Project Musik musikCube 1.0
MusikCube is indeed a “vanilla audio player for Windows,†but some of us like vanilla best, especially if it means slicing away unsavory bloat for speed and organization, which this dynamite little music player does. Though the open-source, Windows 2000/XP-only musikCube, see the related wxMusik Linux-based version at musik.berlios.de, lacks tools some audio fanatics won’t live without, developer Casey Langen purposely designed musikCube with a focus on fundamentals, not flash.
After loading your music via traditional methods or using the Synchronize tool, which auto synchs files between your directories and musikCube’s library at startup, musikCube uses an embedded SQL-flavored SQLite engine and musikCore backend to quickly catalog your tunes based on tagging data. The app then gives you a quick, searchable database, plus automatic detection of mass storage devices you can create synchable libraries on. I did this on two Creative and one SanDisk MP3 player, plus four thumb drives, without problem.
MusikCube gets its quickness and nononsense approach partly by ditching support for video, skins (you can tweak UI colors), album art, and podcast integration. More significant is musikCube’s inability to play protected music bought from online music stores. My tries at playing iTunes and Yahoo! Music files were fruitless. Better is musikCube’s use of iTunes-like Dynamic Playlists, including 50 Last Played, 50 Newest, 10 Most Played, Favorite Artist, Favorite Album, and Create. This last option requires using SQL queries, which musik-Cube provides several of.
Although musikCube’s UI is basic, it’s littered with useful right-click options, including playback, tagging, rating, deleting, and more that right-clicking a song offers. Other program perks include queuing options, easily associating file extensions for musikCube to automatically open, a customizable crossfader, six and 18-band equalizers, a respectable integrated CD ripper (Ogg Vorbis, LAME MP3, FLAC), batch editing tags, and more.
Despite a few runtime errors and some quirky behavior, musikCube’s excellent management skills and surprisingly good audio quality grew on me. Still, despite healthy plug-in and support communities, keep a heavyweight player around for the tasks musikCube can’t handle.
[tags]Project Musik[/tags]