MusicBee - wicked music manager/player for Windows

[Sigma]

I've tried lots of different music players over the years and my favourite was MediaMonkey until I discovered MusicBee. If you're running Windows, give it a try. It's free, packed full of features, it's extremely customisable, it supports all of the file formats you're likely to ever use, and it's fast and works great. You can have it auto-organise and tag your library (which is optional of course), it does CD ripping and encoding, it supports various skins and visualisations, it has podcast support with bookmarks, Last.FM integration, advanced playlist support etc. etc.

Main view (click for a full-sized pic): -



Theater Mode view with artist pics and lyrics (click for a full-sized pic): -



Modern compact player: -



Classic compact player: -



Mini player: -



Taskbar button controls: -



The Theater Mode view looks great. It automatically pulls in high quality artist images and it will also display the song lyrics on the right if it can find them online. There are various Theater Mode views too - that screenshot is just one of them.

You can download it for free here: -

http://getmusicbee.com/download.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And if you want to update to the latest beta, install the main program first, exit out of it, then download this zip and extract the contents to the main MusicBee installation directory, overwriting the files that are already there: -

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_5/Music ... atched.zip" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You don't have to do that, but some people like to have the very latest version.

[ChaMerZ]

better than media monkey? that's a strong endorsement, I'll make sure I try this out. also, i see you have windows 8, have you found any music 'apps' that are to your liking? I downloaded the 'stereo' app and I find it's okay although not perfect. I find myself using AIMP instead of Stereo alot (unfortunately I don't have media monkey anymore).

I just think it's dumb that Microsoft went to all this trouble to overhaul their UI and how they distribute software only to find that the software itself is lackluster. IMO you shouldn't have to leave the start screen in order to play music or videos, but I find myself doing that a lot.

[Sigma]

I liked MediaMonkey enough that I bought a "gold" lifetime license for it, but there were some things about it that I didn't like. I thought the UI looked kind of outdated and I didn't like that you couldn't lock the toolbars in place. There were features in it that I wanted, but when I requested them I either got no response or I'd be linked to a thread where someone else had requested the same thing, but none of the features I requested were ever added. For example, one feature I requested was to have the letters A-Z which you can click on, so it jumps to artists starting with that letter in your library. MusicBee has that. Maybe MediaMonkey does now too, but I haven't used it in a long time. Likewise with bugs, some of the bugs I reported in MediaMonkey were never fixed.

MusicBee is developed by just 1 person, but the guy is constantly working on it. I've requested 3 features to be added in and they were all added in within a few days of asking. Most of the time, when a bug is reported, it's fixed extremely quickly.

So yeah, MusicBee to me is just like a more polished MediaMonkey, plus it has a couple of the features that I always wanted in MediaMonkey and the developer is really on the ball and responsive to feedback. Just like MediaMonkey, MusicBee has a ton of customisation options, so even if you don't like the way it looks at first, have a play around with it for a week or two and see what you think.

As for Windows 8 (I'm on 8.1 now), I only use a handful of Metro apps and I only use them because they have live tiles, so I use Calendar, People, Photos and Weather. Oh, and I use Audible although I've barely used it. I'm running Windows 8.1 on a desktop machine, so I spend 99% of my time in the desktop environment running regular software. I don't mind Metro, but there's not really any compelling reasons for me to use Metro apps on this PC.

[ChaMerZ]

I liked MediaMonkey enough that I bought a "gold" lifetime license for it, but there were some things about it that I didn't like. I thought the UI looked kind of outdated and I didn't like that you couldn't lock the toolbars in place. There were features in it that I wanted, but when I requested them I either got no response or I'd be linked to a thread where someone else had requested the same thing, but none of the features I requested were ever added. For example, one feature I requested was to have the letters A-Z which you can click on, so it jumps to artists starting with that letter in your library. MusicBee has that. Maybe MediaMonkey does now too, but I haven't used it in a long time. Likewise with bugs, some of the bugs I reported in MediaMonkey were never fixed.

