Winamp set an industry-wide standard with its unmatched user-friendliness and customization features, becoming a go-to music player for users looking for an easy, straightforward media player solution.
After an extended hiatus due to COVID-19 pandemic, Radionomy finally unveiled a revised version of Winamp last month with Fanzone as an exclusive service designed to allow artists to bypass industry gatekeepers.
Media Library
Winamp was one of the early MP3 players to make an impressionful online debut. It quickly rose in popularity due to its ability to support most audio formats, fun visualizers, and unique “skins” that customized its user interface. Unfortunately, with the rise of digital streaming platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify taking away its dominance in 2013, Winamp was discontinued by its parent company AOL; its subsequent relaunch however, has been well received by fans, promising an easy user experience.
This new version features a clean, straightforward Bento skin and several major updates behind-the-scenes – most importantly that Visual Studio 2008 has been upgraded to Visual Studio 2019, meaning Winamp now requires Windows 7 or later to run correctly.
Functionally, the media library has been updated and simplified. By default, your local media will now appear in a grid format instead of list-based format, making it easier to locate specific files while offering you more or less media in each view.
Other changes include a revamped preferences panel and the option to customize various media-related settings, such as selecting an encoder default and configuring which metadata fields will be read during import. There’s also now an option that lets users determine whether their media library database loads automatically at startup – something which could save memory on certain systems.
Other settings to take note of include setting up a media cache to store data on your hard disk to speed up playback, and an option to rescan folders on a schedule, and set whether media should be removed from your library after playing it.
Playlists
Winamp provides several playlist-related features that can help you manage and play media files efficiently, such as sorting and filtering features, the option to shuffle songs, and repeating playlists. Furthermore, customizing your playlist with visualizations or equalizer settings to improve music listening experiences.
Start creating your playlists today by opening Winamp and clicking the Playlists tab at the top of its interface. From here, simply select an individual song from your list and drag-and-drop to reposition in your playlist; by moving songs around you can easily create unique flows and atmospheres within it.
Once you have created a playlist, you can save it to your computer for future listening or exercising purposes. Saved playlists come in various formats including M3U and MP4. Plus you can add album art for added visual interest!
Winamp allows you to easily create playlists for different occasions and genres, helping you organize your music library more efficiently and find songs more quickly. Furthermore, it enables you to organize files by artist name, album title or song name and create folders on your computer or device for categorizing them further – with accurate metadata so Winamp displays them correctly.
Winamp can also create portable playlists for use on USB devices or MP3 players, saving time by eliminating file transfers individually to each device. Furthermore, you can specify a folder on your USB drive as the location for this playlist; furthermore you have control over whether to include either backslash or dot in each entry of each playlist entry (some devices require this).
Lyrics
Winamp was among the first media players to support MP3s during the late ’90s when MP3s first made waves in music culture, enabling you to easily listen to and create playlists of your favorite tracks while customizing your listening experience with a wide array of skins and plugins.
Lyrik is a free plugin for Winamp that will display text lyrics when playing any song. Accessible via the Plug-ins menu in Winamp, it is incredibly straightforward: start playing any tune and the lyrics will appear automatically in a transparent window; simply resize or scroll with your mouse wheel to see more!
This program is a straightforward yet efficient solution that will significantly enhance your musical experience. With an expansive database of lyrics to choose from, if it cannot find what you need it can even download them! Unlike many similar applications which don’t remember correctly how the song goes… this one does.
One disadvantage of this software is that it doesn’t provide as much synchronization, yet still manages to provide lyrics when songs start playing. Furthermore, multiple computers can install it at the same time and it displays different languages depending on which song is currently playing.
Overall, Winamp Lyrics is an outstanding addition. Lightweight and space efficient, it makes a useful companion for managing large collections of MP3 files. Just ensure you have an internet connection to keep it functioning. Explicit lyrics are disabled by default but this setting can be altered as desired.
Visualizations
Winamp stands out from other media players by offering an assortment of visualizations that sync up perfectly with the music being played, making your listening experience much more fun and entertaining. To access them, just click on Visualization button or choose it from Preferences menu – once selected press Start button to begin playing your music with this visualization!
Visualizers are graphic displays that move in sync with the beat of music being played, offering an engaging and exciting viewing experience. There are multiple visualizer options available for Winamp that may even come equipped with virtual dance floors to allow interaction with the song being played.
Geiss 2 is one of the most sought-after visualization plugins for Winamp, developed by Ryan Geiss and licensed to Nullsoft. To install it, launch Winamp and go to Options > Preferences. Under Classic Visualization plugin select it then “Start” it is ready for use!
WhiteCap is another fantastic visualization plugin. This 3D visualizer works beautifully with Winamp, serving both as a screen saver and an Oculus Rift visualizer. There are over 260 presets to select, making this highly customizable solution.
Radionomy, the creators of Winamp, released a new version that included streaming service Fanzone to give artists an incentive to publish on it and generate income through it. It remains in beta phase, yet is set to become available across Windows, Android and iOS devices.
EQ
Winamp offers an equalizer that enables you to modify how a song sounds, from making sure that its volume matches your room type or simply tweaking music as desired. Even professional audio engineers utilize equalization when listening through headphones or other equipment.
The Equalizer allows you to adjust frequency bands and other general settings. It comes equipped with 17 presets – Rock, Techno and Full Base can all be found here – while more experienced users may also create and save their own presets through Custom EQ’s menu item.
Crossfading, another feature in the Equalizer, provides a seamless way of switching songs by gradually fading out the current track and simultaneously fading in a new track. ReplayGain is another unique technology offered by ReplayGain that attempts to normalize relative volume levels between tracks by measuring playback level before striving to ensure all tracks play back with equal volume levels.
Other options available to users of Winamp include the display of the current track title in Windows taskbar and disabling always on top while other fullscreen applications are in focus, or setting a maximum CPU priority class for Winamp main window and plugins.
Winamp offers an option to customize its home screen, enabling you to rearrange its buttons as well as access favorite SHOUTcast stations or playlists directly. Furthermore, global hotkeys allow you to perform certain actions even while Winamp isn’t active on your computer.
