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WinAmp Community Update Project

getwacup.com

63 pointsTomte52 comments

Few weeks ago I actually installed WinAmp because I needed that nostalgia dopamine hit of Milkdrop visualizer and those sweet skins. I downloaded some mp3 files from a YouTube playlist using FFMPEG. Unfortunately none of the mp3 worked. I think it was an encoding issue. Then I remembered the last time I faced a media file encoding problem was close to a decade ago.

We take granted how good VLC or MPC-HC as software are.

VLC was the reason I stopped caring about "codec packs". If I ever hit a problem along those lines, or some media format that won't play for any other reason, instead of installing codecs or whatever, I install VLC.

Due to some quirks that I've forgotten, I've switched to using smplayer as my main video player, and winamp for audio on windows.

I wish I could remember why I switched away from VLC for everything.

I don't know about the visualizer, but Audacious lets you install Winamp skins. Source: rocking Bento Classified uninterrupted since 1999.

Audacious makes a great minimal streaming (icecast/shoutcast) desktop player once you futz with the UI a little to get it how you like for that purpose. Like you, years of trying out a lot of gui players but I go back to Audacious every time.

>rocking Bento Classified

https://archive.org/details/winampskin_Bento_Classified

For the visualizations - Milkdrop is alive and well as projectM (which sometimes comes bundled with VLC, sometimes not?): https://github.com/projectM-visualizer/projectm

Which has a ridiculous level of cross-platform compatibility. I can throw up 3 copies of projectM-pulseaudio on my big 3-monitor work machine and have it listen to any audio sink, I've got it installed on my Android TV and it happily responds to whatever audio's being played, so works with streaming apps and whatnot.

There's also thousands and thousands of presets you can add which the community has been adding to since way back when it was still milkdrop, and people have made curated lists like this person's NestDrop: https://thefulldomeblog.com/2020/02/21/nestdrop-presets-coll...

My issue now is that there is no way to stream my music and make these visualizations come up on people’s screens

I want something as simple as spotify over chromecast, that shows these visualizations on the fly

The metric is: can I do this in a hotel room that happens to have a smart tv?

Because it has to pass that bar, not the bar of plugging in a computer to my own tv’s hdmi port

Bit late answering this, but projectM for Android does have the chromecast feature! It streams whatever audio is playing on the device along with the visualizations. iirc it does require you leave the phone/whatever open on that though otherwise casting loses the audio, that might be different with newer android APIs though..

Then there's all the other screen casting things like miracast or whatever, depending on what the smart TV supports (if it supports any).

Smart TVs themselves are so inconsistent and jank though, I think I'd prefer to bypass all the broken bullshit and just use a HDMI cable.

For anyone wanting to dip back into the nostalgia of Winamp and Milkdrop without installing any software, I made https://webamp.org for that exact purpose.

It can render real Milkdrop presets and real classic winamp skins directly in the browser.

Also, it’s open source: https://github.com/captbaritone/webamp

That’s awesome!

I actually still use Winamp 2 on a daily basis. The visualizations were my favorite part and is one of the major avenues which drove me get into software optimization. It would be fair to say my entire life might be very different if it weren’t for that influence.

Cool site!

One note: On Brave mobile, the seek slider doesn't actually work. It moves and says 'seek to:' but doesn't.

>We take granted how good VLC or MPC-HC as software are.

Yeah but neither VLC nor MPC-HC really whips the llama's ass.

they were probably opus files, not mp3

For long, I wished Winamp would be open sourced. I don't understand the benefit of keeping it closed.

I'm not sure I would be back to using it though. I'm used to my current player, which already does everything I would expect from Winamp, with a (arguably) worse look but much better UX.

Audacious with the Winamp classic interface is also a great Winamp for those who (still) fancy this look and feel.

The benefit of keeping it closed: squeeze some money from people googling winamp.

Why would you give up that revenue stream? It might also have some residual allure to attract investment capital.

It must be there somewhere, a friend recently told me it’s in AUR - and I replied with “I don’t have mp3s anymore” he sent a screenshot of just under a TB of music.

I guess some people just moved to streaming (me) and others stuck true to their roots

All of the music I listen to is local files or YouTube videos (great for sampling new stuff). The only time I've ever used any of the online streaming services was in an office that had one set up on speakers—and by "used" I mean "listened to what others played", I took one look at the UI and wanted nothing to do with it.

