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With the recent features added to iTunes player I find it to be pretty heavy and resources consuming, just to do just what I would like it to do, which is play music. It is almost becoming a full OS which I do not like.

Therefore, I'd like to find something lightweight to build some playlists based on the music I have on my hard-drive, possibly free (but not a requisite). Do you have any alternatives which you would like to share?

Thanks in advance.

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3 Answers

up vote 5 down vote

I suggested you try SongBird.

also you can choose:

alt text

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up vote 3 down vote accepted

After doing a Google quest for a free audio player I found Instinctiv. alt text
It has a great UI and Mac look and calls itself "A Better Music Experience". Is anyone aware of this application? How do you feel about it?

After a little test drive with the software I can say that it really is an enjoyable experience and the announced smart shuffle is a nice feature. It uses the iTunes library so you can just press play and you'll be fine.

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The app looks promising, tho it’s still an early preview. The CoreAnimations are a little bit slow for my taste, and instead of providing a nice feedback, they slow down the navigation. – Martín Marconcini Sep 7 '10 at 14:53
After using it for a few days I have to say that this is the application I was looking for. The library view and music search are the top features that I'm starting to love in it. – vitorhsb Sep 8 '10 at 9:27
Yeah, I’ve been using it (tho I mainly use iTunes anyway, have tons of computer power on a Mac Pro) but this one certainly looks promising and should open the eyes of others. In any case, correct the name of it, the application is called Instinctiv, not “Instictive” ;) – Martín Marconcini Sep 8 '10 at 10:27
Done ;). Thanks. – vitorhsb Sep 8 '10 at 10:45
up vote 2 down vote

Everplay is a nice iTunes alternative because it can read the iTunes library but it’s way more light, given that it doesn’t attempt to cook breakfast and wash your car. It’s a music player.

It’s not free but offers a nice trial. Give it a shot.

Of course, if you are in Europe, you can always use the excellent (and free) Spotify.

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I live in Europe however Spotify has not been enabled in Portugal yet (and many other European countries), sadly. In fact it is a great product but the current free account only enables 20hr of streaming per month, which would redirect me to a paid account. – vitorhsb Sep 7 '10 at 8:13
Sad to hear that, tho you could try to pass as a Spaniard, they geolocate your IP and unless you have a paid account, you can’t use it in the “non-auth” countries. Of course once you do, you can pretty much do what you want. They offer a 5€/month service (aside from the 10€ pro), which -I think- allows you to use it anywhere in the world. Also if you already have a big iTunes lib, give Everplay a try. Good Luck. – Martín Marconcini Sep 7 '10 at 8:50
Everplay has a better integration with Last.fm bringing a surplus over Instinctive (for that I will give you a plus), however I do not like the fact that it does not show a list view of the music library - which is a deal-break. – vitorhsb Sep 8 '10 at 9:24
Yes, tho Instinctiv does have Last.FM integration, it’s not as polished yet. Perhaps the problem with Instinctiv at the moment is that it’s rather “slow” to react when a library is big. I have over 90GB of music in my iTunes lib, more than 13.000 songs. Spinning wheel is commonly seen when searching or scrolling. It’s a mix between Coversutra and iTunes, which is good. Coversutra searchs faster, but opens iTunes for playing :( – Martín Marconcini Sep 8 '10 at 10:31
That would be everplay – notJim Jan 31 '12 at 5:07

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