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Plexamp, Plex's Spin on the Classic Winamp Player, Is the First Project From New Incubator Plex Labs (techcrunch.com)
Media software maker Plex today announced a new incubator and community resource called Plex Labs. "The idea here is to help the company's internal passion projects gain exposure, along with those from Plex community members," reports TechCrunch. "Plex Labs is also unveiling its first product: a music player called Plexamp," which is designed to replace the long-lost Winamp. From the report: The player was built by several Plex employees in their free time, and is meant for those who use Plex for music. As the company explains in its announcement, the goal was to build a small player that sits unobtrusively on the desktop and can handle any music format. The team limited itself to a single window, making Plexamp the smaller Plex player to date, in terms of pixel size. Under the hood, Plexamp uses the open source audio player Music Player Daemon (MPD), along with a combination of ES7, Electron, React, and MobX technologies. The end result is a player that runs on either macOS or Windows and works like a native app. That is, you can use media keys for skipping tracks or playing and pausing music, and receive notifications. The player can also handle any music format, and can play music offline when the Plex server runs on your laptop.
The player also supports gapless playback, soft transitions and visualizations to accompany your music. Plus, the visualizations' palette of colors is pulled from the album art, Plex notes. Additionally, Plexamp makes use of a few up-and-coming features that will be included in Plex's subscription, Plex Pass, in the future. These new features are powering functionality like loudness leveling (to normalize playback volume), smart transitions (to compute the optimal overlap times between tracks), soundprints (to represent tracks visually), waveform seeking (to present a graphical view of tracks), Library stations, and artist radio.
The player also supports gapless playback, soft transitions and visualizations to accompany your music. Plus, the visualizations' palette of colors is pulled from the album art, Plex notes. Additionally, Plexamp makes use of a few up-and-coming features that will be included in Plex's subscription, Plex Pass, in the future. These new features are powering functionality like loudness leveling (to normalize playback volume), smart transitions (to compute the optimal overlap times between tracks), soundprints (to represent tracks visually), waveform seeking (to present a graphical view of tracks), Library stations, and artist radio.
I still use WinAmp and it works perfectly fine. I decided to give this new PlexAmp a try but you can't even install the program without first creating an account and logging into their website. Sorry. Fuck you. Deleted.
Every time somebody wants to "improve" winamp they add extra windows, useless art and make it slower to start.
Even the winamp guys themselves fell for that trap. I never used the media management stuff nor the modern skins.
Funny, I downloaded it just fine. The file name is "Plexamp Setup 1.0.0.exe"
I followed the link from the story, but then again I downloaded the Windows version, perhaps the mac is different, I didn't see a Linux version either...
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
There's no need for a Winamp replacement. I'm running Winamp right now on Windows 7 and Windows 10. Newer displays with higher resolutions or old nerds losing their eyesight need "double size" turned on so the controls are easier to read but that's about it. The classic skins need to be used for maximum nostalgia and readability. Milkdrop2 and AVS come with Winamp 5.666 and I have zero complaints. It takes a while for it to sort a playlist with tens of thousands of songs but it's just as awesome as it was in 1999. Best of all, it's written the way a program should be: compact, easy to control, almost zero learning curve, no unnecessary internet phone home bullshit (especially since Winamp has changed hands and ceased development, even the installation stat reporter doesn't work when it does try to phone home to bump the install base stats.)
Plexamp is 45MB
Winamp is 10MB
But fuck it I got Foobar2000 (4MB)
Welp - I'm a Plex user, and I'd been after something to play my music... so... ideal...
Downloaded, installed. And off we go.
Program opens, but in an awkward spot. So I spend... a few minutes... trying to move the window. Growing increasingly frustrated, I give up and decide "Okay, fine. Let's just play... I don't know... some Nightwish. Yeah."
Where's the music explorer, or whatever it's called in this paradigm? I... want to play... Nightwish. "You can listen to Radiohead!". "Here's some Jeff Wayne!"
In the end, in frustration, I pull out the keyboard and search for Nightwish. I get Nightwish. Gah, but I don't want to play this song. I'd love some kind of 'list' that I can create of the music I wish to 'play'!
In desperation, I load up the help page for the program.
https://plexamp.com/#help
How do I move the app window?
The app can be moved once you choose something to play. While playing, simply click and drag in the top half of the album art/visualizer.
How do I browse my library?
Plexamp is not a normal Plex app in the sense that you're not intended to just straight "browse" a music library.
How do I change the volume?
There are no volume controls in the app itself. Instead, simply use the system volume controls on your computer.
Summary.
This is easily the best music app that required me to resort to an FAQ to move the window, play the music I wanted to hear, and decrease the volume.