Some music players come with the razzmatazz that you would associate with the media. Some just stay more down to earth and are functional to the core. QuuxPlayer belongs to the latter category.
QuuxPlayer is built around the idea that listening to music has more to do with the ears than the eyes. So, to a certain extent QuuxPlayer does away with a flashy interface, keeps it simple, and affords an intuitive music listening experience right from the time you install it.
You might also like the fact that QuuxPlayer is just a 1.38MB free music player download and will occupy just 4.31MB of your disk space. And just to prove the old cliché that good things come in small packages, the free music player also comes with a host of useful features. The free music player can play most of the file formats out there. The one thing you might notice and appreciate is that the player comes without the added overhead of skins and plugins.
But these features come second to the ease with which QuuxPlayer springs up from the blocks and starts playing your songs. Let’s start it up and give it a run around a few songs.
The First Screen
QuuxPlayer gets down to business from the very first screen. Add tracks to your library and play the music while you tinker around with the other features.
Simple Navigation
QuuxPlayer makes navigation really simple with the keyboard (or if you have one – a game pad controller). Pressing keys like the spacebar or the F9 takes you from one screen to the next. For instance, with the F9 key you can cycle through these screens in succession: Main Screen – Current Song Lyrics – Album Details – Main Screen.
Fetches Lyrics & Album Covers
I couldn’t figure out the lyrics provider, but QuuxPlayer fetches album covers from Last.fm along with artist biographies, and album details from the internet. There were of course a few hits and misses, as is bound to happen with auto-downloads.
Automatically Updated Playlists
Apart from playlists which you can create by simple drag and drop, QuuxPlayer also gives you Automatic Playlists, which can be created on the fly by rules you create such as Artist = “Enigma”. The advantage with Automatic playlists is that they can update automatically if new tracks are added to the library that subscribe to the rule set for the playlist. If any new song from the group Enigma is added, that gets added the next time you use the playlist.
QuuxPlayer also has Automatic File and Folder Monitoring and Update which helps to keep the player catch all the song files you add to your music folders.
The 30 Band/ 10 Band Equalizer
Like to control the fidelity of your songs by hand? QuuxPlayer has an advanced 30 band and a simpler 10 band equalizer with user customized presets that help to fine tune the music.
Tune Into Internet Radio & Podcasts
You can connect to a large number of online radio stations in a large number of genres from within QuuxPlayer and use it like a dedicated online radio player. Plus, you get to add your own radio streams too apart from the nearly 150 free radio stations that the player comes bundled with.
Auto-management of podcast feeds allows for easy download of new episodes when they become available.
Music & The Tag Cloud
Is it the only music player that can show your music in the form of a tag cloud? We are so used to it on the web, that using it is almost second nature.
Social Connections With Twitter & Last.fm
QuuxPlayer makes it easy to share what you’re listening to with everyone who follows you on Twitter and Last.fm. With the account details, posting is automatic.
Sleep”¦
QuuxPlayer comes with a sleep mode for those times when you want to drift off to sleep while listening to music. You can set a timer and QuuxPlayer can fade off gradually. In the end you can choose to shut off only the player or your entire system.
Hit F11 to switch on the Home Theatre PC Mode (bigger fonts and an improved layout for viewing from across the room), set the Sleep mode and stretch out while listening to some Miles Davis or Kenny G on the sax.
When you wake up let us know your take on this small but full featured music player.
Image Credit : labanex.com
Tagged: better alternatives • music manager • music player
