WinAmp is Coming Back From the Dead in 2019

AlphaAtlas

AlphaAtlas

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Radionomy, the company that bought WinAmp back in 2014, told TechCrunch that the old desktop media player is coming back from the dead. Its primarily going to relaunch as a music service aggregating mobile app, but Radionomy said that the desktop app is getting some love too. Although it leaked earlier this year, the deskop version of WinAmp is officially getting updated to version 5.8 on October 18, while the mobile app and version 6 of the desktop app are supposed to come in 2019.

"What I see today is you have to jump from one player to another player or aggregator if you want to listen to a radio station, to a podcast player if you want to listen to a podcast - this, to me, is not the final experience," he explained. It's all audio, and it's all searchable in one fashion or another. So why isn't it all in one place? The planned version of Winamp for iOS and Android will be that place, Saboundjian claims. On desktop, "the war is over," he said, and between the likes of iTunes and web apps, there's not much room to squeeze in. But mobile audio is fractured and inconvenient.
 
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It would be nice if they had a service aggregator for the various media services. Would be nice for those of us that use a mix of them.
 
At this point I've become very happy with Foobar. The UI can be customized to work like a non-bloated iTunes, it'll play almost anything, and there are plug-ins galore. I don't know what Winamp can even do to win me back, other than just cloning Foobar.
 
I also still use Winamp.

This new version sounds like bloated bullshit. It’s simplicity is what holds it up today. And even the old visualizations still rock.

I hope the llama doesn’t die with this new version.
 
I'm still using it 5.6 I think. Mainly for streaming radio stations. I love that it has a tiny memory and visual footprint. Sadly I have to use IE to stream some radio stations like WRR in Dallas. I'd rather use winamp but can't figure out how to squeeze a m3u file out of their website. If someone knows how, that would be great. http://player.listenlive.co/44461

Also http://www.kntu.com/ while we're at it. How do I make these work with winamp?
 
Domingo said:
At this point I've become very happy with Foobar. The UI can be customized to work like a non-bloated iTunes, it'll play almost anything, and there are plug-ins galore. I don't know what Winamp can even do to win me back, other than just cloning Foobar.
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Foobar is good. The only files I have that Foobar will play and Winamp won't are SACD rips. Even with all the skins available for Foobar, I still prefer the Winamp classic or modern interface.
 
jfreund said:
Foobar is good. The only files I have that Foobar will play and Winamp won't are SACD rips. Even with all the skins available for Foobar, I still prefer the Winamp classic or modern interface.
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I know it'll probably kill any credibility I have, but I like the UI for iTunes, but hate the bloat. I like how the player interface is clean, white, sortable, and with nice looking album art. I basically setup Foobar's columns UI to duplicate that look and feel, only it's obviously 100x leaner. For plug-ins, I have a pair of spacial plug-ins that can emulate surround sound for 7.1 setups. They're obviously not for everything, but I love having them readily available.
 
I used to really enjoy Winamp years ago and it had some good features - to the point it nearly defined a particular aesthetic style of music player, the compact Winamp style versus the larger Library styles - but these days I can't really see going back to a proprietary program for music/media. I can certainly see the value in Shoutcast/Icecast style streaming (though I have no idea how it holds up to other streaming options today), back in the day, but if their main focus is mobile and stream aggregation I'm not holding my breath for anything dynamic even on PC. Earlier versions of Winamp 2.xx were used long after Winamp 3.x and 5.x became bogged down with ads and whatnot after changing hands (however, I remember having paid/cracked Winamp 5.x Pro versions that removed some of that and offered new features for the time) etc and I can't think things will be much different now.

I really would prefer if Winamp was open sourced instead of being rolled into another product version, but I'll likely stick with all the various open source music/media players out there. They have fantastic features, compatibility for all sorts of services (even proprietary ones for those who have subscriptions to spotify or whatnot) and are overall what I'd rather encourage. What particular player someone prefers may come down to their own needs and niche, but there are a lot of solid options these days
 
I hope they keep it as pure as possible. That's why I still use it. Still so darn simple and it lets me manage my iPod Classic without using iTunes.

The only thing that I wish they would do is to make the UI infinitely resizable. Not doublesized, it is tiny. I can't imagine how microscopic/blurry that it'd be on a 4k display.
 