MusicBee is developed by just 1 person, but the guy is constantly working on it. I've requested 3 features to be added in and they were all added in within a few days of asking. Most of the time, when a bug is reported, it's fixed extremely quickly.

So yeah, MusicBee to me is just like a more polished MediaMonkey, plus it has a couple of the features that I always wanted in MediaMonkey and the developer is really on the ball and responsive to feedback. Just like MediaMonkey, MusicBee has a ton of customisation options, so even if you don't like the way it looks at first, have a play around with it for a week or two and see what you think.

As for Windows 8 (I'm on 8.1 now), I only use a handful of Metro apps and I only use them because they have live tiles, so I use Calendar, People, Photos and Weather. Oh, and I use Audible although I've barely used it. I'm running Windows 8.1 on a desktop machine, so I spend 99% of my time in the desktop environment running regular software. I don't mind Metro, but there's not really any compelling reasons for me to use Metro apps on this PC.

Interesting. I also felt that MediaMonkey was showing this age, that's why I kinda lost interest in it. It's great that MusicBee is getting continuous updates. Crazy that it's one guy behind it. Very inspiring.

Anyways I'll install this baby, tinker with it and hopefully have something more substantive to add to the thread.

[PopeyeJones]

Will fuck with it.

Always been shocked that something as old, universal, and seemingly simple as a music manager/player hasn't ever really been done right before.

I fucked with MediaMonkey for a long time, got annoyed, tried Songbird and Foobar, and eventually gave up and just went back to good old trusty WinAmp.

Will report back.

[ChaMerZ]

Man, I've been so behind on music appl ... smh ...

MusicBee is fantastic

Thanks for the heads up Sigma.

I've only just started playing with it, but I'm really really impressed.

[Sigma]

Cool man, I'm glad you're liking it.

There are so many options/features in it that some of them are hard to find. Here's a thread on the MusicBee forum that lists some of the "hidden" features that people might not have noticed: -

http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=7974.0

For example, one useful option is middle-clicking. If you middle-click on say, an artist's name, it will give you a list of every song/album from that artist. Likewise, if you middle-click on a year, you'll get every song released in that year. It's a really quick way of filtering tracks without having to run a search or go deeper into menus.

[ChaMerZ]

Hey Sigma, do you have to do anything special to get the lyrics tab to work? Mine always says 'lyrics could not be found' or something to that effect. Of course I could manually tag my mp3s with lrc files, but it would be great if the application could automatically do this for me.

[Sigma]

MusicBee uses 3 lyrics providers, but 1 is disabled by default. Go to Edit - Preferences - Tags (2) and the options for lyrics are there. You can enable the third provider there too.

There's also some plugins you can use to extend/change the lyric searching functionality. I've never tried any of them, but this one looks good: -

http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=9994.0

And here's one written by MusicBee's developer: -

http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=4751.0

If you have any luck with one of these, let me know. I don't really care much about MusicBee pulling in lyrics, but if one of these works great I'll use it too.

[ChaMerZ]

I installed the first one (lyrics reloaded), because from what I've read on the forum it seems to be a superset of steven's plugin.

It works great. Although you have kinda have to fiddle around with the sites. There's a bunch, and I've experimented with a few. In all I've found RapGenius to work the best.

All the lyrics being pulled are text however. I was hoping it was going to find lrc files (the ones that go line by line)



I'll mess around with it some more, and see if anything materializes.

[Sigma]

If you want "karaoke-style" lyrics that follow the song, try this: -

http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Lyrics_P ... per_Plugin

[ChaMerZ]

I tried it out but it seems that whatever system the app's developer worked out of retrieving lyrics is already broken. I'd say that a good 80% of the sites the plugin is supposed to support do not work.

[Sigma]

The developer has added LyricWiki as the primary source for lyrics now (all the other sources are still there), which is supposedly a decent lyrics source.

