# Musicbee, best music manager/player?



## khaos974

I just came across Musicbee and was absolutely stunned, I immediately thought that it was what Songbirg tried to be but failed at being.
So why it is good, just check the features.
   
Unbuggy library management?               Check
Even with 10000+ files?                            Check again
WASAPI/ASIO support?                             Check
Auto tag, Album art search?                      Check
Transcoding (including lossess)?          Check
Smart playlists?                                          Check
Auto lyrics?                                                  Check
Last.fm artist biography, genre... ?         Check
DAP management?                                   Check
  Cue files/AccrurateRip                     Check
   
*All of the above out of the box?    CHECK*
*Free?                                             CHECK*
   

   
  And best of all it's has a reasonable memory footprint and runs without lag when searching for something.
   
  As for the cons, fb2k is remains faster and more responsive and it only runs with windows. Still a super app though.
  EDIT: More cons, not open source, but it's a philosophical issue rather than one of functionality.


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## darknessproz

So what does it offer over foobar2000? The GUI turns me off though, i find my columns UI without much tinkering looks much better.


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## Dynobot

Very nice.
   
  Windows offers so many nice music softwares.  There are sure to be a few that meets the needs of someone, although some of the smaller players like XMPlay have their niche following and won't change no matter what.
   
  Now all these programmers have to do is work on making a fully functional player for Mac OSX.  iTunes still has the Lions share, which is very sad because it generally sucks.


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## khaos974

Everything works out of the box with no component to download and configure, maybe?
 I would stay it's for people who want the possibilities offered by a fairly tweaked foobar with the convenience of itunes, or the people who want a Songbird that works.
   
  Quote: 





darknessproz said:


> So what does it offer over foobar2000? The GUI turns me off though, i find my columns UI without much tinkering looks much better.


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## krmathis

MS Windows only?               Check

 That and the lack of open source mean that it is far from being what Songbirg tried to be (or am) - a *cross-platform*, free and *open source* audio player.


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## darknessproz

Foobar2000 works fairly well out of the box as well, just need to add a wasapi or asio component for bitperfect. And like krmathis said, not open source
  Quote: 





khaos974 said:


> Everything works out of the box with no component to download and configure, maybe?
> I would stay it's for people who want the possibilities offered by a fairly tweaked foobar with the convenience of itunes, or the people who want a Songbird that works.


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## khaos974

To be fair, iTunes works pretty well on OSX, and I even listed its sole windows compatibility as a con in the OP.
  Besides I was speaking in terms of functionality, not in term of design philosophy.
  You don't get lyrics, artist info, covert art, search dap management with fb2k out of the box.


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## khaos974

You may want to try Clementine, it's both open source and cross platform, it is still very new and unpolished though.
  
  Quote: 





krmathis said:


> MS Windows only?               Check
> 
> That and the lack of open source mean that it is far from being what Songbirg tried to be (or am) - a *cross-platform*, free and *open source* audio player.


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## recorder

musicbee has, indeed converted many foobar/songbird, etc.users just because it is easily configured right out of the box.
  Look, if open source & mac compatible is your thing, look elseware, but don't knock this player without giving it a try, after all, it's free.
   
  The developer of musicbee is open & receptive to all suggestions, and puts out updates weekly, based on user feedback.
  Support on his website  is 1st rate.


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## darknessproz

True about the lyrics etc.. seems like a good player, but i'll still be sticking with my as yet unconfigured foobar2000. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  
  Quote: 





khaos974 said:


> To be fair, iTunes works pretty well on OSX, and I even listed its sole windows compatibility as a con in the OP.
> Besides I was speaking in terms of functionality, not in term of design philosophy.
> You don't get lyrics, artist info, covert art, search dap management with fb2k out of the box.


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## HeatFan12

This player looks interesting indeed.  How does gapless playback perform with it?  I like to try new players out and will give it a shot if the gapless is truly gapless. 
   
  Thanks for the heads up.


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## JulioCat2

It's a nice promising player.


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## Aiml3ss

I LOVE Musicbee!
   
  Only problem is that I can't seem to get WASAPI to work. It stutters and sounds like crap when I use it. Anyone know what I am doing wrong?


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## recorder

Quote: 





heatfan12 said:


> This player looks interesting indeed.  How does gapless playback perform with it?  I like to try new players out and will give it a shot if the gapless is truly gapless.
> 
> Thanks for the heads up.


