Winamp 3: It really sucks the llama's ass

The BBQ Pit
1

This is probably going to be the lamest rant ever, but here goes.

I’ve been a big fan of Winamp for a long time. The version I had up until a week ago was pretty much perfect; then I wanted a new skin. Looks like no one’s submitting regular old Winamp skins anymore, they’ve all taken on some freakishly ugly-looking things that look like they were made in MS Paint. I figure what the hell, and download the new version anyway.

My first reaction was “Is this thing SUPPOSED to be impossible to use?” It took me maybe 10 downloads before I could find a skin that had buttons on it (not kidding.) You know, the idea that a skin for a program that plays sound files should maybe have a PLAY button or FAST FORWARD button on it isn’t a fucking hard thing to come up with. I chalked it up to getting used to something new and decided to give the new version a try.

Well, it’s been a week, and this thing still fucking sucks. If there’s a little checked box somewhere on the main menu that says SUCK, I haven’t been able to find it and uncheck it.

So here’s my list of things that just are not working.

-The playlist. You can’t see your playlist without clicking on a couple other options (this, Winamp people, is what’s referred to as “extremely annoying.”) Also, your place in the playlist is no longer saved, so it just starts at Song #1 every single time. I can see how this might be good if you were playing a CD; however, when you have playlists with 500+ songs on them, like I do, the constant scrolling starts to hurt the wrist.

-The design. See above.

-The last straw: The way the last 2 seconds of one song and the first 2 seconds of the next melt into each other.

WHAT. THE. FUCKING FUCK?

Didn’t anyone who worked on Winamp 3 realize that this makes plenty of songs sound like SHIT? That it would cut off strong openings and strong closings? That in songs where the vocals start right off the bat, the first 2-4 words are inaudible?

You people are sacrificing user friendliness, playability and stability in order of… I just don’t know what the hell this is. Is this really how you intend to pay back all the users who’ve supported winamp over the years? I can only hope that version 3.1: “The usable one” is in the works.

click… uninstall.

2

Hit ‘F’ to turn off the crossfader.

Helps to look through the options first, doesn’t it?

3

Great. Now I feel really stupid.

(Still doesn’t change my general opinion about the program, tho.)

4

Simmer down now.

These things (well, aside from the aesthetics of the skins) can be easily remedied. Winamp 3 just chose some default options that you (and I) dislike.

Under the place where the song title scrolls, there’s a button marked “PL.” Strangely enough, it brings up the playlist. One click.

I have a few big playlists on my drive and both versions of Winamp installed, so I tried this out. When I pressed the stop button, both versions saved their place in the playlist. When I actually exited the program and reopened it with the playlists, both versions restarted at the first song.

Crossfade. It’s enabled by default. In the bottom middle of the GUI, near the “Open File” button, there’s a button with a funny-looking “X” on it. Uncheck it.

5

I am running it as we type hun and it works just fine for me.

As for “skins,” that’s for those that have more time on their hands than not. Screw the skins, as long as it plays your music, that’s all that matters.

So far I have had great luck with listening to my music.

I don’t see the problem, really. Winamp 3 works great for me.

6

I tried it for about 10 minutes, and I hated it too. It doesn’t support this neato transparency plug-in that I have, cause it uses some component-scripting system or whatever. It just seems so… unconfigureable, compared to versions 2.x. It also loads skins very slowly - you can’t quickly switch between different ones to see if it’s good or not. Oh, and it doesn’t load my favorite skin very well.

Uninstalled.

(but I kept the install file just in case…)

7

Winamp3 does, in fact, suck llama ass. I use Winamp 2.81 with the Massamp4 skin and using the MAD MPEG Audio Decoder plugin, with output set to Waveout. It sounds SWEET, and doesn’t suck up a load of RAM and system resources. Tip: Set Waveout to your soundcard, not “Wave Mapper.” This will give you better audio quality and reduce CPU usage.

8

Got it. Hated it. Uninstalled it.

And it still took me a while to figure out how to reclaim all the damn media types that it claimed as it installed.

9

One reason that I’m sticking with winamp 3 is that Winamp 2.x had the habit of hanging for about 15 seconds whenever I played the first mp3 after launching it. 3 plays right off the bat so that’s far less annoyance right there.

10

Raygun99, Version 2.x (which really does have less suck than v3,) won’t pause like that if you tell it you don’t have an internet connection, if I recall correctly.

