[haze]

I hate iTunes, I know that is paramount to saying Bill Gates reigns supreme over Steve Jobs, but it is the truth. Besides being a resource hog, it is limiting in capabilities. Anybody who has used foobar would know what i mean. So many great plugins for foobar. Plus, the ability to play just about every audio file known to man. too bad there isn't a port. No FLAC or .OGG in iTunes. Not even a stop button. How can there not be a stop button??? Not enough flexibility is the bottom line. Looks like iTunes killed all other development though. I am new to the Mac and thought with it being *nix based free source alternatives for everything would be rampant. Where are teh audio developers?

[Sharky K.]

Every switcher I know hated iTunes but loved it after using it for a while...

btw, you can just install ogg and other quicktime plugins to make iTunes compatible with other formats.

[Millennium]

There is an Ogg plug-in, though it's not without its own issues. It is also said that QuickTime 7 (intorduced with Tiger) will support Ogg; if this is the case then iTunes will almost certainly support it too.

There is no need for a Stop button; it's redundant. All of its functionality is available through the Pause button.

This said, I was an Audion fan myself, and I used it for a long time. Nothing beats iTunes for managing large collections, though. This said, I've never used foobar; do you have some links to pages where I could learn more about it?

[haze]

I imagine the management features of iTunes is good, but I already have my music organized. iTunes is a pretty big resource hog for having limited functionality (ie no plugins or third paty add on support). foobar was initially used mostky by techies and audio snobs, but is expanding now. It supports most major types of audio compression. best feature is support for gapless playback and gapless fomats. I can't by an iPod until this issue gets resolved. Every try listening to Dark Side of the Moon with pauses? Not pretty. Or in number of live recordings. It seems iTunes killed off any alternatives and that is shame. Competition leads to innovation. Third part plug-in support would be great. Housewives and such don't like foobar because it isn't eye candy, but people serious about music are worried about audio, not video. Though I believe there are some skins available now. Gapless is key.

Here are some links:

http://www.foobar2000.org/

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?

foobar has its own dedicated sub-forum.

[Chuckit]

iTunes supports plugins, as Millennium pointed out. I've been using the Ogg plugin for years and it's worked fine in my experience.

[haze]

It does? Cool. Where can I find them? Is there a page? I would like one like AMIP that allows control in IRC clients and email signatures or id there a firefox plugin so I can control through firefox? CUE sheet support? Also, trying to find flac support outside of vlc. Also, something similaar to HTTPwriter to control through browser remotely. Soemthing like mastagger would be great, too. Is there toast support in iTunes? I assume toast is teh equivalent of Nero. Blutooth remote plugin would eb nice too. Is there something like replaygain? And definately some additional decoder support. Point in the direction, por favor. I am interested in using some plugins to help fine tune iTunes.

[Sharky K.]

try a search at macupdate.com, for example:

iTunes remote
http://www.macupdate.com/search.php?...15&button.y=12

iTunes/Quicktime plugins addons
http://www.macupdate.com/search.php?...15&button.y=12


and

http://homepage.mac.com/jonassalling/Shareware/Clicker/

[monkeybrain]

Why would iTunes need Toast support? Just use iTunes to burn your cd, or use Toast and drag the songs in.

[haze]

any word on gapless support? or do i have to keep my pc desktop on and use foobar? i guess i will have to use it more than i wanted since i couldn't find enough of the equivalents i need. and no eac.

[goMac]

Originally posted by haze:
any word on gapless support? or do i have to keep my pc desktop on and use foobar? i guess i will have to use it more than i wanted since i couldn't find enough of the equivalents i need. and no eac.

What is this gapless you speak of?

[monkeybrain]

Originally posted by goMac:
What is this gapless you speak of?

Gaples is as it sounds, there is no gap between tracks. As haze mentioned, this is essential for albums like 'Dark Side of the Moon'. Currently you notice when iTunes changes tracks. It is a needed feature, but I think you're right that there is nothing on Mac that can do it yet.

[Randman]

All you need to do is adjust the gap to 0 under settings.

[Mastrap]

Originally posted by Randman:
All you need to do is adjust the gap to 0 under settings.

Exactly.

Not trying to be rude, but it looks to me like the original poster hasn't really looked for solutions to his problems. iTunes does most of the things he's asking for and more. To complain that iTunes doesn't support Toast, for example, doesn't make any sense whatsoever as iTunes has burning abilities build in.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by haze:
I would like one like AMIP that allows control in IRC clients and email signatures or id there a firefox plugin so I can control through firefox?