Spotify pretty doesn't have any of kind of music that I want, which is pretty surreal given their marketing. I subsist on YouTube playlists and a Bandcamp account.

I've also got about a terabyte of music.

Streaming is useful for me for discovery, not consumption. If I read an online or magazine article that means an artist I want to check out, the fastest way is usually searching for them on Spotify or YouTube Music.

But if I like what I hear and think I'll listen to it again in the future, my next step is to see if the artist is available on Bandcamp with high-quality MP3s/FLACs, or Amazon with AutoRips available. Failing that, I'll purchase the physical album and do the rips myself.

What revenue stream? There's nothing from pro licenses now as that was stopped prior to the sale from AOL & thankfully it doesn't seem like they've been forcing in-client adverts (though they'd talked about doing it). I'd love a revenue stream that's just some of what Winamp was making prior to it's sale rather than having to scape by.

So other than what's coming any adverts on their forum (dunno if there are any), it's being propped up by other aspects of the audiovalley group (e.g. the targetspot/shoutcast advert/charges to pay for the streaming service).

That's probably why they're going to do some sort of subscription / nft / 'donate to artists but take a cut' type of affair with whatever they may end up slapping the Winamp brand on.

'classic' Winamp is officially dead from what's stated on their awful web3.0 website & that might be fine for whoever but it misses the point of why however many have kept using it in a streaming-centric world - they don't want streaming services & Winamp being turned into a Spotify wannabe as seems to be the case is sad to see).

-dro

I didn't know licenses had stopped.

They still offer the latest version for download, no hints of discontinuing it, so it will likely "morph" into something else.

5.666 was the last full release of 'classic' Winamp. What is currently offered is an incomplete 5.8 beta that's "not an on-going project" (which is what was stated on their website for that download for over 3 years) so take of that as you will.

From the job listings that have been seen for their new team (which also confirmed they'd done nothing for many years despite the marketing lies) imply something that is completely different with the Winamp brand slapped on it.

-dro

If I knew the secret to llama ass-whooping, I wouldn't share it.

I have winamp on my old windows machine. I love the program, but it is so much XP are that it hurts.

Let me explain: if you want to use your computer ofline, with a local store of MP3 files that you play on limited hardware without any impact on your computer, it is great. Go download it.

However in practice you almost certainly won't want to do that. What you want is to be constantly connected to the internet, you want the ability to listen to whatever track you want at whatever time you want.

And for that, Winamp won't serve your needs.

I get the nostalgia and I am not really sure if the XP time wasn't better than our current one, but do keep in mind what you are trading of.

The problem of storing all the music in the world locally had been solved for a long time. Just get a bigger hard drive.

The source code leaked a while ago, but IIRC not the final version. And it's not like one could really use it.

It pre-dates the 5.666 release & is of no use to any project trying to do things correctly i.e. whoever did (I have my suspicions) basically shafted a load of projects that could have made legitimate benefit.

-dro

I think it was precisely your blog post (?) which I read that detailed that it was pre 5.666!

Is the problem that now that the source is out you can no longer claim plausible deniability you never saw it or what exact complications does it cause by just being leaked?

And one other (WinAmp related question) - I still use 5.666, but it has the weird issue that it's the one program that Windows can't get to close itself when shutting down ... why would that be? Is that fixed in WACUP?

The complication is that what's been leaked just can't be used by anything trying to be legit because it was not released in any official manner & so it's license isn't at all clarified even though it's a pre-release copy from the AOL era which some would say it's abandonware. Plenty saw the publicly posted screenshots of partial headers from the source files on twitter that were being used to prove it was a real leak which I unfortunately was greeted to on opening a DM (which I wasn't happy about) otherwise everything else gleaned was taken from others observations at the time.

With the clear demise of 'classic' Winamp with the whole 'set the tone' & seemingly nft related crap the new lot are now going for, what was leaked still equates to what's gone to the new owners (which was one of my pre-sale tasks) so it's into the messy state of who has recourse against it being leaked.

As for the issue, I don't remember there being anything specific that is in place to make it intentionally block system closing unless it's taking too long &/or it's crashing. I don't have the Winamp core handling that aspect of the running process with the current preview build (& the beta builds barely let the Winamp core do anything with it being able to run without it with some missing features) so the best way to find out if it behaves would be to try it out as a portable install so it doesn't mess with your existing Winamp install.

