Everything you wanted to know about Foobar2000 music player

Most recently a discussion on the topic has been started on our blog that who and how to work with your library. A lot of people said that they are in the player foobar2000. One commentator even I volunteered to write about him unfolded material. What happened - it's a great text about why you this player and how to manage it in your library. At the end of the text you will find screenshots illustrating described.

In this article, I would like to talk about the possibilities of such a wonderful program like foobar2000. In fact foobar - this is not just another music player, and a tool for playing and making various operations on audio files. Razrabyvaetsya program for a long time, the first issue came out back in 2000. The author is Peter Pawlowski, a well-known developer Winamp'a, in particular the third branch. After disagreements with the rest of the team, he decided to create his own player.

The installer takes more than 2 megabytes, but you are already getting a lot of built-in support for audio formats, media library, capable of quickly processing thousands of files "Seamless" playback support, ReplayGain support, easy to use converter, full Unicode support, it is easy to change the interface and most importantly, the modular structure allows boost whatever functional.

Where to begin? Perhaps with the interface, which causes so many complaints and confusion among the neophytes. At first glance, actually the player looks very austere, but the whole force foobar2000 interface is that it can change the way your heart desires. The basic version you have only the so-called Default UI, the design of which is based entirely on the design of your Windows. In the form of plug-ins, there are alternative user interfaces, the most popular is, of course, Columns UI, there are still Panels UI, but it no longer develop. Many people like me quite enough of functionality that provides a DUI, but if you want krasivostej in the network can find a lot of configurations for the Columns, such as deviantart.

Prior to version 0.9.5 DUI virtually gave no opportunity to change something, then having incorporated some ideas of the Columns, He has become a real designer, in which the dimensions of the elements, their location and the access to them, identifies himself user. All this can be done in Layout Editing Mode mode, or if you want to experiment first, then for this purpose there is a special feature Scratchbox. Here you can get up all you want without fear of spoiling an already configured interface. You dividers available as vertical and horizontal tabs, toolbars and controls. Mark the most convenient way for you to interface, it's time is now placed in selected areas remaining elements such as playlist media library, covers output, visualization and control playlists. In principle, this work with the Layout Editing Mode is finished. Then comes tuning elements placed. The most important of these is, of course, playlist and media library.

playlist

foobar2000 playlist consists of columns, each of which displays any one type of information. Also, playlist allows you to combine the tracks in the group on certain grounds, be it an album, artist, genre, and so on. D. By default, you have given a certain set of speakers and groupings of schemes, but there is nothing stopping you from adding your own. For example, I listen to music albums, and I like to see a variety of additional information, such as the year issue, the publisher, the number of plays and rating, so I use the group by album and some their column.

Additional information is taken from the tag, and it's output and presentation are described using special tags and functions that can be found in the guide. It is said that foobar2000 allows you to create as many playlists. You can place them in Tabah, controlled via a special item or access them via the drop-down list. Playlists can be either static or dynamic. With static playlists think everything is clear, just throw the tracks, and its contents will always be constant. Dynamic playlists, or whatever they are called here autoplaylists, allow you to display only those tracks media library that match a particular request. To create it is necessary in the search bar type, for example, the artist name and click on «Create autoplaylist». Now, when in the media library will be new tracks for this artist, they automatically will appear in playlists. The query language is very flexible, it offers a set of keywords for specific types of comparisons and allows you to combine multiple query expressions. The certificate describes all keywords and syntax queries.

Media library

I think the addition of folders in the Media Library will not be difficult with you, it may be a single folder or a few. After the initial indexing of all the changes they will instantly be taken into account. To work with the media library in the basic version available to you so called Album List. C it you can sort and display the way you want all of your files. Displaying your media library is created in much the same way as the group tracks in the playlist, that is, using the tag, but here you can also use the function. You can create any number of maps, and then simply select them from the drop-down list. Believe me it is very convenient.

Working with files and tags

Foobar2000 allows you to easily perform various file operations whether it be copied, moved or renamed. Just create a desired pattern (again with the help of tags), highlight the tracks in the playlist and media library, the context menu is caused by a template and voila: File Operations committed. Yes, and more. Drag & Drop is still here.
Edit tags conveniently in one file or a few. You can copy-paste them, delete, add your own fields... Needless to say, you can work with any type of tags: ID3v1 and IDv2, ape, vorbis. To fill them, you can use the freedb database, but I do not like, because not accurate and there's little information. I use the plugin foo_discogs. He takes the data from the enormous store Discogs.com site also has a function jumps album covers. The additional fields you can put any information on the track and album that are on Discogs, and then these fields can be to sort, add new columns and grouping scheme in a playlist, or create a new display media library. You feel the power? :)

Converter and CD Ripper

By itself, foobar2000 is not a converter, it has a built-frontend for various encoders. By default, you are setting compression in the form of a slider for a six audio compression formats: aac, mp3, flac, wavpak, musepack and ogg vorbis. But you can add your own presets, or choose any other encoder. Since all encoders is a console program, to create your own preset, you will need to use the keys. Then you create a template for the converter, which indicates the compression presets, output folder, and so on. D. Then this template is available in the context menu, as well as with file operations. For example, I have this setup for my Cowon D2: the selected tracks are converted to ogg with an average bitrate of 160 kbit / s, and throw in a folder structure: Performer - year - Album \ Track number - Name track. After configuring the desired template once, the whole process of compression is reduced to a single mouse click. You may not feel the power? :) I should not even say that compression makes sense only if the schemes lossless → lossless and lossless → lossy, but not lossy → lossy, and lossy → lossless.

Function CD ripper is a relatively new, and settings in it much less than in such highly specialized programs such as, for example, Exact Audio Copy. However, you can specify the offset for his drive and set the level of precision rip. In the same process used by your previous templates for the converter can be either "on the fly" to set up a new one.

plugins

Plugins can extend the already rich functionality foobar2000. It can support more audio formats, the new user interface, scrobbler last.fm, lyrics display and much more. Until recently, all this economy not been centralized, and nobody monitored. But Peter seem seriously took up the issue, now on a section of the project website, which brings together the most popular and interesting razarbotka. Furthermore the player has a facility, which tracks the installed plugins for the instability of what you can then warn. The solution is to use such a module or not is up to you. Installation is as simple as copying the dll file to the components folder in the root directory foobar, though the player will have to be restarted if it is running.

Of course here described, not all possibilities, and only the most basic, there are plenty of details and additional features that can be useful in almost all cases the music life. I think after reading this brief review, many realized how convenient, powerful, and even a nice tool can be foobar2000. Nevertheless, it is necessary to understand a lot, especially if you have just started to get acquainted with this program. I encourage everyone to change to it, someone does not want all the benefits that gives foobar, someone has no time or desire to configure, however, for those who are not looking for easy ways and wants to have almost unlimited control over their digital audio collections foobar2000 will be a real gift.

Foobar2000

Author: Arrhythmia Sound