MusicBee - The Best Music Player/Manager

[Reethu]

A few weeks ago I was reading through @jackuars list of Best Free Software's For New PC and found so many great freebies in that. And I scrolled through the list to find one of the greatest freeware gems I found. After being a Winamp lover for it's features through the years and then switching to customizable power of Foobar, I finally found something that is the best of both worlds. That is MusicBee.

Oh my! I was really impressed with it's power it gave me to organize and play my music collection. Believe me, it nearly does everything that commercial music manager's does perfectly and even more, that too for *FREE*.

The current Stable Version is 2.5 but it gets an update every month and the Latest Version is 3.0RC2 which you can get from the forum

Website: MusicBee - Music Manager and Player
New Website (in works): MusicBee - The Ultimate Music Manager and Player (source: [NEW UPDATE] MusicBee website and forum redesign!! - MusicBee - Forum)
Forum: getmusicbee.com - Index - MusicBee - Forum (the forum is also getting redesigned)
Customization: Customisations - MusicBee - Forum
Wiki: MusicBee Wiki

(The customized circular images below is available only in 3.x versions)

FEATURES

Listen: Play your music the way that you want. Manage large music libraries and easily find what you want to hear.

• Support for all popular music formats as well as conversion between them.

• Automatically populate the Now Playing queue using custom Auto DJ rules.

• Find new music online by setting Auto DJ to stream similar artists from Last.fm.

• Easily create and manage static playlists.

• Create auto-playlists and radio-style playlists using powerful rules and options.

• Subscribe to Podcasts and have them automatically download.

• Browse Radio Station directories and save your favourites for one-click listening.

• Add Audiobooks and MusicBee will remember where to resume playback next time.

• Podcasts, Radio stations and Audio books are kept separate from your music library and playlist automation.

Tag: Easily add metadata to your music with a number of powerful tools

• Automatically organise library file names and structure.

• Store new music in the Inbox until it is properly tagged.

• Edit/View all tags with the extensive tag editor and the tag inspector.

• Define custom tags.

• Manage duplicates.

• Filter the library to show different sections according to custom criteria.

• Locate tracks using the advanced search function, and save custom searches.

Connect: Utilize your Internet connection to automatically find useful information about your music collection or the currently playing song.

• Browse the Internet with the integrated Web Browser.

• Scrobble with Last.fm.

• Automatically display artist information from the web while songs play.

• Identify and auto-tag tracks by analysing their sound signature.

• Search for album artwork or download it automatically.

• Automatically look up and display lyrics, and optionally save it into your tracks.

• Support for synchronised lyrics.

• Retrieve upcoming album releases and concerts.

• Access popular music blogs and stream new music directly from their feeds.

Party: Create the perfect party playlist and turn your computer into a music jukebox.

• Lock settings whilst still allowing guests to browse and play music.

• Set order of songs with the Now Playing queue by drag & drop, smart shuffle or Auto DJ.

• View multiple built-in visualisers or add more from Winamp.

Synchronize and Rip: Add songs from your CD collection to your library and sychronise with your devices.

• Secure, accurate CD-ripping and file conversion.

• Synchronize music to other devices (including iOS 3.0 devices and earlier).

• Import libraries from iTunes and Windows Media Player.

• Monitor folders for new files.

Customize: Create your own unique look and feel, and add more features with plugins.

• Download skins and plugins.

• Support for MiniLyrics and Subsonic with plugins.

• Customise the layout with separate panels and different views.

• View your music collection in Artwork view..

• Switch between the Main Player, Mini Player and Compact Player mode.

Advanced Audio Tools: Get the most out of your speakers with tools for those who sound quality matters.

• View the 5-band Spectrum Visualiser..

• Smart Crossfade between tracks.

• Listen to music without interruption with Gapless Playback.

• Fine-tune the sound with the 10-band Equaliser and DSP effects.

• Utilize high-end audio cards with WASAPI and ASIO support.

• All without the need for additional software, making MusicBee a favourite among audiophiles.

Support: Learn how to accomplish certain tasks and field your questions in the MusicBee community forum.

• Ask for help on the MusicBee website which provides free, thorough support.

• Join the MusicBee forum and interact with fellow enthusiastic users and the developer.

Lots of other features: Countless other features with more being added all of the often.

• Turn off the computer with Auto-Shutdown.

• Keep track of when songs were played with Play History.