-dro

Mh, that makes sense. And what, the new Winamp owners are into NFTs? I have no words.

It will never close (unless you click "shut down anyway"). Maybe I'll dig into that some day - after a quick google, maybe it just doesn't honor the window messages to close the program.

I use a portable install anyway, so that hopefully won't be an issue (if I ever get around to testing)!

It seems that there's a reasonable implication of nft's or other aspects of the web3.0 stuff based on what's been found recently -> https://www.reddit.com/r/winamp/comments/soqig1/if_youre_won...

-dro

You've already got an open source Winamp if you're using the likes of xmms, qmmp, Audacious or anything else that effectively loads classic style skins (not that they tend to get it spot in) so does it really matter what the state of Winamp vs it's source code is...? I'd say no.

As you've clearly got something that fits your needs as do I by slowly making my own Winamp compatible player to run my old Winamp plug-ins (which were always closed source nor am I for or against OSS but it needs to be the dev that decides not external pressure) because I don't trust nor like what's happened with those that now own the brand.

Also source code is pointless without dev(s) & unless we're looking for AI to do all of the coding, whether the code is open or closed, the fleshy meat bag bashing the keyboard is still needed for the time being :)

Use what makes you happy & I'll keep making & using what makes me happy too :)

-dro

I believe the above commenter was speaking more from a place of nostalgia and curiosity, rather than "usability".

> Also source code is pointless without dev(s)

Given the number of people still interested in Winamp, I'm sure there would be people willing to work on it if it were open-sourced.

I meant no offense :-)

No offence taken. I would just rather than waiting around for those many willing devs (most of which seem to be web devs rather than native client devs from my past 8yrs experience) to appear I've instead put my time & effort into making something as I was already doing for the decade before Winamp was eventually sold on.

So as long as I end up with WACUP being a program that fulfils my needs in allowing my plug-ins to keep working & happens to be of use to others wanting a supported native 'classic' winamp experience (due to the pivot from a plug-in pack to being a standalone player) then I'm going to keep doing it irrespective of what is / isn't happening with "winamp" (I don't view anything that now comes out as being winamp other than a brand name slapped onto some code).

-dro

What player do you have that has better UX? Winamp was lightning fast, could do anything in a few keystrokes (especially that "jump to" dialog was magical) and got out of the way. It was perfect.

Clementine.

I can indeed do most things with a few keystrokes, including queuing and finding things in the playlist (by filtering).

It's not as lightning fast, but it's fast enough. It supports several playlists and has other niceties.

Ah, very nice. Clementine is great, agreed.

That feeling when you thought the llama finally escaped abuse..

It was a great branding step though!

25? Years later and people still know exactly what part got whipped!

I'll die before I forget how this 5 second long demo mp3 sounds.

Maybe the llama has grown to like it.

WinAmp was my favorite music player. Skins, EQ, visualization,... It had all. I also like the fact that you could listen to Internet radio stations with it.

If you look for a more modern Winamp-like audio player - down to supporting a lot of Winamp plugins - I really recommend AIMP.

AIMP misses the boat on the sort of Winamp plug-ins I still want to have supported whilst not using an actual Winamp itself (as is now the aim for WACUP). Sure it's an option but a limited sub-set of Winamp 2.x era plug-ins isn't great :)

-dro

I could only find the changelog for the previous March 2021 release, what's changed in this release?

Did you try clicking the "Changelogs" link in the header? https://getwacup.com/changelog/

Lol ok totally missed that :D thanks.

What is the point of doing this instead of writing a clone?

It is going to end up as a clone (as per the banner text on the site) but when I started out I didn't expect the lot that owned Winamp to fuck it up so much & abandon it. Every build uses less of the pre-compiled exe/dlls that come from 5.666 & I've currently get beta builds that can now run completely without the Winamp core along with a native 64-bit build because why not.

WACUP began as a a plug-in pack but I've pivoted to it becoming it's own player but it takes time as I've been patching / replacing the 5.666 plug-ins with my own which allows me to have the best plug-in compatibility possible unlike most other clones that do a sub-set of the Winamp 2.x api vs I wanted something that would support up to 5.666.

-dro

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