or Media Player choose the sequence that they use to play MP3 files? I have classical MP3 files and recorded books that must be played in order. These players look at something very different from the way that they have been arranged (and numbered) in File Manager. Can the ID3v1 ID3v2 tags be used to control the playback sequence? I play these files on three separate computers plus my car radio via a flash drive and do not want the hassle of creating separate play lists. I cannot create play lists with my car radio. I am using, and much prefer, Winamp 5.094

Make Winamp work for me

schroedinger — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 17:13:27 -0800

Winamp playlist help. I have a bunch of playlists in Winamp, but frequent re-organization of my music directory has broken all the links. Is there a way for Winamp to find the new locations of the files so I don't have to re-assign hundreds of songs, or, barring that, is there a smarter music library program that will do the work and can import Winamp playlists?

Window fonts growing up.

Sonic_Molson — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 10:56:24 -0800

Windows font size messed up in specific applications. Screenshot and For the last few weeks I have been dealing with a rather annoying problem, the fonts in several applications have "grown". I have a picture here:

clicky

The applications shown are winamp preferences, ws_ftp preferences and Editplus2 preferences.

I know the font is not suppose to be that large because I'm very familiar with these applications, and well, the text doesn't fit the size of the windows in a lot of cases.

The only thing that I installed around the time this happened was Adobe Photoshop CS2, if that's any clue.

Windows XP SP2, Nvidia Quadro 280.

Thanks to all who reply.

How to convert WinAmp playlists for iTunes?

cowbellemoo — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 20:16:44 -0800

iTunesFilter: Easy way to convert WinAmp playlists for use in iTunes? Without a plug-in? I have a shoutcast radio station based off a playlist (in WinAmp) which I update exhaustively every few weeks. That runs fine, but when it comes time to fill my iPod, I'd love to be able to take the whole playlist with me. I've tried transferring files through WinAmp, but nothing seems to transfer. I've also tried this plug-in for WinAmp which seems to be out of date and nonfunctional:

http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=139248

My WinAmp is the actual internet radio server, so I'd prefer to convert the file rather than be straining WinAmp itself to do anything. If I can convert and open the playlist in iTunes and drop it onto my iPod that'd be great.

If no one knows an easy way, I could try and form playlists in iTunes first and then convert to WinAmp for the radio update, but I just did my radio overhaul and I'd love to fill my iPod now without duplicating my work.

(Gory details: Win XP, newest iTunes and WinAmp, iPod is 30gig video, playlists are around 40 hours/500 songs)

Display that tune

mezzanayne — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 11:56:01 -0800

I want my Windows screensaver to display the artist and title of the song that Winamp is currently playing. I'm in the process of putting together a stand-alone media player/music server and would like to have the current Winamp song information (from the IDv3 tag, if possible) displayed via screensaver.

I've searched for something OOTB but my Googlefu has failed me. Does such a screensaver exist? I know that Winamp offers an SDK so I could try to code one myself but I thought that I'd query the hive mind first.

My music is in ruins!

rosswald — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 00:41:12 -0800

Having read this thread, I downloaded several *awesome* box sets... but then I download Itunes which resulted in this annoying problem. What can I do?! Basically I just hate having eighty trillion artists listed when half of them only have one or two songs. I know that to find the boxsets you have to sort by albums, but this still frustrates the hell out of me, and seems counter-intuitive. Also note: I have an iPod, despite being a former winAmp user. Oh, and if an automated solution is possible for untangling this mess..... well then, an extra helping of desert for you! Thanks people!

Want smart playlists without iTunes

Orange Goblin — Wed, 31 May 2006 12:53:04 -0800

How can I get smart playlists in Winamp, or any other media player besides iTunes? I really like the idea of smart playlists, but I hate pretty much everything else about iTunes - the interface, the way the music is managed, the fact that I don't have an iPod and don't want to buy music online, the list goes on. Until recently I was using Winamp 2, so I downloaded Winamp 5 because it seemed to have what I want, but it doesn't. You can make smart playlists, but they don't auto-update - you have to constantly click on them to make them your current playlist. Is there anyway to automate this, or can another media player give me the same functionality?

What is the command string or path for forcing processing of local loop audio in Winamp?

loquacious — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:15:33 -0800

What is the command / string / path for piping local audio through Winamp? IE, I want Winamp to run whatever is being output through my soundcard, Multi-media soundsystem or DirectSound as wave through it's DSPs. I remember that it is something like \\: or :\ or something, and that you input this value into the "open location" dialog. People use this function to broadcast other sources via Shoutcast, or to run audio streams through various audio or video DSP plugins. (Say, DFX audio enhancer, AVS visualizations, diskWriter for writing out streams, or, as above the Shoutcast broadcast plugin.)

