boredsquirrel (he)

Searching for the best Music Player

https://slrpnk.net/post/11300032

Searching for the best Music Player - SLRPNK

WAIT! before you start commenting that TUI musicplayer xy is the best, my priorities: must have: - support for m3u playlists (synced to Android with Syncthingy) - support for viewing all files - support for custom music directories - support for deleting music files - Flatpak OR clutterfree on KDE would like: - Pipewire output - nice simple GUI - modern, clutterfree design OR customizability - subtitles, cover images, etc. I used G4Music but it has literally no features. I cant even delete files. I am now trying Strawberry, a fork of Clementine which roughly comes from the old Amarok music player. It looks really dated and seems overcomplex for me, also I dont think it has Pipewire support.

Jul 10, 2024 at 6:07pmWeb
Show threadrudyharrelsonJul 10, 2024
I dunno if VLC can do “Pipewire output”, but I think it does a lot of the other stuff you mentioned. I use it on my desktop (Mint) and my phone (Android) and it suits my needs at least.
Show threadboredsquirrel (he)Jul 10, 2024

Hm, VLC is an unofficial (but very well done) Flatpak, no Wayland support and a bit bloated and not well suited for playing music afaik. But I may have to give it another try.

The new 4.0 version of VLC looks very cool, but it is only available from an Ubuntu PPA which I used with a Ubuntu Distrobox, but no way that sucks too.

Should do some Github action to extract the binary from that PPA and pack it into a Flatpak.

Show threadpaskalivichiJul 10, 2024

If your system is using pipewire, any audio player will also use it.

Strawberry is the best youre gonna get. For KDE, Elisa is also an option ive used in the past. Prettier but simpler.

Show threadboredsquirrel (he)Jul 10, 2024

No it will use ALSA, Jack or often Pulseaudio. Pipewire can plug into these, but this causes overhead and to my knowledge doesnt allow things like external Equalization.

I may have to give Elisa another try. I think Strawberry (and Clementine) and Elisa suck. They are completely unintuitive, the UI has too many buttons and options for random stuff, and basic things you expect dont work.

Show threadKlaymoreJul 10, 2024
I use Strawberry with JamesDSP for Linux (on Pipewire) and the equalizer works, not sure how other equalizer software does it though.
Show threadleopoldJul 10, 2024
Source? PipeWire was designed to use those APIs. This is the first time I hear about it causing any particular issues or overhead.
Show threadgaylord_fartmasterJul 10, 2024
I’m pretty sure Fooyin meets all these. It’s still very early in development but I like it more than any of the other native Linux music players I’ve tried.
GitHub - fooyin/fooyin: A customisable music player

A customisable music player. Contribute to fooyin/fooyin development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub
Show threadboredsquirrel (he)Jul 10, 2024

Yes I tried it and really like a lot of it, but some thing didnt suit my needs.

Maybe it was the lack of setting a custom directory, or not read/writing the .m3u playlist files correctly.

Show threadEpheraJul 10, 2024

Maybe JuK: juk.kde.org

It is for the most part as minimal as it looks, except that it’s actually quite good for playlists and managing one’s music collection.

It doesn’t have a ton of devs behind it, so I would be surprised, if they had native Pipewire support already. Otherwise, I think, it covers what you’ve listed.

KDE JuK

Show threadboredsquirrel (he)Jul 10, 2024

Juk was the main music player in LXQt and I cant find it anywhere.

It will likely be on Qt5 or even older, and not get updates any time soon.

Show threadleopoldJul 10, 2024
Dunno what you mean. JuK was ported to Qt6 last February alongside the rest of KDE. It’s on Flathub and most distro repositories.
Show threadboredsquirrel (he)Jul 11, 2024
Interesting? I didnt know that. Will have another look at it
Show threadboredsquirrel (he)Jul 12, 2024

Interesting maybe that was a bit later, when I looked I could not find it.

Thanks for pointing that out!

Show threadwingsfortheirsmilesJul 10, 2024
Deadbeef might be worth a look, though you might need a plugin for folder view
Show threadUnquote0270Jul 10, 2024
I’ve been down this rabbit hole as well. They all have problems but I’m most happy with Cantata for library playing (beets for file/tag management) and deadbeef for odd local files and file conversation.
Show threadcircuitfarmerJul 10, 2024

The lack of a really good, customizable player on Linux has been probably my least favorite part of the whole experience. Deadbeef is close, but it seriously needs a good media library plugin.

For that reason, I’m still using foobar2000, which is Windows-only but available as a Snap using wine (and yes, I hate Snap). I check regularly to see if there are better native options, but even with the clunk from Snap and the relatively ugly UI due to wine, foobar remains superior IMHO. I think it checks all your boxes, except it’s a Snap.

Show threadsudoJul 11, 2024

MPD + some GUI client. Plattenalbum is one such client but it’s an outlier because its album based when MPD is playlist based.

  • directories for music or playlists are configurable
  • supports alsa, jack, pulseaudio, and pipewire
  • album art is up to the client
  • deleting music is up to the client.

I also recommend installing mpDris for mpris support.

Show threadspacemanspiffyJul 11, 2024
Try Sayonara. I think it checks most if not all your boxes. I love it.
Show threadboredsquirrel (he)Jul 12, 2024
Very interesting app!