 
  Gapless is, truly gapless, both with Direct Sound and ASIO.


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## recorder

Quote: 





aiml3ss said:


> I LOVE Musicbee!
> 
> Only problem is that I can't seem to get WASAPI to work. It stutters and sounds like crap when I use it. Anyone know what I am doing wrong?


 

 I'm on XP, so I haven't had an opportunity to try it, but there is an ongoing thread here


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## JulioCat2

Quote: 





aiml3ss said:


> I LOVE Musicbee!
> 
> Only problem is that I can't seem to get WASAPI to work. It stutters and sounds like crap when I use it. Anyone know what I am doing wrong?


 
   
  I have problems with WASAPI too, i get sound but when switch to another track the program stops, no problems at all with ASIO, so that's what i'm using.


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## HeatFan12

Well, it's a keeper....Still playing with it but so far I like the features.  Want to see how it behaves with my NAS, but not home at the moment.  Recorder, you were right on- gapless plays very very well.
   
  Thanks again for the heads up....
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




   
   

   
  ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
   
  It's giving a couple of my Foobar configs a run for their money......


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## Jubei

Nice foobar configs!
  
  Quote: 





heatfan12 said:


> Well, it's a keeper....Still playing with it but so far I like the features.  Want to see how it behaves with my NAS, but not home at the moment.  Recorder, you were right on- gapless plays very very well.
> 
> Thanks again for the heads up....
> 
> ...


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## reiserFS

No APE, TTA or TAK support, worthless to me.


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## JulioCat2

Quote: 





reiserfs said:


> No APE, TTA or TAK support, worthless to me.


 
   
  APE Yes
  TTA Yes
   
  Are you sure you test it????


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## reiserFS

Quote: 





juliocat2 said:


> APE Yes
> TTA Yes
> 
> Are you sure you test it????


 

 What about TAK though?


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## khaos974

I understand your need for ape, tta or tak support, after all, one may prefer a specific codec + container, but why do you need all three, does something stop you from transcoding the files?


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## reiserFS

Quote: 





khaos974 said:


> I understand your need for ape, tta or tak support, after all, one may prefer a specific codec + container, but why do you need all three, does something stop you from transcoding the files?


 
  Japanese rippers tend to use all three codecs and transcoding a 3TB collection isn't fun either.


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## khaos974

Point made, It's the main reason I want a player other than itunes for osx.


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## HeatFan12

Well, been playing around with it for a while and again, it's a keeper.  WASAPI is working great too...(tried with two different DACs).
   
  I don't believe I'll ever give up Foobar, but have to agree that MusicBee out of the box gets you going right away.  I gave up on Winamp because gapless playback on it, well, is not gapless (only using Direct Sound).





   
  Quote: 





recorder said:


> Gapless is, truly gapless, both with Direct Sound and ASIO.


 

  
  And WASAPI.  Does it very well....


  
  Quote: 





jubei said:


> Nice foobar configs!


 

 Thanks!....


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## HeatFan12

Okay, a few things.  I hope khaos does not mind and maybe this thread could be a sort of pro & con sort of deal.  I believe I read the developer is very receptive.
   
  First, I enjoy this player but just a few things I noticed when compared to Foobar.
   
  My ultimate test was with Cue Files. I archive all my rips as a single FLAC w/ cue (also, single WAV w/ cue for easy cd burning).  For music listening, my library consists of folders w/ split tracks from said cue files.  But every now and then while putting a fresh rip in my archive, I like to double-click the cue and voila, Foobar does not miss a beat and opens up and begins playing the album and all my tags are perfect etc....
   
  MusicBee will accomplish this task only if I add the folder with the cue and file to the library.  It will not play the cue if I right-click or double click-->play with MusicBee.  And the tags when I add the folder w/ cue are a bit off...The tags when I add folders with split tracks are correct.
   
  Also, maybe, in the future some sort of right-click on a file or album for the file properties and all meta-data.
   
  Sorry for the ramble, but I am a digital media player music freak....
   
  Good times....


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## recorder

Quote: 





heatfan12 said:


> Okay, a few things.  I hope khaos does not mind and maybe this thread could be a sort of pro & con sort of deal.  I believe I read the developer is very receptive.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
  Good input, HeatFan12.
  I'd strongly suggest you post this on MB's forum under the "Wishlist" topic.
  Steven is very receptive, and I'm certain he'll give you feedback.


