Purpose:
A way to move from the overrated and popular player Winamp and all other commercial like software.
Description:
foobar2000 is an advanced freeware audio player for the Windows platform.
Install:
Installer
Attachment 13852
Here you can choose the option you are most comfortable with.
Attachment 13853
The recommended package is Normal. Full is overkill as there are better options.
As you probably guessed, this is the original foobar interface. Here it doesn't matter what you choose so click Cancel.
Select CTRL + P. The first page that comes up represents the components available to foobar. They are the plugins that extend functionality.
The components you see here are all gray because they were installed with foobar and NOT added. Added components are black.
Here you need to know that there are two names refering to the same component: filename and component name. Whenever you have a problem you always need to provide the filename.
%programfiles%\foobar2000\components is the location of the gray components. Here, everything is stored in a single library (.dll).
%appdata%\foobar2000\user-components is the location of the black components. Here, components are often very complex and require multiple files rather than a single library so here every component is housed in its own folder named after the filename of the component.
Remember this for when regular component installs fail. This is called a manual install of a component.
List of components we'll need to make hi-techie:
ABX Comparator This will mix two audio files randomly in order to see if YOU recognize the one in high quality.
Two tracks must be selected in order for it to appear under right-click menu -> utilities -> ABX Two Tracks...
This is best and only to solve the placebo effect of today's "320Kb sounds waaay better than your V0 MP3". I say wanna bet you can't tell the difference?
Discogs Tagger This will automatically tag your ripped audio files if it was an accurate rip.
To perform tagging, select the files you want and right-click on the files and select Tagging -> Discogs -> Write tags.
FreeSurround Upmixes stereo to 4.0 / 5.1 / 6.0 / 7.1 audio output.
Continuator and FreeSound are DSP effects and can only be activated here:
To activate you just double-click on an effect in the left hand pane. Remove effect? Same manner just on the right hand pane.
Some DSP effects can be configured by using the button above the panes named Configuration.
Continuator This will search, at the end of each audio file for a silenced area. For instance a song has 5:30 seconds and the song stop at 5:20 this component will overlap the song with the next one in the playlist, thus removing the silenced space.
Default options are fine, so we'll use that. This is configured here rather then the DSP page.
Deepening on the type of archive that you have downloaded, some may allow you to install using the Install button on the image above. If it can't be installed that way, perform a manual install.
The most import and flexible tool of foobar is its Media Library.
Here you need to add the folders of your music collection. Don't worry about CPU consumption because you can set it to only refresh on foobar startup. This is done by right-cliocking on the folder path you added and deselect the options.
From your music library you can create autoplaylists. These are special playlists that auto update themselves. For instance, say you download an album, you create a query in foobar and as soon as the download completes, you'll see the music in a custom playlist.
To do this, click on Album List and se;ect the button Activate. Right click an album -> Create Autoplaylist.
Right-click again on the newly created playlist and select Album List Branch.
Here is where you need to make your query.
Auto-update files from a location (like the above example of utorrent) you would put
Code:
%path% IS <path location of your choice >
Rename the playlist and there is your first autoplaylist.
Resources:
As SB-I is the main authority of cheating, let me introduce the main authority in audio enthusiasts.
hydrogenAUDIO
All questions, info, and help is offered there on all foobar problems.
Should this guide help SB-I users, I might continue adding to it. There are many more features of it and if you would just discover them you'll see that Winamp is NOTHING compared to this.
If I convince at least on person to switch to it, my tutorial served its purpose.
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