Still using it! So many plugins and milkdrop is still awesome.
The small amount of cpu and ram usage on winamp just can't be beat.
 
RanceJustice said:
I used to really enjoy Winamp years ago and it had some good features - to the point it nearly defined a particular aesthetic style of music player, the compact Winamp style versus the larger Library styles - but these days I can't really see going back to a proprietary program for music/media. I can certainly see the value in Shoutcast/Icecast style streaming (though I have no idea how it holds up to other streaming options today), back in the day, but if their main focus is mobile and stream aggregation I'm not holding my breath for anything dynamic even on PC. Earlier versions of Winamp 2.xx were used long after Winamp 3.x and 5.x became bogged down with ads and whatnot after changing hands (however, I remember having paid/cracked Winamp 5.x Pro versions that removed some of that and offered new features for the time) etc and I can't think things will be much different now.

I really would prefer if Winamp was open sourced instead of being rolled into another product version, but I'll likely stick with all the various open source music/media players out there. They have fantastic features, compatibility for all sorts of services (even proprietary ones for those who have subscriptions to spotify or whatnot) and are overall what I'd rather encourage. What particular player someone prefers may come down to their own needs and niche, but there are a lot of solid options these days
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You are talking about the OpenCandy malware that was in winamp. The newest version of winamp 5.666 has all of that removed or just download an older version and you'll be good.
 
I left WinAmp for Foobar about 10-14 years ago?

Never looked back after that.
 
Good to hear they're working on it. I remember when the site said something about news coming soon and we never heard anything else. I'll add my voice to the choir of folks saying they still use it. It has been my music player of choice since I first saw a .mp3 file and found out what they were.
 
I used to use it all the time....and a nice streamripper along with it. Then that rig died, and I just never went back. Maybe worth checking out again.
 
I alternate WinAmp with MediaMonkey about every 2-3 years. Both are fine... but neither one is just perfect for desktop playing MP3's
 
DTN107 said:
left WinAmp for Foobar about 10-14 years ago?

Never looked back after that.
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Same with me, I love Foobar2000 now, library all organized and have the app setup just the way I like it. I have no more reason to need Winamp.
 
Interesting, I didn't know about the 5.8 leak, cool they are bringing out an official 5.8 version. I should check it out. Hopefully all my plugins are compatible with it. I still use Winamp as my main music player. Through the use of plugins it's how I listen to video game music running by game console sound chip emulation, and the plugin I use for OpenAL output is the only way I can still get hardware audio acceleration for music. I use it for ripping CDs into FLAC and other formats, and making playlist files. I also used to use the Android version of Winamp to play FLAC files when I'm riding around in my car (I think at the time some years back Android didn't natively support FLAC). It does most of what I need to do audio-wise, and I just got comfortable with it over the years. Winamp 5 isn't the most stable though, it does crash from time to time, but I also blame that on the plugins I use. I should check out Foobar2000 but haven't yet done so. I meant to some time back, never ended up doing so, but now you guys are making me hella curious again. Not sure about this all-new Winamp, I probably won't have a need to use it.
EDIT: I see Foobar2000 has components for shit like OpenAL output and game console audio processor emulators. Yeah I may have to give it a try.
 
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Will be interesting to see if they make the necessary changes to become a relevant player again though
 
I used Winamp, then Foobar, then streaming services became available and I never looked back.
 
AIMP3 is one player that reminds me the most of winamp. Its that or foobar2k for mp3/converting/ripping cds. iTunes manages to infuriate me in one way or another every time I use it. I see dbpweramp is still around for ripping and converting, I haven't tried that in years.
 
Please combine streaming services. Ie. Sign into one or more services, it aggregates my “collection” and seamlessly sprinkles in my local files for a one stop shopping for a music horder.
 
Finally we will be whipping the llamas ass again. Just as long as peta doesn't get involved.
 
I used winamp for over a decade until I switched to foobar2000 probably around 2010 maybe.
 
Wow, that brings back some memories.

That news quote leaves a lot of mystery to what the new app is supposed to do. Is this going to be a radio app in competition with Spotify and Pandora etc, or will it let you take all those services and listen to all of them from one player? I'll be curious to see where it goes.

I'm kindof waiting for someone to de-throne spotify, as that company really has some practices I can't stand, but still the best music service I've used yet.
 
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