• Customize the mapping of hotkeys.

• Create a Portable installation.

• Support for multiple libraries.

• Localisation support for other languages.

 

[Jrs30]

Last week I installed it! I was about 45 minutes stirring it and setting ... Very complete! More I did get lost! There are many options is a very complete player! Maybe in the future I will give another chance for him!
My favorite player is AIMP3 also has many options, not so much as MusicBee but is a great at it!
My vote was for third option! For I have given him a chance, many settings (and certainly I lost myself, because my purpose is to organize my songs by artists and have quick access to music I want, MusicBee have it! But I got a little lost, maybe for not knowing the program altogether)
Vote in the third option but wanting to come back in the second option! For the future I will give it another chance! And spend hours working on it to get used to its interface.

 

[_CyberGhosT_]

Need to add the poll option (never herd of it)
I too love Aimp, but thanks for the heads up, It looks cool though.

 

[Reethu]

Last week I installed it! I was about 45 minutes stirring it and setting ... Very complete! More I did get lost! There are many options is a very complete player! Maybe in the future I will give another chance for him!
My favorite player is AIMP3 also has many options, not so much as MusicBee but is a great at it!
My vote was for third option! For I have given him a chance, many settings (and certainly I lost myself, because my purpose is to organize my songs by artists and have quick access to music I want, MusicBee have it! But I got a little lost, maybe for not knowing the program altogether)
Vote in the third option but wanting to come back in the second option! For the future I will give it another chance! And spend hours working on it to get used to its interface.

Since you can customize MusicBee to the way you like, you could convert it to compact player just like AIMP, by simply turning on that option from the interface It's good to see you will give it a second chance, it's nice to learn

 

[OokamiCreed]

My only problem is that my music doesn't sound as good as it should in Musicbee. Other than that, it's my favorite. Sound quality is a must so I use Foobar2000, AIMP, or WinAmp. I highly value Musicbee and it's built in lyric modules and it's very good themes. They just need to fix sound problems which affect both versions before current stable and RC versions.

 

[DJ Panda]

Haven't really used a music player before... Software looks great will try soon. Voted second choice.

 

[Soulbound]

Its a good player. Have been using mainly clementine due to my Linux roots but recently swapped to music bee. Does the job just fine

 

[Technozz]

i have tried it and like it, rich feature out of the box, good plugin support like minilyric for extend lyric search and snarl for notification

Spoiler: snarl plugin

 

[LASER_oneXM]

...also tried "MusicBee" some months ago. But I decided to buy MediaMonkey GOLD. A second alternative to "MusicBee" i found already several months ago is Jriver Media Center.

 

[jackuars]

I too use this and am glad that Steven Mayall is so humble to give this for free. It's powerful, efficient and honestly there's no other alternative that works quite like it out of the box. The forum is extremely helpful too.

Honestly it should be more popular than it deserves to be. Just like PotPlayer.

 

[jackuars]

The new modern website and forum layout for MusicBee is now public. I have to admit that it looks great! Thanks to the hard work put in by one of the fans who made it possible. And kudos to the best music player/manager ever created.

Website: MusicBee - The Ultimate Music Manager and Player
Forum: getmusicbee.com - Index

 

[Tyrizian]

Been using MusicBee for years...I absolutely love it.

 

[jackuars]

Been using MusicBee for years...I absolutely love it.

Same here. One of the rare gems of freeware software.

 

[simbelmayne]

It's a little bit too much complicated, IMHO. The features are OK, but will somebody use them all? Really? it reminds me of my childhood, when I went to Internet-cafe to play Neverwinter Nights. I sitted there creating a character for at least one hour, and then oops, my time is over, time to go home and do the homework. I'm too lazy to customize this one, so I'll just use good old AIMP. Sorry, MusicBee =)

 

[jackuars]

It's a little bit too much complicated, IMHO. The features are OK, but will somebody use them all? Really? it reminds me of my childhood, when I went to Internet-cafe to play Neverwinter Nights. I sitted there creating a character for at least one hour, and then oops, my time is over, time to go home and do the homework. I'm too lazy to customize this one, so I'll just use good old AIMP. Sorry, MusicBee =)

It works out of the box. Unlike foobar which is totally dedicated to customization, MusicBee simply gives you presets to select the different views you like. Its not necessary though, you can simply select the default, and just go with it.