Also now advertises the developer's crappy streaming music service.Ħ) Cog is yet another abandonware and is very barebones and frankly useless.įor the past 3 years or so OS X has been having rough times as far as 3rd-party software is concerned. Quod Libet has nice sorting (not nice enough for the OP though) and nothing else.ĥ) Vox is a native option that strives a bit too hard for that minimal feeling (so forget about sorting) but ironically the UI has grown cramped and inexplicable while the feature set has bloated. Tomahawk is actively developed, but has started obnoxiously shoving streaming music integration at the user. Also try the 1.0 version available from a link on their github.Ĥ) Multiplatform ports Clementine, Tomahawk and Quod Libet are also options. It's decent.Ģ) Enqueue is a pretty competent player, but the developer has evaporated over 3 years ago.ģ) Sonora is another abandonware option, with a very tiny feature set, but it kinda works as a playlist player. It's one of the few music players that is actively being developed. Another feature I don’t consider essential is the interface with an iPod or iPhone, but it’t been years since I’ve “needed” that function.1) Swinsian is the most complete solution right now, which isn't saying much. That feature uses airplay, which isn’t something mission critical. iTunes was accessible by remote using the remote app. I have a specific folder that my downloaded music goes to, and when specified as a watched folder, those songs are added to my library.ĭespite Swinsian exceeding my expectations as a music player and organizer. You can tell Swinsian to watch a specific folder for new tracks and they will automagically be added to your library. Another feature I really enjoy is watched folders. It’s been a couple of years and I really like Swinsian While there is a license cost for it, Being able to have my library not crash the app is worth it. Music downloaded from AmazonMP3 has no DRM requiring logins to share music across platforms withou needing my iTunes password to be known. I did this through several highly curated playlists and a series of smart playlists of artists, genres or other criteria, I can’t remember the last time I purchased music through the iTunes Music Store, because for over 10 years I’ve exclusively bought music through Amazon’s digital music service. The main uses I had for iTunes was to listen to and organize my music. I can’t remember if there’s a Windows version, nor can I speak to any functionaliy While not free, (license fee per installation), it fit the bill for running “thin” without hogging resources like iTunes/Music would do even when not active, and could handle a large library like mine without taking a galf hour to open. With that in mind, he recommended I try Swinsian. I asked him if he could recommend an alternative to iTunes that could handle a massive sized library and similar playlist functionality. Specifically the size of my library (around 6 terrebytes, and the second being my smart playlists. As he used his diagnostic tools to assess why my Mac became unresponsive so often and found the primary problem to be with Mac Music. I started having so many issues with my Mac that I was in over my head at knowledge and skill with MacOS, that I engaged with a local Mac specialist. At some point, iTunes became “Music” and was built in to Mac OS. I always had it installed on both work and home machines. iTunes was the first application I downloaded and installed on a new computer along with Chrome. Once Apple launched their store, I found it almost too easy to purchase music that I didn’t have in my piles of CDs. I used it to build hundreds of playlists and a simple mechanism to burn a playlist to a CD. In fact, I’d go as far to say I was a power user of iTunes. I’d been an iTunes power user since early on when it became compatible with Windows in the mi-2000s. The title of this post is a play on the title of Elvis Costello’s book How To Play Guitar & Y, of which I recommend the audiobook
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