I don't know about any IRC scripts, though it shouldn't be too difficult. The shareware client ircle supports scripting via AppleScript, which iTunes also supports, so a bot should not be hard to do.

The story is similar for e-mail signatures: this would be a function of your e-mail program, and I know of no e-mail programs which do this. However, it is possible: most of the Mac blogging clients do exactly this type of thing.

As for Firefox plugins, FoxyTunes was originally written for iTunes, and still supports it.

CUE sheet support?

What exactly do you mean by this?

Is there toast support in iTunes? I assume toast is teh equivalent of Nero.

Toast is more or less equivalent to Nero, but iTunes can burn CDs on its own anyway.

Is there something like replaygain?

I'm not sure. I think iTunes has some functionality like this, but I'm not sure if it uses Replaygain.

[monkeybrain]

Originally posted by Randman:
All you need to do is adjust the gap to 0 under settings.

Edit: ok, so it does work sometimes (setting crossfade playback to 0 seconds). But there are still issues, check out this thread:

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hlight=gapless

Burning gapless CDs is still an issue.

[dreilly1]

Originally posted by Mastrap:
Not trying to be rude, but it looks to me like the original poster hasn't really looked for solutions to his problems. iTunes does most of the things he's asking for and more. To complain that iTunes doesn't support Toast, for example, doesn't make any sense whatsoever as iTunes has burning abilities build in.

What's really happening is that iTunes' performance is sufficient for 99% of people out there, but our dear poster is part of the elite 1% who want itunes to perform exactly like their CD's and Vinyl albums performed.

The gap drives me crazy, too. And it is there, I hear it no matter what you set that silly slider to. But I've found that it is, suprisingly, a software issue that goes away when you throw iTunes into a faster computer. iTunes must decode songs one at a time, I think it's as simple as that. Faster computers are able to go between tracks faster with a gap that is less obrtusive. In the linked thread, I examined how newer versions of QuickTime performed better, but I think this is because Quicktime was running more efficiently, not because they were decoding songs in a different way. (and not only does iTunes not play songs gapless, but it doesn't burn them gapless either, which I think is why he mentioned Toast support...)

I say "suprisingly" because as I said in the linked thread, other music players have been doing it for quite a while. Apple must be figuring that most of their users like to use playlists to ramdomize their tracks, and won't expend any more energy than necessary to for old geezers like me who want to hear entire albumns in order without these gaps. Or maybe Apple engineers have the best Macs on their desks at all times, and have simply never heard it?

Now, though, I have better things to do with my time then go through hoops to eliminate a fraction of a second annoyance. I have kind of gotten used to it, but it still irritates me now and then... I guess it's "good enough" for me now....

[bmedina]

Setting the crossfade to zero doesn't always work. And it has the side effect of making every transition gapless, which is even more annoying than the opposite.

Really, if you can get over the limitations of iTunes, it's a great program. I suggest you copy all your music over and use only iTunes for an extended period of time. Then go back to your PC, and use foobar again. Decide which one you like better at that point, and go with it.

Oh, and don't forget to use the Browse feature in iTunes (Command-B). It's essential to how the organization works.

[haze]

Gapless is pretty important to me. Anybody that listens to progressive rock and concept albums and live shows understands this. Setting crossfade doesn't work. Cue sheets are made for lossless audio. They tell the software exactly where the gaps and various other information is. For example, you go through all of the effort to set up EAC properly to get an "exact audio copy" and then either use the cue sheets in foobar on the computer or to burn a copy of the cd as it was originally meant to sound. This way your backup sounds like the original cd. Listening to complex music, jazz, progressive, etc. you want this type of support. I guess if you listen to pop mtv stuff it doesn't really matter much. I think gapless matters to more than 1% of compressed audio users.

If you look here you can see how valuable 3rd part plugin support can be. It allows for ll kinds of great extar features. Also, any masstagging and/or freedb support? Somebody mentioned that apple lossless is gapless, but iTunes isn't. Is AAC? I thought I read that it wasn't, unlike something like Ogg Vorbis.

http://pelit.koillismaa.fi/plugins/index.php

And if you are interested in audio, hydrogenaudio.org is a great source of info.

[Randman]

Haze, have you sent Apple feedback?