Console mp3 player windows

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Here is a list of 5 music players that use a command line interface or simply a command prompt to play audio files. A command line audio player basically plays an audio file by the means of entering a command in native terminal. The command invokes the program which parses and streams the audio file. One of the use of these programs is when you make an installer batch to play in the background, as you see in the installers. It’s also handy for Windows users that use the command prompt a lot. To get them working, you have to copy and paste the application files in the System32 folder of Windows or alternatively, you have to set the environmental variables for it.

Some time back when I was looking at this online terminal radio, I thought if music players exist that use terminal to operate exclusively? This is what caught my gears and made me search for such free audio players that employ only a command line user interface. The results were engaging and that is what I’ve brought you guys.

And, BTW, you might also want to check out audio players without any interface!

DLC Player

Картинка с сайта: www.ilovefreesoftware.com

DLC player is a Windows based command line audio player that plays MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, etc audio files. To do this, it uses the IrrKlang sound library that is used for C++, C#, and dotNET languages. DLC Player always includes commandline parameters when you try to run it. To play a song you need to use the keyword dlc, and in the syntax: ‘dlc -p’. A very cool feature of this player is that it packs audio effects like flanger, compression, echo, distortion, etc. If you like adding audio effects, then check out this list of audio editors which can do the same.
You can also configure DLC Player to play files with specific extension by using wildcard ‘*.extension’.

Get DLC player here.

CmdMp3

Картинка с сайта: www.ilovefreesoftware.com

CmdMp3 is a free command line MP3 player written in C language. It works by launching the command prompt and using the extension CmdMp3 with the audio filename. It is a simple audio streamer with only a CUI. CmdMp3 cannot play any other audio format than MP3. To play an MP3 file using CmdMp3, launch the Command Prompt. Then use the keyword CmdMp3 in the format ‘CmdMp3 <filename>’. The file will play until you manually end the program from the task manager.

Get CmdMp3 here.

Sounder

Картинка с сайта: www.ilovefreesoftware.com

Sounder is a simple CUI audio player. It is akin to the CmdMp3 player but, in this case, it can only play WAV files. Like the others in the list, you have to launch it through the command prompt. The command to launch it is ‘sounder[/stop] [/loop times] [/timer ms] [/help] filename.wav ‘. As you can see in the command format, this application lets you stop the existing playback with ‘/stop’ command. Other than that, you can also set the file to play in a loop and enable a timer. A really cool feature I discovered about this audio application is, that you can play multiple WAV files simultaneously.

Get Sounder here.

sWavPlayer

Картинка с сайта: www.ilovefreesoftware.com

SWavPlayer is another WAV format player that is used from command line. It is just like Sounder. What makes it different from sounder is that, even though it markets itself as a WAV player, it can play MP3 files as well. Apart from that, sWavPlayer has only one parameter, unlike sounder. To launch sWavPlayer from the terminal, use ‘sWavPlayer [parameter]’. You can play multiple instances of it simultaneously, but it doesn’t have a ‘stop’ option to stop them playing all the files, like Sounder has.

Get sWavPlayer here.

MPXplay

Картинка с сайта: www.ilovefreesoftware.com

MPXplay came to me as a surprise when I was looking for CUI based players. I did not expect that I would find an audio player with a well made ‘GUI within a CUI’. It’s CUI-ception! *excuse the bad joke*. MPXplay is a well-programmed commandline audio player that can handle multiple audio formats. It can even play lossless audio.
The interface includes a navigation bar, visualization, speed control, file tab, seek bar and many more features, just like a normal GUI audio player. It has lots of parameters you can launch it with, unlike the other players in this list. To use it, you have to use the hotkeys on your keyboard. This audio player goes beyond its limit as a simple CUI player by even letting you play Internet Radio through HTTP and play audio files through FTP. This application is definitely a marvel among the others in this list and this why I insist you HAVE to try this player out.

Get MPXPlay here.

Conclusion

All these commandline players seemed to function as they intended to. Some went a step ahead. Among these players I think MPXPlay is what music-savvy people will definitely love. MPXPlayer delivers way more than just a commandline audio application. It presents itself as a proper music player that would’ve been the first choice in DOS era. You can choose the other players to play audio casually or use these applications integrated with other applications, like an installer. These audio applications also take a negligible toll on your system, almost as if they are not running. However, if you’re not satisfied with these CUI players and would like ‘see and click’ GUI players then there is a long list of such audio players you can check out.

What would you use these command line mp3 players for? Do tell me in the comments!

Musikcube is a cross platform terminal based music player, music management application and a music server; it is open source and available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and as an Android app that acts as a client which connects to the desktop server.

Despite being a terminal based program, musikcube is very user friendly. And like most, it is heavily keyboard focused. Fortunately, the command bar at the bottom of the screen displays the keyboard shortcuts that you can use in the current view. The mouse is mostly used for selecting options.

Tip: check out nnn, a Terminal-based file manager which we have reviewed recently.

Initial Setup

When you run the program for the first time, the settings pane is displayed. The pane on the top left is the file browser that you can use to navigate to your music folders. To add the current folder to your library hit the Space key. The right pane shows the «indexed paths» which is your library management tool.

To remove a folder from the library use the backspace key. The bottom pane of the Setting screen has several options that you can configure such as replay gain, gapless playback, theme selection, server setup, and more.

Tip: Go to the Settings > Key Bindings page to view all the keyboard shorcuts.

Music Playback

To play tracks in Musikcube, you have to switch to the library view. You can do this by using the «a» key.  The library has an artist pane on the left and a tracks pane on the right. It displays all of your songs in one place so that you don’t have to navigate from one folder to another. The playback control bar on the bottom lets you control the volume, enable shuffle, repeat, and has a seek bar for jumping to a specific time stamp.

Use Tab (or the arrow keys or mouse) to switch between the artist and tracks panes. Hit enter to play (or double-click) the selected track and use space to pause or resume the song. You can use the keys 1-5 to change the view.

Filter

This is the search engine in Musikcube and it categorizes your library by albums, artists and genre. You can use the search bar at the top of the window to find a specific track, artist or album.

Tracks

The tracks view is quite similar to the Filter view, except it only displays the songs from your library. It still displays track information such as the track number, total duration and artist though.

Customization

You can change the theme of Musikcube from the Settings page. Tap the v key to bring up available visualizers such as the Music drop plugin.

Audio Quality

I didn’t find any major difference in the playback quality between Musikcube and Musicbee.Then again, I think that hardware plays more of a role when it comes to quality than audio players if the same files are used to test the quality.

Then again, I believe audio (and video) quality depends on the hardware that you use.

I only tested MP3 and FLAC formats, but the program supports other formats as well. It was very light in terms of memory usage.

Verdict

Musikcube is an excellent option if you want a minimalist music experience.

Note: I had been using an older version of the program (v 0.65) when I began reviewing it. The 64-bit version was only introduced in version v 0.70 which was released about 10 days ago. I tested it for a few days, and the memory usage was about the same. Interestingly the portable version of v70 picked up my library from the older version, even though both versions were in their own portable folders.

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