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## HeatFan12

Thanks recorder...


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## Aiml3ss

Question guys:
   
  I can't get WASAPI to work but thats another story.
   
  As for selecting an audio device; Do I use 'Primary Sound Driver' or 'Realtek Digital Output'?


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## khaos974

If you select 'Primary Sound Driver', you'll get sound on your computer's speakers or on the line out, depending the the parameters you set.
  If you select 'Realtek Digital Output', you'll get an SP/DIF signal from the digital out of your motherboard and will need a DAC between the computer and your amp.


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## keanex

As someone who doesn't have the time to tinker with Foobar to get it to my liking, MusicBee has become my new favorite player over iTunes. It does everything I could possibly want iTunes to do. There isn't anything I need my media player to do that MusicBee can't.


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## ma_t14

Quote:


keanex said:


> As someone who doesn't have the time to tinker with Foobar to get it to my liking, MusicBee has become my new favorite player over iTunes. It does everything I could possibly want iTunes to do. There isn't anything I need my media player to do that MusicBee can't.


 

  This
   
  Unless you give MusicBee a try you don't know what you are missing


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## Cla55clown

How does it compare to J River Media Center? I just built a new PC and I'm trying to decide on a music manager since I'm ripping all of my CDs to FLAC.I know one is free (MB) and the other is not but what are the other major differences to go with MB? I don't mind paying if the software is worth it.


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## keanex

Quote: 





cla55clown said:


> How does it compare to J River Media Center? I just built a new PC and I'm trying to decide on a music manager since I'm ripping all of my CDs to FLAC.I know one is free (MB) and the other is not but what are the other major differences to go with MB? I don't mind paying if the software is worth it.


 


  Both will sound exactly the same, it's just a matter of which one you prefer to use.


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## JVineaux

I'm always surprised at the love foobar gets. It's a great player if all you need is the basics and you enjoy tinkering, but it doesn't support quite a few things, and the amount of tinkering to get it functional is insane. I hated having to search down random .dlls to support even the most simple things, even worse when you find they're not supported, and even then, doing a lot of basic things took me way too long (tagging, library updating, syncing with my clip, etc). People talk about its customisation qualities, but to me it was more a case of it being so bare-bones you had to add a lot of basic functionality to it afterwards, and even then it'll never have the aesthetic or usability cohesiveness of bigger players.
   
  Sorry for the bump but I really want to praise musicbee. I've been frustrated by music players since I began using computers, and musicbee is better than anything I could have asked for. They've just added theater mode too which does a pretty good job of emulating those sexy foobar configs you always see online (but which I never managed to get working myself!) 
   
  Just for reference, here's my own config. I always see pics of musicbee showing all the columns and they make it look very messy, but it's very configurable itself. Mine is just a minimalist album art browser that I navigate with tabs.


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## mbartelt

Hi,
   
  I just tried Musicbee Version 2.0.4551. I don't get ASIO working on my Asus Xonar D2X. Foorbar works with ASIO, but do randomly make a blue screen on my Windows 7 64-bit system. WASAPI seems to work on both players. So war all my ALAC and FLAC Files plays, but Musicbee is not able to decode HDCD. Or did i missed something? This is a great advantage for foobar. The apperiance just after install is much better with musicbee. It seems that the interface want to look like iTunes. Foobar is much looking easier, but do everything right.  At this moment i don't thing musikbee is the better player. To little plugins, that make foobar great. I thing about the convolver plugin, that helps me to normalise old CDs with preemphasis. I don't see it in Musicbee. About HDSC i wrote already and the DVD-Audio plugin for foobar is also great. But I must say, Steven Mayall does great programming and if he does it better, in some time it will be a great alternative to foobar.
   
  Manfred


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## JVineaux

I'm pretty sure I've seen a hdcd option in musicbee options somewhere. I'll have a look for you, and if not, you can always ask on the forums.
   
   
  Edit: I just checked the forums for you, it seems it's not implemented yet but will be eventually. http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=4355.0


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## mbartelt

Hi,
  Quote: 





jvineaux said:


> Edit: I just checked the forums for you, it seems it's not implemented yet but will be eventually. http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=4355.0


 
   
  thanks for looking. Lets see what the future brings.
   
