Winamp is returning, beta testing now.

[Shou Miko]

Winamp is still my default music player even on my Windows 11 and I am not gonna change that really.

 

[Mussels]

Now with ads, spotify, youtube music, amazon music etc alllllll built in....

 

[silentbogo]

Just looked at screenshots and it looks like just like the old winamp from my childhood. Not sure what they meant by "building Winamp for the next generation", but it does not look promising.
I migrated to Foobar2000 back in high school, when Winamp was still at its prime, and there were many reasons for me to do so.
Another lively alternative is AIMP. I'm using the android version, but on PC it was a de-facto replacement for Winamp when it completely stagnated.
And judging by their "hiring" section it's clear what kind of future awaits winamp: ads, paid music streaming subscriptions, various monetization ventures etc. Pretty sure these new brand owners will simply cash-out on familiar name, and go under as soon as nostalgia runs out.
They can't even hire a decent web-designer. Their page managed to completely stagger my 3800X for some time, and even on reloads after media caching the page still struggles to load under 2s...

P.S. Totally forgot to check who the actual owner is... And here is an excerpt from Audiovalley's website:

The Group is home to brands that offer high-quality products and services, such as: monetization of digital audio content with Targetspot, music rights management with Jamendo, streaming technologies and podcast management with Shoutcast, and the iconic Winamp audio player.

 

[Mussels]

Back on dial up, winamp was all i had, and i coulnt afford drugs so milkdrop was an addiction

The thought of going to the effort of finding, buying, storing, etc all the music again just... so much effort?

spotify has made me lazy

 

[bug]

Just looked at screenshots and it looks like just like the old winamp from my childhood. Not sure what they meant by "building Winamp for the next generation", but it does not look promising.
I migrated to Foobar2000 back in high school, when Winamp was still at its prime, and there were many reasons for me to do so.
Another lively alternative is AIMP. I'm using the android version, but on PC it was a de-facto replacement for Winamp when it completely stagnated.
And judging by their "hiring" section it's clear what kind of future awaits winamp: ads, paid music streaming subscriptions, various monetization ventures etc. Pretty sure these new brand owners will simply cash-out on familiar name, and go under as soon as nostalgia runs out.
They can't even hire a decent web-designer. Their page managed to completely stagger my 3800X for some time, and even on reloads after media caching the page still struggles to load under 2s...

P.S. Totally forgot to check who the actual owner is... And here is an excerpt from Audiovalley's website:

I don't mind monetization, as long as I can get the basic functionality for free. Spotify&friends do not have publicly accessible APIs, you have to pay for access, so they can't give this away for free. Not to mention they need to pay their programmers.
But ads in Winamp will kill it on the spot.

 

[silentbogo]

But ads in Winamp will kill it on the spot.

Ads are the least of my worries. They are on a suicide mission that killed many media players and streaming apps back in a day... in the nutshell: they want to copy iTunes.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Is there an actual link for the beta yet? I'm not seeing it.

 

[Mussels]

Is there an actual link for the beta yet? I'm not seeing it.

No but they're hiring and want investors... they may not have anything but the website yet

 

[AusWolf]

Just looked at screenshots and it looks like just like the old winamp from my childhood. Not sure what they meant by "building Winamp for the next generation", but it does not look promising.
I migrated to Foobar2000 back in high school, when Winamp was still at its prime, and there were many reasons for me to do so.
Another lively alternative is AIMP. I'm using the android version, but on PC it was a de-facto replacement for Winamp when it completely stagnated.

What do you mean by stagnation? Winamp is/was a music player with skins. Nothing more, nothing less. What else do you want it to be?

I, for one, hate it when a new version of the software that I use comes out for no reason (security patches and bug fixes not included), with new UI and everything, and I have to re-learn to use it from ground zero. Facebook/Messenger is a notorious offender, and so is Microsoft with Windows 10.2 or whatever they call it.

This is one more reason why I prefer my physical MP3 player - it doesn't get unnecessary (or any) updates.

 

[bug]

What do you mean by stagnation? Winamp is/was a music player with skins. Nothing more, nothing less. What else do you want it to be?

I, for one, hate it when a new version of the software that I use comes out for no reason (security patches and bug fixes not included), with new UI and everything, and I have to re-learn to use it from ground zero. Facebook/Messenger is a notorious offender, and so is Microsoft with Windows 10.2 or whatever they call it.

This is one more reason why I prefer my physical MP3 player - it doesn't get unnecessary (or any) updates.

One can always work on OS integration. Newer notifications, integration with indexing services... There's always something to do, even if you keep the UI unchanged.

 

[AusWolf]

One can always work on OS integration. Newer notifications, integration with indexing services... There's always something to do, even if you keep the UI unchanged.

That is fine. I just wish they could leave UI that people know and love alone.

 

[bug]

That is fine. I just wish they could leave UI that people know and love alone.

