Category Archives: Freeware

Free To Use Audio Software

Ex Falso / Quod Libet ~ Tag Editor / Player

Posted by tom2tec on

Quod Libet is a GTK+-based audio player written in Python, using the Mutagen tagging library. It’s designed around the idea that you know how to organize your music better than we do. It lets you make playlists based on regular expressions (don’t worry, regular searches work too). It lets you display and edit any tags you want in the file, for all the file formats it supports.

Unlike some, Quod Libet will scale to libraries with tens of thousands of songs. It also supports most of the features you’d expect from a modern media player: Unicode support, advanced tag editing, ReplayGain, podcasts & Internet radio, album art support and all major audio formats – see the screenshots.

Ex Falso is a program that uses the same tag editing backend as Quod Libet, but isn’t connected to an audio player. If you’re perfectly happy with your favorite player and just want something that can handle tagging, Ex Falso is for you.

Quod Libet

Website
Download
Features
Guide
Screenshots
Quod Libet Companion Plugins

Audio RightMark ~ Independent Audio Benchmarking

Posted by tom2tec on

Need help deciding which PC audio hardware to purchase? Want to test some gear? Open source, freeware hardware analysis software and posted RMAA test results for common hardware.

Website
Download
Test Results

RareWares ~ Freeware Audio Archive

Posted by tom2tec on

Providing hard-to-find pieces of software since 2001

Repository of open audio CODECs, compiled LAME binaries and freeware utilities.

http://rarewares.org

Mp3tag ~ Universal Tag Editor

Posted by tom2tec on

Mp3tag is a powerful and easy-to-use tool to edit metadata of audio files.

It supports batch tag-editing of ID3v1, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, iTunes MP4, WMA, Vorbis Comments and APE Tags for multiple files at once covering a variety of audio formats.

Furthermore, it supports online database lookups from, e.g., Discogs, MusicBrainz or freedb, allowing you to automatically gather proper tags and download cover art for your music library.

You can rename files based on the tag information, replace characters or words in tags and filenames, import/export tag information, create playlists and more.

mp3tag-en

www.mp3tag.de
www.mp3tag.de/en/screenshots
community.mp3tag.de
twitter.com/mp3tag
hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=122049.0
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp3tag
apps.apple.com/us/app/mp3tag/id1532597159
www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/mp3tag/9nn77tcq1nc8
www.portablefreeware.com/?id=1137
musicbrainz.org/doc/Mp3tag

Convolver ~ A Convolution Plugin

Posted by tom2tec on

Convolver is an open source, high performance Windows application for applying finite impulse response (FIR) filters to multi-channel digital audio in the form of

Convolver will take a set of FIR filter files (sound files) and convolve them with sound paths mixed from the input channels, mixing the results into a set of specified output channels.

convolver

convolver.sourceforge.net
Download
Documentation

DRC ~ Digital Room Correction Filter Generator

Posted by tom2tec on

DRC is a program used to generate correction filters for acoustic compensation of HiFi and audio systems in general, including listening room compensation. DRC generates just the FIR correction filters, which can be used with a real time or offline convolver to provide real time or offline correction. DRC doesn’t provide convolution features, and provides only some simplified, although really accurate, measuring tools.

drc-fir.sourceforge.net
sourceforge.net/projects/drc-fir/files/
Documentation
Wikipedia

Foobar2000 ~ DADA Automatic Song Rating

Posted by tom2tec on

Date and duration adjusted (DADA) auto-rating algorithm for foobar2000

The DADA Auto-Rating algorithm (DAR) automatically rates music according to a variety of statistics collected by foobar2000’s official “playback statistics” plugin.

If done well, an auto-rating algorithm will simply tell you what your favorite (and conversely, least favorite) music is, and the rating will be derived from and reflect actual listening behavior. This is quite different from manual ratings (e.g. 1 – 5 stars set by the user), since there’s very often a disparity between what we’d like ourselves to like, and what we actually like. For those interested in uncovering their actual musical tastes, a good auto-rating formula can be quite illuminating.

Foobar - Ratings and DAR - cropped

www.giantpygmy.net/studio/?post=dada-music-auto-rating-algorithm-foobar2000
Hydrogen Audio Discussion

LAME ~ Free & Open mp3 Encoder

Posted by tom2tec on

LAME is used to encode / compress audio data into the lossy MP3 file format. It’s a high quality MPEG Audio Layer III (MP3) encoder, licensed under the LGPL.