  Manfred


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## azncookiecutter

Musicbee is good, but I've had problems with gapless playback over ASIO and WASAPI. For library management it's great, but for playback, foobar still is the best, at least for my setup.


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## wgan

the only reason I went back to good old foobar is I can't simply export any list/songs as .mu3 (or other playlist format), any ideas?


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## JVineaux

Quote: 





wgan said:


> the only reason I went back to good old foobar is I can't simply export any list/songs as .mu3 (or other playlist format), any ideas?


 
  You just create a playlist as normal, then right click it in the left column and select export playlist. .m3u is the default.


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## FulciLives

I've ditched MediaMonkey for MusicBee ... I love it.
   
  It seems to have all the same functions that MediaMonkey has but with a nicer, simpler, easier-to-use interface.
   
  I've not had any issues with gapless while using WASAPI on Windows 7 64-bit


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## JVineaux

Just stumbled on this thread again and wanted to mention they've added HDCD support to musicbee.


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## kmthd

I don't personally use Musicbee but I've installed it for other people several times. I always recommend it to people who find it easier to find/play music from a single interface. It's got some decent sound profiles if you have crap desktop speakers and wouldn't bother with an equalizer. It's more attractive than mediamonkey but in my experience it is less geared towards very large libraries than mediamonkey.
   
   
  Also check out Aimp2 http://www.aimp2.us/ which is in my opinion kind of a mix between foobar and musicbee, aesthetically speaking.
  If you prefer open source and cross platform Clementine is pretty nice. http://www.clementine-player.org/ It's an offshoot of Amarok created by people who didn't like the change in direction they were seeing starting a few years ago.
   
   
  I don't get it when people say foobar is featureless and takes a lot of tweaking. Foobar is by far the most feature packed player out there. Supports far more codecs than any other player. Anything that more than 5% of people will use is already included, if possible. Certain things have to be downloaded seperately, from their site tho, for legal reasons.
   
  Of course, plug-ins for services from third parties need to be installed. But that should be seen as a plus since these are often the heaviest of features, which often slow down players and lead to instability in the software.
   
  I will say tho that if you really want a solid browse-friendly media library integrated in to your player, or a ten-foot user interface, I wouldn't recommend foobar. Those features are completely outside the realm of fb2k's design goal. Not that you couldn't add them. Foobar is designed to be a program that doesn't rely on other programs.
   
  To put it how they used to, or have before, foobar is an audio player before it is a music player and it is designed for managers rather than browsers (audio manager vs music library). What is meant by that is that out of the box it won't manipulate your files by adding tags without your permission and it won't download artist information and random artwork only to slow down your system and mess up your library. It doesn't presume you have a computer full of music any more than it presumes you have a computer full of podcasts or audiobooks, or an ftp server on another device. As the name "foobar" suggests, foobar2000 is not a certain thing and it doesn't do any certain thing, it's a placeholder until the end user decides what they want to do with it. And it's certainly not a web browser like most modern programs.
   
  The other thing that throws me off is the interface customization complaints. It takes me maybe 3 minutes to completely set foobar exactly how I like it or how someone requests it. Everything revolves around simplicity and common sense with foobar. No going in to settings 20 times to tweak the interface only to find out a setting is under some name that a single person thought made sense. Foobar is basically unlock, drag, drop, lock. Beyond that it is pretty much stretch and right click/tick untick to resize or add/move/remove any individual part.
   
  Foobar doesn't require a mouse or a keyboard. Though you will need at least one...in most circumstances.
   
  FYI, check out Boom for a straight music player in a foobar package. Made by the same guy that makes foobar. It plays music exclusively, or in other words it's the software equivalent of a boombox for those people that still stick a CD in their computer when they want to listen to music.


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## Happy Camper

I'm giving it a whirl with ASIO and gotta say I like it. No hi res files but sounds pretty good 44/16. I may be able to get rid of some players now.


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## twizzleraddict

I've got my Musicbee set up just like JVineaux. After monkeying around w/foobar and MediaMonkey, this is the easiest to use for my purposes. Great program!


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## gnarlsagan

Just found this thread after using Musicbee for months. It really is the best music manager out there as far as combining ease of use with powerful settings options. I've used every major player.
   