If you're already on version 2.2, you can upgrade to the latest version by downloading this zip file and unzipping the contents to your MusicBee installation directory (while MusicBee is closed), overwriting the files that are already there: -

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_2/Music ... atched.zip

Once you've updated, if you go to Edit - Preferences - Tags (2), you should see LyricWiki as the number 1 provider.

[Sigma]

This has been updated with a couple of nice new additions since I last posted about it.

There's a new modern Mini player: -



Also, if you use the album art view, when you click on an album now you can set it so that it expands like this: -



The colour automatically matches the album art.

It can tell the difference between single artist albums and compilations too, so if you click on a compilation it will show each track artist: -

[Hush]

Despite what I said in the other thread about switching to Spotify I downloaded MusicBee last night and I'm going to attempt to get my offline collection under control once and for all. Currently I have a bunch of stuff imported into iTunes as well as a bunch of albums and single songs sitting in random other folders that iTunes hasn't touched (about 15,000 tracks or so total).

Are there any tips for getting started with this? Last night I let it scan for all my files and I moved them all to the inbox. My plan was to go through each album letting it autocorrect tags, add proper artwork and organize/rename the folders and files and in the process move them from inbox>library. I did a few albums this way but is there a better/faster way of automating the majority of a somewhat messy collection?

[Sigma]

I don't have any tips for starting off. All of my music was tagged/sorted before I started using MusicBee, so I just dragged my root music folder into the program and let it import everything, bypassing the inbox altogether.

Your best bet would be to sign up to the MusicBee forum and ask for some advice there: -

http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Tired & Broke]

I'm bout to fux with this over the weekend. Will report back with results.

[Sigma]

If you're gonna try it now, your best bet is to download the installer from the main home page and run that to install version 3.0, then download this and unzip it to the installation directory, overwriting the files that are there (make sure MusicBee isn't running when you do that of course): -

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V3_1/Music ... atched.zip" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That will put you on the very latest version of MusicBee 3.1, which was released today. While it's technically a beta, in my experience it's always worth running the latest beta instead of the latest non-beta version.

[Tired & Broke]

yeah I got the latest version and I must say its a godsend!! Great recommendation Sigma

[ric]

i can't just drag files into this? I am a 32yr old dinosaur I truly don't get this. I can get my iTunes online shit in here? what is the difference between the library and the inbox? links would be great thanks.

[Sigma]

You can just drop files straight into it. I don't use the inbox at all. I tag my music with MP3Tag, then I just drag and drop it into MusicBee and it's added straight into my library.

[ric]

@sigma
got it. thanks sir.

[Tired & Broke]

You can just drop files straight into it. I don't use the inbox at all. I tag my music with MP3Tag, then I just drag and drop it into MusicBee and it's added straight into my library.

So let me get this straight. If I add files to the folder that Music Bee directory is using then it won't recognize, however if I just dragg the folder of music into the actual interface under a genre, artists or category then it will add the music to MusicBee regardless of its location??

Cause Ive added new folders to the directory that MusicBee pulls my music from but it doesn't update with the new music added.... shits kinda frustrating..

[Sigma]

If you use drag and drop, you can just drop a file or folder anywhere. The file/folder can be stored anywhere on your PC too - it doesn't have to be stored in a folder that MusicBee is monitoring. You don't have to drop it into the correct genre or whatever. For example, if MusicBee is currently showing all of your albums tagged as "Hip-Hop" and you drop an album tagged as "Funk" in there, it'll still be listed under Funk, not Hip-Hop. It sorts automatically based on the tags, so it's a good idea to make sure the tags are good before you add music in this way. You can use MusicBee to add/edit tags after you've dropped it in there, but I prefer to tag it and then drop it in.

If you want to place music into one or more folders and have MusicBee automatically add it to your library, go into Edit - Preferences - Library. Hit the "Choose folders" button and select your folder(s), then select the appropriate options, such as whether you want MusicBee to only check for new music when you launch it, or whether you want it to continuously check for new music while it's running. You can also select to have the music added directly to your library instead of it being sent to the inbox.