As much as I dislike Apple, I have always appreciated their ability to change underlying APIs and even programming languages while leaving the UI alone (apps, OS or both). UI should never change just because. This a rule I wish everybody would follow.

 

[AusWolf]

As much as I dislike Apple, I have always appreciated their ability to change underlying APIs and even programming languages while leaving the UI alone (apps, OS or both). UI should never change just because. This a rule I wish everybody would follow.

Agreed. All the way from disliking Apple to wishing devs could leave UI alone unless absolutely necessary.

 

[bug]

Agreed. All the way from disliking Apple to wishing devs could leave UI alone unless absolutely necessary.

I have a feeling this has to do with "full stack developers". People thinking if you can make an efficient DB query and put together a coherent set of services, surely you can design a user interface. But I digress.

 

[AusWolf]

I have a feeling this has to do with "full stack developers". People thinking if you can make an efficient DB query and put together a coherent set of services, surely you can design a user interface. But I digress.

Either that, or it's about making sure UI developers can keep their jobs even after launch date.

Man, I'd love to have a Windows 98 theme with sounds and everything on my system! It would match the Winamp Classic skin so nicely! But I digress too.

 

[silentbogo]

What do you mean by stagnation? Winamp is/was a music player with skins. Nothing more, nothing less.

Winamp at its core was a modular music player with plugins. The "skins and visualizations" part burned out relatively fast, just like Stardock Windowblinds and other pre-Vista prettifying trinkets, or fad for fancy 3D screensavers.
The plugins part is what stagnated. There were few big things that started coming up and gain traction in early 2000s, like lossless audio, alternative codecs, better audio processing engines, more robust EQ/effects libraries, constant modernization etc. Competition was on top of it, while winamp stayed the same throughout early 00s.
I remember going to college, and one of my friends was a DJ at a local club, along with running student events at the university. He got me hooked to foobar2000, cause at that time there was nothing else that can reliably play FLAC and OggVorbis. Later AIMP hit the web as a spiritual successor and immediately became popular(at least in CIS and EU), since Winamp became abandonware at that point. Past that - nobody cared and moved on to better things. And in the age of streaming people don't even need media players. Heck, even I'm catching myself on a habit of playing random crap off Youtube rather than listening to my collection of FLACs and MP3s. I think the only exception is when I'm offline in the middle of nowhere or on the road, and all I have is my phone.

There were attempts at revitalizing the "legend", but official releases were garbage(and even later in life still had shitty FLAC support), while community-driven projects like WACUP came out so much later that very few people caught on to it or even knew about its existence.

 

[Ferather]

I didn't dispute any of that. I was just saying, video has a way of telling whether or not you're seeing what the creator wanted you to see, audio doesn't. That what makes almost everything about audio subjective. (And I haven't even touched on people's ears or age.)

Fair enough, I cant say I have really looked into video much recently, but I will say screen size to resolution and DPI do make a difference.
1080p on a 80 inch screen will be nice big squares, whereas 1080p on a 24 inch screen will look as it should in HD.

In many ways 4k and 8k on a small screen like a phone, is more wasted and probably less noticeable.
In terms of video, high frame rate at high resolution are becoming standard quickly.

I used to sell TV's about 16-17 years ago, when LCD was new, and plasma existed with 120hz refresh. 120hz is still fairly new.

 

[neatfeatguy]

Years ago I used to have a 60GB (or maybe 80GB, I don't remembe exactly) drive that held all my .mp3 files....was probably around 2002 when I last used it. I used winamp all the time to play my music. Thousands of songs...and the plugins for it were fun to watch as you just chilled.

If I still had a bunch of music I'd be tempted to use winamp again. I always did enjoy it. Simple, easy to use and worked for what I needed.

Spoiler

I had a lot of CDs stolen around the same time I copied all my music to that drive HDD and never really bothered to make new CDs. I ended up moving, then getting a new computer and didn't reconnect the HDD with music. I just tucked her away in a safe spot and kind of forgot about it over the years.

That music filled HDD moved multiple times with me and about 10 years later (around 2012/2013) when I came across it I thought - well, damn, I got lots of music on here. Let's get it connected!

I had to dig out the IDE cable and connect it to the MB (she still had an IDE port on her). Looking at the drive the jumper was set to slave. I connected it, but I couldn't get the system to recognize it. Moved the jumper to master and tried multiple times reconnecting cables and moving the jumper, but she wouldn't be recognized on my system. I went as far as to take it to my work and connect it to a computer there that was still using older IDE drives, but it wouldn't be recognized. So I ended up just pitching it.

I have very little music I own or even just owning CDs, I've got maybe 3 dozen CDs and I'm too lazy to copy over and convert to .mp3 to play on winamp. I just listen to the radio. I don't like Spotify - I won't pay for it and the ads on it are just shit awful. I just listen to the radio and change stations if a commercial comes on and if I can't find something or any song I want to listen to, I just turn the radio off and sit in silence.