  Foobar is useful but not as powerful and takes more effort for little gain. Show me something useful on Foobar that I couldn't do with Musicbee. I couldn't find anything after weeks of use. On the other hand, there was a lot that Musicbee could do that wasn't easily possible on Foobar, mostly having to do with editing many id3 tags at once and organizing music into different folder structures based on certain criteria. Third party device support is also robust, as is album artwork modification.
   
  Maybe I'll give Foobar another try someday but there are really no compelling reasons to do so.


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## Fungud

It has sleep / fade function that's easy to use. (JRivers does not)
  A relatively simple 'Auto DJ' unit to explore your library with. (MM does not)
  It' free. (JRMC and MM are not)
  The support online lacks snark or excessive ego. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




  Always ready to help and not over defensive about their product.
   
   
  Cons:
  Now Playing is screwy and sometimes takes you close to, but not exactly showing, the_ actual _track being played.
  Playing entire libray at once button very good call. But it'll jump around you library as opposed to mixing the library they laying it at your feet like JRMC.
  Easy to eff your sht up tweaking the controls that lay right underneath the eye pleasingly simple front.
  No real remote control function outside of your cell phone.
  Adding new tracks still kinda buggy and sometimes crashes MusicBee.
  Not very intuitive, once you get past the initial functions of the machine.
   
   
  Overall, combining a sleep/fade volume function and an Auto Dj 'Playing Doctor' function, under one roof, was the main deal maker for me. There's some wonkery in the layout that I need to tweak around with, but if I can get that sorted, I'm good.


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## lramirez1959

The only CON I've found is that it seems slower to load and render art work than JRiver, interface is gorgeous and sound quality is excellent.


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## jasonb

Just setup Musicbee. Will be seeing how it compares to iTunes. I've been looking for a way to dump iTunes.


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## pachku

Tried them all. MM is still the only one that can handle 450'000+ tracks on a NAS, without any hickups.


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## gnarlsagan

Hmm 300,000 here and Musicbee has no issues or any slowness whatsoever. Don't use a NAS though. I might recommend giving it another shot, as development has steadily continued for quite some time now, and there might be quite a few improvements and features compared to when you last used it. I might give MM another try just for fun too. Last time I used it was a couple years ago, and it was much too slow and buggy for me back then.


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## Stonephace

gnarlsagan said:


> Hmm 300,000 here and Musicbee has no issues or any slowness whatsoever. Don't use a NAS though. I might recommend giving it another shot, as development has steadily continued for quite some time now, and there might be quite a few improvements and features compared to when you last used it. I might give MM another try just for fun too. Last time I used it was a couple years ago, and it was much too slow and buggy for me back then.


 
  
 My collection isn't quite as big as yours, but Musicbee is the only manager/player I've tried (bar Squeezebox) that just works with my collection.
  
 My collection is stored on a Synology NAS and MB is the only software I've used that 1) finds my collection and 2) responds to changes I make to it using other s/ware (Tag&Rename/MP3Tag). MM/Amarok/Foobar either can't find the collection at all (MM, Amarok) or can't monitor it once they've found and scanned it (Foobar).
  
 Why they don't work, I have no idea, and I'd quite like to know - conflict with the MB install on my PC (Win8-64)? Conflict with the Squeezbox install on the NAS? Some blindingly obvious setting I'm embarrassingly missing in MM/Amarok/Foobar???


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## Randy Tellez

MB is a decent player with features iTunes never had.  I just intstalled it last night after using iTunes since the beginning of time. iTunes just seemes to get more problematic and as of late was crashing my PC like several times a day with it's resource hogging structure. Add to that I went from an iPod touch for music portablity to a Droid Turbo (64 Mg) cell phone that seems to be a proverbial bitch to sync for music file tranfer/sync to my Droid.
  
 The mere fact that MB has an A-Z search bar had me drooling right off the bat. iTunes was quite un-configurable by comparison. And with 10 minutes of browsing MB's features I had my Droid syncing my mp3 files. And SKINS!!! WOOHOO
  
 Another iTunes complaint I had was the progress bar.  It was a bit thicker sometime back.  Now it is too damned thin to hit first try when you want to advance any song. MB's is not very thick either, but still it seems easier to hit.
  
 So far, I am a happy camper as I don't fool around too much with anything else others seems to have issues with besides the above.


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