Play, organize and convert your music
There’s a plethora of music players to choose from, among which iTunes and Winamp usually have the upper hand. However, if you are curious enough, you might find that lesser known alternatives like MediaMonkey offer a reasonable amount of features and tools to organize and equally enjoy your music library.
MediaMonkey automatically scans your PC for all types of music formats. If you have playlists from other programs, it’s good to know that MediaMonkey also adds m3u files, sparing you the pain of having to recreate them. The file explorer view on the left lets you easily navigate your music collection by categories like artist, genre or rating. You can convert tracks in MediaMonkey into any format you wish, depending on what size or quality of sound you’re looking for. MediaMonkey also lets you analyze and adjust the volume of tracks to increase your listening experience.
MediaMonkey has made its reputation on its advanced tagging management feature. Every time a track is added, the program will verify its tags. You can automatically fill in missing details with info from Amazon or Filename. The program can clean up your tags, move information into the correct categories and synchronize tags for selected tracks. You can also rename and move multiple files thanks to the auto-organize function. MediaMonkey also supports Winamp plugins and visualizations plus skins can be applied to spice up the interface.
If you want to make your own mix CDs, you’ll be happy to know that MediaMonkey rips and burns CDs and DVDs. Create a virtual CD of your favorite tracks and let MediaMonkey do its job. Budding DJs will enjoy the auto-DJ mode, which mixes tracks for you and the Party Mode, which blocks your configuration but lets anybody play their favorite tune. MediaMonkey’s versatility doesn’t stop there. The music manager also lets you synchronize with your portable music devices like your iPod or iRiver.
If you feel like completing your library with a couple of fresh albums you can browse sites like Amazon, Barnes and Noble or AllPosters and purchase tracks. However, unlike Songbird, where you can type in a URL, browse and save your favorite music blogs and sites, MediaMonkey only allows you to browse their selection of online stores.
We were disappointed with the web radio selection, which only features Shoutcast and Icecast, and were surprised to see no sign of podcasts anywhere in the application. However version 3.0 is planning on incorporating this to the application.
Despite these drawbacks, we recommend MediaMonkey to anybody looking for a solid alternative to iTunes or Winamp. This original music manager is more than capable of organizing a very large music library and offers advanced tagging management rarely seen in other music applications. While the browser and web radio are fairly limited, MediaMonkey allows you to rip your custom CDs and connects to most portable music devices. If you really take a liking to MediaMonkey, cough up a few bucks and upgrade to the Gold version, which will open up all of the program’s functionalities like finding missing tracks or creating auto (smart) playlists.
The new version adds compatibility with the iPod Nano 6G, iPod Shuffle 4G, and iPod Touch 4G, and fixes compatibility issues introduced with iTunes 10.1. Additionally, the new version includes several minor fixes.
Changes
The new version adds compatibility with the iPod Nano 6G, iPod Shuffle 4G, and iPod Touch 4G, and fixes compatibility issues introduced with iTunes 10.1. Additionally, the new version includes several minor fixes.
User reviews about MediaMonkey
by Anonymous
The Best iTunes Alternative.
As much as I love Winamp and Spider Player for Audio files, both lack the ability to sync audio files to mp3 players. There is iTunes but to some like me, it's a little too bulky and slow for those who just want to sync their music with their iPods. This s where MediaMonkey comes in. MediaMonkey has the ability to copy and paste songs from the player to your iPod Touch and almost any other mp3 device. On top of that it has a basic auto-tagging feature of it's own, the best part is being able to put lyrics in to the tags. This is useful for iPod Touch users who will be able to see the lyrics as the song plays.The downsides are while it can copy and paste audio files, it can't really sync them. So iPod users still need iTunes for this. Another downside is it doesn't have a way by default to go to system tray and the fact that it's too easy to pause MediaMonkey and lacks a rich auto-tagging feature outside of the lyrics tagger. Another issue is when your trying to clear your playlist you can very well delete some of your songs instead by accident.If you don't care about syncing your tunes and just want to copy and paste songs and you hate iTunes then MediaMonkey is the way to go. However if you want a more feature rich Audio Player your better off using an Audio Player like Winamp.
Pros:
Copy And Paste Audio Files To MP3 Players
Embed Song Lyrics Into Audio Files
Plays Almost All Types Of Audio Files
Nice Clean Interface
Free
Cons:
Basic Auto-Tagging Feature
Too Easy To Pause Songs
No Default Way Put In System Tray
Still Need iTunes To Sync iPods
Can Accidentailly Delete Audio Files More