Media player and external hard drive.

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Hi all,
I know I am in the best place here as we all love music.

At the moment I am using Windows Media Player on my computer for my music. To be honest I have used it for many many years that it's grown roots. 
I like the program as it's very simple and easy to use without any real problems (Until now). It is great for organizing my music collection and is simple to use. But I have got to the stage where I feel I must move onto another media player. 
My archive of music on the computer is getting rather heavy and needs to be dumped onto an external memory device. I purchased a Maxtor portable hard drive for this. 

This is where the problems starts.

 Windows media player seems to be OK with small external storage devices like USB sticks but then add a permanent external storage device then we start to get problems.The Windows Media Player starts to duplicate tracks in the album files. After a while the tracks will triplicate and if left any longer will then add on again. In the end I gave up and started my music library from scratch.

I have since been lead to believe the Windows media player can only cope with one centralized music file. The problem seems each time I activate the program it was trying to add tracks from both the music file on my computer and the external storage device.

As not too much of a computer friendly person(I crashed the computer a few months back) I do not really know how to sort this out. I have been advised that it may be best to change my media player. But It has to be compatible with an external hard drive.

Mostly I use my player to rip CD's and to file the music neatly. The other objective of having the player is to download to my mp3 players so I can listen to the music on the way to work.

Can anybody suggest a good media player for my computer which is compatible with a Maxtor portable hard drive. I am using windows 8.1 on the computer. If that helps.

Someone did suggest trying Busybee. Anybody got any experience with this program?

Best wishes, Anthony.

P.S. Please forgive any errors in writing etc. I did try to preview but the dreaded I'm not a robot thing even when I got through it refused to show me a preview of what I had written.

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scruffydragon Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: February 09 2008 Location: trowbridge Status: Offline Points: 250	Topic: Media player and external hard drive. Posted: December 31 2017 at 03:30
	Hi all, I know I am in the best place here as we all love music. At the moment I am using Windows Media Player on my computer for my music. To be honest I have used it for many many years that it's grown roots. I like the program as it's very simple and easy to use without any real problems (Until now). It is great for organizing my music collection and is simple to use. But I have got to the stage where I feel I must move onto another media player. My archive of music on the computer is getting rather heavy and needs to be dumped onto an external memory device. I purchased a Maxtor portable hard drive for this. This is where the problems starts. Windows media player seems to be OK with small external storage devices like USB sticks but then add a permanent external storage device then we start to get problems.The Windows Media Player starts to duplicate tracks in the album files. After a while the tracks will triplicate and if left any longer will then add on again. In the end I gave up and started my music library from scratch. I have since been lead to believe the Windows media player can only cope with one centralized music file. The problem seems each time I activate the program it was trying to add tracks from both the music file on my computer and the external storage device. As not too much of a computer friendly person(I crashed the computer a few months back) I do not really know how to sort this out. I have been advised that it may be best to change my media player. But It has to be compatible with an external hard drive. Mostly I use my player to rip CD's and to file the music neatly. The other objective of having the player is to download to my mp3 players so I can listen to the music on the way to work. Can anybody suggest a good media player for my computer which is compatible with a Maxtor portable hard drive. I am using windows 8.1 on the computer. If that helps. Someone did suggest trying Busybee. Anybody got any experience with this program? Best wishes, Anthony. P.S. Please forgive any errors in writing etc. I did try to preview but the dreaded I'm not a robot thing even when I got through it refused to show me a preview of what I had written.

Guldbamsen Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Special Collaborator Retired Admin Joined: January 22 2009 Location: Magic Theatre Status: Offline Points: 23104	Posted: December 31 2017 at 03:39
	Hi Anthony I too have had problems with that infernal media player. Can't recall what type of fits my computer threw but I remember it being enough for me to look elsewhere for a new player. Foobar2000 is what I use myself. Never had any problems with it. It's free, plays every file you can think of, has a good equalizer and can be used to do all sorts of things that I honestly don't understand. Here's the page to downloads: http://www.foobar2000.org/download
	“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - Douglas Adams

scruffydragon Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: February 09 2008 Location: trowbridge Status: Offline Points: 250	Posted: January 01 2018 at 00:09
	Thank you. I had a look on U-Tube at a few tutorials on Foobar2000.Looks great. It looks a lot more complex to what I am used to using but I do like the idea of it being Customizable which will suit my eventual needs. What's it like with external storage devices?

Quinino Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: June 26 2011 Location: Portugal Status: Offline Points: 3654	Posted: January 01 2018 at 05:16
	This is the way Foobar can look like, just with a few hours work Edited by Quinino - January 01 2018 at 05:21

Vompatti Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member VIP Member Joined: October 22 2005 Location: elsewhere Status: Offline Points: 67407	Posted: January 01 2018 at 05:31
	^ Ncmpcpp looks infinitely more pleasing by default.

scruffydragon Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: February 09 2008 Location: trowbridge Status: Offline Points: 250	Posted: January 01 2018 at 07:27
	Been playing with Foobar2000 this morning. And it is truly an incredible music media player. Within half hour I had built myself a really nice looking interface including album art. It really goes to show how poor the windows media player really is. The best thing of all is the sound, it's so vibrant,clear and fresh. It's almost as if I have a whole new set up. And for my bonus, it can actually handle external storage without any problems. One shock was just how quickly it located and took over my computers music archive. It literally took seconds. So it's goodbye windows media player and hello Foobar2000. You know what this means...............I need to get more music to celebrate. That is a nice looking interface you have there Quinino. Very Impressive.

noni Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: October 03 2008 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 1092	Posted: January 01 2018 at 07:46
	I'm assuming this only works for a PC and not a Mac. Last year I had issues playing Flac or Alac files. I've now resulted in using VOX media player on my Mac.. VLC is only good for movies, but not music, not sure why? They end up being distorted for some strange reason... VOX also uses a graphic equalizer Mac's iTunes is very poor and too complicated now. iTunes media player is too muted in my opinion ...

Guldbamsen Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Special Collaborator Retired Admin Joined: January 22 2009 Location: Magic Theatre Status: Offline Points: 23104	Posted: January 01 2018 at 08:05
	I'm glad to hear it worked out. I didn't know it'd sync with external harddrives as I just drop albums in the player and listen. Good to know though. Been meaning to get a new external harddrive as I've begun to re-rip my collection to FLAC instead of mp3. I took some blind tests over the net to see if I was able to discern any sonic differences, and much to my surprise, I was able to hear a difference with certain types of music like good live recordings, folk stuff, various rock and jazz recordings and sometimes just in the way high hats and cymbals sound (also the electronic variant in EDM actually). By no means clear cut though but it was enough to make me take the plunge and start the re-rip of my collection. Oh and btw this is the first time I've seen Foobar look the way Jose (Quinino) has set it up. Yep I am not that IT savy either...or I just didn't care to elaborate on the physical appearance of my player as I tend to close my eyes when music is playing. After seeing Jose's Foobar setup I may just have changed my mind. Only problem now is that I have to fiddle with stuff I have absolutely zero interest in...apart from the actual outcome that is.
	“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - Douglas Adams

Quinino Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: June 26 2011 Location: Portugal Status: Offline Points: 3654	Posted: January 01 2018 at 08:08
	If anyone wants to try something like my custom build, the bulk of it came from this gentleman here https://tedgo.deviantart.com/art/DarkOne-v4-360862076 Big kudos to you, Gerhard !!! (And yes, SQ is amazing, specially FLAC thru ASIO driver )