MP3 player that lets you pause live content?

smackfu — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 12:22:12 -0800

Are there any other Windows MP3 players that have something like RealPlayer's LivePause feature, which "enables pausing and seeking within live Internet clips"?

Resource-friendly popular software alternatives?

sian — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 17:02:23 -0800

Any recommendations on software alternatives that are more resources friendly than their mainstream competitors? Examples: Firefox vs. IE, Winamp vs. ITunes, alternate anti-virus programs, etc.

How can I fill my mp3 player via complex rules?

skryche — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 13:46:23 -0800

What's the easiest way to fill my new 1GB DAP (works like a USB flash drive when plugged into the Windows PC) with 30% songs I love, 40% songs I've most-recently added to my library, and 30% randomly-selected songs? Or, failing that, how do I fill it with randomly-selected songs?

Bonus points if it's a Winamp plugin!

I have Digi 001 with ASIO sound drivers installed on WinXP, how can I control the volume?

Edible Energy — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 08:18:37 -0800

For all ye audiophiles: I have Digi 001 with ASIO sound drivers installed on WinXP, how can I control the volume? I have Pro Tools 5.3, and I used to use the WaveDriver driver, but I couldn't use Shoucast with it, but it came with an app to control the gain of the sound (DigiGain). The ASIO drivers don't come with any such thing, and the volume control on Winamp doesn't do anything anymore. I have two active studio monitors hooked up to the sound card, so each have their own volume dial, and it's a pain in the ass to align them. What can I do? If I have no choice but to buy a preamp, are there cheap ones on the market?

Advantages of creating playlists?

NoMich — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 08:04:14 -0800

Organizing MP3s questions. I've got about 50 gigs of music on my hard drive with everything in its place, all nice and neat like. I don't have just random music all over the place, but everything is separated by artist-album in their own folder in the "C:\my music" folder (if that even matters). If this matters, my convention is: "XTC - Box Set - CD1", "XTC - Box Set - CD2", "XTC - Box Set - CD3", "Pretty Things, the - SF Sorrow", "Beatles, the - Magical Mystery Tour", etc. Minus the quotes, of course.
Should I put everything in playlists? I'm not sure what the advantages of using playlists are. Does it make listening to music easier? Or is just breaking the music apart by music type? Can I have the same album in different playlists? When you create a playlist, are the MP3s being copied to another part of my hard drive? So now instead of having 50 gigs of music, I would have 100 gigs of music? Surely some hard drive space is being taken up by playlist creation. How long should it take me to tag all of my music to create the playlists? Or do I even need to tag them?
I use the latest version of WinAmp on a Windows XP computer. I guess I could switch to iTunes if it makes tagging/creating playlists all that music easier, but I've read here that iTunes is a resource pig and is very slow on a Windows machine.
Sorry for the flood of questions for such a trivial thing, but I need to know what I'm missing out on by not organizing my music via playlists.

Funny sounds on MP3's

Cosine — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 13:30:20 -0800

Anyone else ever notice funny sounds on MP3's with particularily low-pitched male vocals? Some MP3's by such low-level singers as Johnny Cash, Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen have a slight vocal effect where it sounds like they have a frog in their throats, has anyone else noticed this, I can hear it with all media playing programs and on all stereos.

Burn Winamp playlist contents

superfurry — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 04:07:54 -0800

I have a Winamp playlist containing hand-picked individual MP3 files from within a 12Gig directory structure. Is there an easy way to give this to Nero so I can burn my playlist ? Any other way to burn just the contents of the playlist, for free of course ?

How do I convert a text list of songs into a working music playlist file?

monsterhero — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 23:09:48 -0800

Is there an easy way to convert a text list of songs (in "Artist - Song" format) into a working playlist? What I'm trying to do is take the Audioscrobbler Top Tracks list, and load it into Winamp. I tried to copy the list into a txt file, clean it up, and convert it to an m3u file. This loaded into Winamp, but, as there was no directory location information, did not link to the actual mp3s on my drive. I'm I going about this the wrong way? Is there an easier way to do this?

WinAmp playback volume

geeky — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 06:52:05 -0800

The volume of the songs played in WinAmp varies wildy. Is there some sort of volume equalizer for WinAmp? I'm looking for something along the lines of iTunes' "Sound Check" that "automatically adjusts song playback volume to the same level". I came across one plug-in called Replay Gain. Does this work, or should I be looking for something else?

PS. Using iTunes is not the solution I'm looking for here.

How do I send all MP3 links on a webpage to Winamp?

waxpancake — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:51:09 -0800

How do I send all MP3 links on a web page to Winamp (or, I suppose, any audio player)? I've had several promising options, but they're all dead ends. The Launchy extension lets you send a single link to any application, but not multiple links. Alf Eaton's MP3 to M3U bookmarklet works wonderfully on public websites, but the site I'm using requires authentication to view pages. Please help! This has been bugging me for ages.