11

I used WinAmp way back in the day. The interface, IMO, has always sucked. It didn’t conform to the standard Windows UI, had 8 pixel-wide buttons, which is bullshit UI design. Often the buttons didn’t look like buttons. The menubar was hidden beneath a button (again, bad UI design).

Windows Media Player isn’t much better. Building playlists in that thing is a pain in the ass. MusicMatch is okay. But none of them measure up to the interface of iTunes, which is simple and efficient and pretty (and standard! all interfaces should always be standard!).

I pity those who toil in the lands of WinAmp.

Kirk

12

Winamp 3 rocks.

It’s UI is great… the default skin looks just like an amp and new users are instantly at home with it.

Standard Win32 controls just wouldn’t have been appropriate for this app. Nonstandard doesn’t automatically mean bad… jeez, someone has to innovate new things! Funny how the half dozen other players, all post-Winamp including MS’s own effort, all have whizzy UIs and are skinnable too.

And if the buttons are too small, try grabbing a corner of the window and resizing it… that little StretchBlt effect (new to version 3 I think) is supercool.

I wonder what Justin Frankel, WinAmp’s creator, did with the billions of AOL dough he got for it… he must be all of 21 years old now sigh.

13

You’re talking about varying the opacity of the program, so you can “see through” it to whatever program is behind it? If so, Winamp 3 supports this by default. Or at least it does if you check all the boxes when installing it. Click on the + menu at the top left, and choose “Opacity” from the menu.

Of course, to view transparencies in any Windows program, you must be using at least Windows 2000 or XP. I’m not sure about Me.

I like Winamp. I’m not terribly crazy about the newest version, but it’s always been a good program. The playlist is one of the best features. I like that you can right click on a file in Explorer and select “Enqueue in Winamp” from the menu to add it to your playlist. The new version even has a slider in the settings so you can choose just how “random” you want your list to be.

Another good thing is that it’s the most popular MP3 player. That means when people release audio compression algorithms (some that come to mind are VQF, APE, SHN), they usually write a plugin for Winamp that will play it.

But really, the stupid llama MP3 has got to go. It wasn’t funny the first time. It also wasn’t funny in the several subsequent versions. Winamp 3 doesn’t make it any funnier.

14

Put me in the “It sucks” category. I’ve never had a crash with WinAmp 2.x. Never. WinAmp 3.0 crashed a half-dozen times on my system, and forced a hard reboot at least two times. I don’t like the new look, I hated the crossfade option being on by default (why in the world would anyone want a feature that lops 4 seconds out of each song? On purpose?! )

I uninstalled it and am back at 2.8x

Fenris

15

I hated it too, and went back to 2.81.

16

I tried it, but I use winamp to broadcast my radio, and it wasn’t fully compatible with the shoutcast plugin. There was a thingie I downloaded to make it work, but then I’d check back a little later and the plugin would have turned off by itself, and I had to restart it again. I gave up for now. Maybe they have a new shoutcast plugin by now.

17

Putme down as someone else who uninstalled it; ran it for the first time, looked at how much system resources it was taking up - 10 meg RAM and 4% CPU. wtf? I only use winamp because it takes up NO memory to run.

back to 2.81 for me.

18

Hasn’t this been the case with many programs? Many Netscape users have stayed with version 4.7x over any other later version, because, simply, the creators and maintainors of the program added tons of “neat” features, along with all of their bugs, that few people actually wanted.

“Hey look! Now we skinnable buttons on Netscape!”

“Cool! Um…why can’t I go to these sites without crashing?”

“Huh? Oh, those sites are probably lame anyhow. Forget about those sites - just look at the buttons!”

19

I’m sticking with 2.81 for the time being. Winamp3 is a resource hog, is not backwards compatible with old skins or plugins and buggy as hell. They’ve got the right idea with their Media Library, but right now it’s features are far too rudimentary compared to what’s available in, say, MusicMatch.

People should keep in mind, though, that Winamp3 isn’t just a new version, but a completely new application, re-written from the groud up. Also, it was pushed out the door under pressure from AOL so it’s missing a lot of the features people are used to from Winamp2.x. It’s my impession that Nullsoft have foisted a Release Candidate on the public. I’ll be waiting for 3.1 before I give it another chance.

20

WinAmp3 doesn’t work properly on my system. The sound comes out with all sorts of interference and garbled. Went back to 2.76 and it’s staying there.