There are two things that bring me joy from the silence.
1) There is too much noise in the world and sometimes, silence is golden
2) My kids freak the fuck out when there isn't constant noise and they start to panic if they can hear their own thoughts while riding in the car. "Dad! What's wrong with the radio?" "Dad! Why is the music turned off?" "Dad! Turn the music on.....I don't want to sit in silence, this is stupid!"

 

[The red spirit]

Oh I see. I still use Winamp up to this day, although VLC has been a friend of mine too.

What's your take on foobar2000?

 

[Susquehannock]

Have a 220gb music collection. Still use Winamp 2.91. Does what needs to be done. See no need for a new player.

 

[freeagent]

Winamp is still around? Wow I haven’t used it since the early 2000s. Crazy.

 

[Ferather]

I started with MPC-HC, now I use Potplayer.

 

[silentbogo]

One can always work on OS integration. Newer notifications, integration with indexing services... There's always something to do, even if you keep the UI unchanged.

+
Also, it's important to keep up with hardware and modern tech. Mainstream has moved onto streaming anyways, so the majority of <<vocal>> users are at least enthusiasts and self-proclaimed audiophiles.
So, besides the obvious UX/UI people always complain about support for their favorite new DAC, or about spatial audio(which is the new popular thing, like FLAC was many years ago). I do not belong to either category and all I need is a decent playlist/library manager for my death metal collection, but some of these features are good nicehaves (something you won't necessarily use daily, but can brag about). And I'm not talking video, I'm talking all of the music stuff that's been recently re-released in dolby atmos, or all the weird folk/ambient music that sounds even weirder and cooler with modern implementations of virtual surround.

This is one more reason why I prefer my physical MP3 player - it doesn't get unnecessary (or any) updates.

My last one was iPod touch, which I received as a present 2 days after buying a 3GS.... While they do have their pros, cons outweigh it by a large margin. I don't think I used it more than a dozen times throughout its lifetime.
Modern phones can do all of that if not more. Some even have pretty good DACs and headphone preamps. Not sure what made your experience on Android unbearable, but I love VLC and AIMP on my phone.
All the important controls are present, including EQ, decent set of presets and effects, audio track offsets in video, decent playlist management, good integration web services(not ads or telemetry) etc. Virtual surround is beyond amazing on my phone. I thought windows sonic was mind blowing when it came out, but on my new Poco F3, and even on my old Nokia 8 it was wa-a-ay better and more realistic. Binaural recordings are beyond amazing, movies with surround sound feel as good if not better than an actual surround system (even on my ghetto-modded cheap-o Sennheiser 465). Another big deal for me is having several options for playback/volume control. I can even pair it with some random MiTV remote which someone left at my workshop and use that if my phone is docked near speakers, or use controls on a headset, or repurpose phone's buttons to do things that I want(or more than one thing).

What's your take on foobar2000?

Been using it for over 17 years now. Green font + black background + monotype font, and your friends think that you are about to hack pentagon. Most of my college buddies ran Norton Commander-inspired theme
Functionally it's still the best, but minimalism takes awhile to get used to. Not everyone's cup of tea.
AIMP is probably more mainstream, or if you like VLC - just use that for audio. Gets the job done and works just as well.

 

[AusWolf]

Winamp at its core was a modular music player with plugins. The "skins and visualizations" part burned out relatively fast, just like Stardock Windowblinds and other pre-Vista prettifying trinkets, or fad for fancy 3D screensavers.
The plugins part is what stagnated. There were few big things that started coming up and gain traction in early 2000s, like lossless audio, alternative codecs, better audio processing engines, more robust EQ/effects libraries, constant modernization etc. Competition was on top of it, while winamp stayed the same throughout early 00s.

Interesting. I've got into the flac mania relatively late, so I've had no problems with later winamp versions. Same with the equaliser: it gets the job done. I don't need any special effects, I prefer pure music as the author intended. The only other thing I need is playlist management, with which winamp is flawless. I don't know what else the competition offered, but it sure didn't tempt me to look elsewhere.

What's your take on foobar2000?

Never tried it, to be honest.

My last one was iPod touch, which I received as a present 2 days after buying a 3GS.... While they do have their pros, cons outweigh it by a large margin. I don't think I used it more than a dozen times throughout its lifetime.
Modern phones can do all of that if not more. Some even have pretty good DACs and headphone preamps. Not sure what made your experience on Android unbearable, but I love VLC and AIMP on my phone.

It's not unbearable, but while everything I want to do with an mp3 player takes only a press of a button (without even looking), you need to take your phone out of your pocket, look at the screen and touch at the right spot, even if your player app supports controls while locked. Nothing beats simplicity. I also find playlist management simpler on my physical player.

 

[The red spirit]

It's not unbearable, but while everything I want to do with an mp3 player takes only a press of a button (without even looking), you need to take your phone out of your pocket, look at the screen and touch at the right spot, even if your player app supports controls while locked. Nothing beats simplicity. I also find playlist management simpler on my physical player.

Not to mention that dedicated mp3 players have nearly month long battery life.