The Daily Ping

I’ve always been pretty picky about how I listen to my music. And because of that, when I found an application that worked with me rather than against me, I stuck with it. From 1998 until about three weeks ago, Quintessential CD/Media Player (QCD or QMP) was that product. It was a freeware app that played music. Period. It handled CDs well and if you kept a well-organized directory structure of MP3s, it did those well, too. It was miles away from iTunes but was way more usable and attractive than Winamp. And the Minima skin was freakin’ awesome.

But a few weeks back, I stumbled across a new product that I wanted to try. See, I think iTunes is OK, but it’s got a few glaring holes that work against me, especially with a large music collection. But, I like the general interface enough and could get used to something like it. Somehow in previous searches I had missed MediaMonkey, but decided to give it a shot. It didn’t take long before I fell in love all over again.

It takes all the features and general design of iTunes and adds more. For instance, sure it lets you make playlists and “smart” playlists, but it also lets you browse your music by location. Why is that such a rare feature? I can point it at my MP3 folder and it indexes and categorizes everything but then also adds it to the “Location” area so I can browse the folder hierarchy. It gives me every possible view of my music that I could want.

Plus, editing ID3 tags is a breeze, ripping CDs is super easy (though a tad slow unless you register), and it allows rating of songs (something I always wanted in QCD). It’s a really, really great program and about the only things I don’t care for are some of the default skins (very XP-ish looking) and the fact I can’t quite get a Minima-type view of the actual player.

But, overall, MediaMonkey is a solid player and organizer for your digital music. It has dethroned QCD, reigning champion of over eight years. Well done, Monkey.

Posted in Technology, Television, Movies, and Music