LAME Downloads ~ Rarewares
LAME Recommended Settings – HA Wiki
LAME Libraries – RareWares
LAME Source Code ~ Sourceforge
lame3995o ~ A fork of LAME (alternative version)
LameVST ~ LAME compression as a VST effect
Wikipedia ~ LAME info
WinLAME ~ Windows front-end (GUI)
wxlame ~ Windows front-end (GUI)
lame-ios ~ LAME For IOS

www.esm.rochester.edu/ears/docs/lame/switchs
svn.code.sf.net/p/lame/svn/trunk/lame/USAGE

FLAC ~ Free Lossless Audio CODEC

Posted by tom2tec on

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. This is similar to how Zip works, except with FLAC you will get much better compression because it is designed specifically for audio, and you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo) just like you would a MP3 file.

FLAC stands out as the fastest and most widely supported lossless audio codec, and the only one that at once is non-proprietary, is unencumbered by patents, has an open-source reference implementation, has a well documented format and API and has several other independent implementations.

xiph.org/flac
xiph.org/flac/comparison
xiph.org/flac/documentation
xiph.org/flac/download
xiph.org/flac/faq
sourceforge.net/projects/flac
github.com/xiph/flac
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC

Additional resources:

sourceforge.net/projects/flacfrontend
FLAC Development Forum @ Hydrogen Audio

FLAC Test Bench:

wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=FLAC_decoder_testbench

Encoders:

FLACCL ~ cue.tools/wiki/FLACCL

Winamp ~ Popular Extensible Music Player

Posted by tom2tec on

Winamp — It really whips the llama’s ass!

The classic alternative to Window Media Player. Winamp is a cross platform, extensible, free and skinnable media player with a large community and a long past. Development has stopped, but may start again, meanwhile, the development community has largely moved to Foobar2000.

(Update) October 2018

A leaked version of Winamp 5.8 recently spread over the Internet. Consequently, we have decided to make this new version available to you, revised by us.

www.winamp.com
forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=374929#download
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winamp
archive.org/details/winamp274
www.winamparchive.org
skins.webamp.org
Webamp ~ Winamp As A Webpage
www.mywinamp.com

A collection legacy resources for Winamp, including the best skins, plugins and visualizations and make them available to download freely.

winampheritage.com

MilkDrop ~ Audio Visualization Plugin

Posted by tom2tec on

MilkDrop is a music visualizer – a “plug-in” or extension to Winamp or Foobar2000 music players. As you listen your music in Winamp, MilkDrop takes you flying through the actual sound waves you’re hearing, and uses beat detection to trigger myriad psychedelic effects, creating a rich visual journey through sound. MilkDrop can also be driven by a live audio feed (microphone or line-in).

www.geisswerks.com/milkdrop
sourceforge.net/projects/milkdrop2
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MilkDrop

MusicBrainz Picard ~ Tag Audio Files With MusicBrainz Metadata

Posted by tom2tec on

MusicBrainz Picard is a cross-platform (Linux, macOS, Windows) audio tagging application. It is the official MusicBrainz tagger.

Picard supports the majority of audio file formats, is capable of using audio fingerprints (AcoustIDs), performing CD lookups and disc ID submissions, and it has excellent Unicode support. Additionally, there are several plugins available that extend Picard’s features.

Features:

  • Multiple formats: Picard supports all popular music formats, including MP3, FLAC, OGG, M4A, WMA, WAV, and more.
  • AcoustID: Picard uses AcoustID audio fingerprints, allowing files to be identified by the actual music, even if they have no metadata.
  • Comprehensive database: Picard uses the open and community-maintained MusicBrainz database to provide accurate information about millions of music releases.
  • CD lookups: Picard can lookup entire music CDs with a click.
  • Plugin support: If you need a particular feature, you can choose from a selection of available plugins or write your own.
  • Scripting: A flexible and powerful, yet easy to learn, scripting language allows you to exactly specify how your music files will be named and how the tags will look like.
  • Cover Art: Picard can find and download the correct cover art for your albums.
  • Open Source: Picard is licensed under the GNU General Public License 2.0 or later, and is hosted on GitHub where it is actively developed.
Picard GUI

picard.musicbrainz.org
picard.musicbrainz.org/downloads
picard.musicbrainz.org/plugins
picard.musicbrainz.org/docs/faq
picard.musicbrainz.org/quick-start
github.com/metabrainz/picard
Youtube: What is MusicBrainz Picard?