Foobar2000-like music player?

Question

I've been thinking about switching to Ubuntu full time, but there are still some programs left behind that I haven't found any equivalent to yet. Does anyone know of a music player similar to Foobar2000 (I've read it doesn't handle well in WINE)?

Answer 1

DeadBeef is actively developed and in a way that brings it closer and closer to Foobar2000.

(what it lacks in Foobar2000-features (numbers of addons) it compensates in being light and up-to-the-point - the most straightforward and non-bloated music player/handler I have seen until now in Ubuntu).

With File browser plugin:

With Infobar plugin:

to install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexey-smirnov/deadbeef
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install deadbeef 

Or download as .deb and install (i686 or amd64)

To install plugins, wich are .so files, they should be put into a certain folder.

~/.local/lib/deadbeef/

or: /usr/local/lib/deadbeef/

For the static portable version it is deadbeef-versionnumber/plugins

Considering problems of incompatibility and other issues in using the plugins, see this related answer

To convert audio files, see this question+answer.

Considering memory use, Deadbeef is much lighter than other players that might be considered foobar-like.

The latest versions (now 0.6.2) bring it even closer to foobar by the 'Designer mode' feature (similar to the layout editing mode in foobar) by which built-in or plugin features (file browser, infobar etc) are integrated to the interface:

File conversion is now very close to Foobar2000's - see the link above on conversion.

---

Already mentioned in answers, a great alternative is Clementine.

Answer 2

I like Clementine .

Exaile is an alternative. Look for Clementine in Ubuntu software Center

Answer 3

Why no one mention DeadBeef http://deadbeef.sourceforge.net/?

Answer 4

Try Guayadeque.

It is an extremely customizable music player, and should support most of the features you are looking for. I'm not sure if it will match foobar2000 100%, but at least it should fill the gap :)

• The website is here: http://guayadeque.org/forums/index.php
• PPA: https://launchpad.net/~anonbeat/+archive/guayadeque

Answer 5

Wikipedia has a Comparison of audio player software which could be helpful.

Amarok seems to be a decent match functionality-wise, but it probably depends on which features are most important to you.

Answer 6

gmusicbrowser: A customizable open-source jukebox for large collections

… was heavily inspired by other feature-rich media libraries like Foobar2000, Amarok, and Quod Libet. It comes with multiple layouts and themes that borrow from or try to emulate these or other popular music players.

You can install it via Software Center or the latest version from its official repository:

wget http://gmusicbrowser.org/squentin.key.asc -O - | sudo apt-key add -
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb http://gmusicbrowser.org/deb ./'
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gmusicbrowser gmusicbrowser-art

main features

• made with big (> 10,000 songs) libraries in mind (currently developed with over 27,000 songs)
• customizable window layouts (see layouts documentation)
• artist/album lock: easily restrict playlist to current artist/album
• easy access to songs related to the currently playing song
  • songs from the same album
  • album(s) from the same artist(s)
  • songs with same title (other versions, covers, …)
• support ogg vorbis, mp3 and flac files (and mpc/ape/m4a with gstreamer, mplayer or mpv)
• simple mass-tagging and mass-renaming
• tray icon, with a very customizable tip window, which can be used to control the player
• very customizable SongTree widget for a pretty list of songs (example))
• support multiple genres for a song
• support multiple artists for each song by separating them with ', ' or ' & '
• customizable labels can be set for each song (ex : bootleg, live, -'s favorites, …)
• powerful search (nested conditions, can search any field using regular expression or fuzzy search)
• customizable weighted random mode (based on rating, last time played, label, ...)
• browse through pictures and pdf in the album's folder
• The possibility to act as a icecast server, to listen to your music remotely (experimental)
• plugin system, included plugins:
  • nowplaying (to update an external program when the playing song changes)
  • last.fm
  • find pictures
  • simple lyrics
  • artist or album info
  • customizable desktop widgets

Answer 7

Honestly, I've been in the same position as you for years, looking for a comparable music player to Foobar2K in linux...

MPD & GMPC is good, as is gmusicbrowser... clementine is coming along nicely, but nothing can take the place of foobar for me, and thankfully with the newer builds of wine nothing has too - try installing winepulse from the ppa here https://launchpad.net/~c-korn/+archive/ppa.

Listening to Foobar 1.1.7 on Natty right now, and it runs flawlessly :)

Answer 8

Foobar 2000 itself in Wine:

• Foobar2000 was always related in my mind to the use of a lot of addons; but only when monitoring a large media library accessed through the 'Album List' or the 'Facets' addons does it becomes a bit heavy through Wine
  

The image above that shows the use of 92MB of RAM is related to the use of a 270 GB media library. Otherwise, Foobar2000 in Wine is very light even with many addons.

But even in this case it looks lighter than very recommendable Ubuntu native players and it is not heavier than it used to be in Windows with the same addons installed.

And what about it's version without manually added addons and naked interface ? It looks extremely light!

Also, considering the looks of Foobar in Wine, a good method of improving this is:

1. enable font smoothing - fire one after the other these lines in Terminal:

wget http://files.polosatus.ru/winefontssmoothing_en.sh

bash winefontssmoothing_en.sh

(select third option in terminal)

2. install a windows msstyle file in Wine/Configure Wine/Desktop Integration

3. increase the screen resolution in Wine/Configure Wine/Graphics

It comes to smth like this (but colors and fonts are customizable):

Answer 9

Maybe you are happy with audacious a lightweight skinnable player that can be extended with many plugins.

Answer 10

Don't forget Quod Libet (disclaimer: I'm one of the current devs)...

It's popular with a lot of ex-Foobar users possibly due to the advanced tag editing features (including multi-tag support) and also complex searching with with regular expressions, boolean algebra, numeric aggregation etc.