Show HN: We missed Winamp, so we built an audio player for macOS (opens in new tab)

I miss these times too. And I’d like to remind you that Winamp used to be a $10 shareware app (that’s roughly $30 in today’s dollars). The first version of Winamp didn't have any windows, it was pure utility application. Do you still think there's value in "max customization"?

I actually prefer VLC to foobar2000. However, I still prefer classic Winamp to to all other music players, and I wish I could get Apple Music work in the same interface. I like 100% of the classic Winamp player UI/UX.

- I like the separate player, playlist, EQ windows.

- I like that I can re-arrange the windows, and resize the playlist separately.

- I like that the main player has a little EQ built in.

- I like the layout of the main window. It's perfect.

- I like the layout of the playlist window, it's also perfect. I can add "directories", "albums", etc. and again, I can resize the window.

- I like the skins. I like the classic skin, but I also love the Sonicated skin. I still have it on my Windows laptop.

- Conversely, I really dislike the "native" UI elements.

- I like that lack of rounded corners on the classic Winamp windows, such that when windows stick together, they appear as whole, and I can drag them around as one.

Mostly, it's a bunch of seemingly small and aesthetic things, but if a player doesn't have those things, I might as well just use iTunes.

Foobar is what I use to play music. Example of quality, performant, timeless software.

For me personally, the main reason to use foobar2000 back then was FLAC support, which Winamp didn’t have at the time. Out of nostalgia, I downloaded foobar again not too long ago, but I just couldn’t get into it – it doesn’t really jive with me anymore. I wouldn’t have tried to build a new audio player if I felt there were better alternatives already out there, but personally I couldn’t find one. Cheers.

My newest discovery with the iOS version of foobar2000 is that it can read the files for things I have bought on iTunes and downloaded through the Apple Music app without a subscription. I was trying to go back to an iPod but lack of Bluetooth killed me.

This seems like the best of both worlds for me.

At 26MB setup package it most likely doesn't.

Jokes aside, 180db also ships with a demo track — a nod to llama.

It's called "inspiration". And if you actually used Winamp in the ’90s or 2000s, you probably remember that it used to be a $10 shareware app.

I feel like iTunes/Music gets worse with every version, to the point where I've effectively abandoned it finally after macOS 26.

My music collection is some tens of thousands of files served via a DAAP media server - since macOS 26, Apple Music will only play music for 5-15 minutes before giving up and just stopping.

For years, it's had a trivially reproducible bug where pausing Apple Music while playing from a DAAP server, then restarting the DAAP server will crash Apple Music.

After trying basically every airsonic/subsonic/plex/etc. alternative, I finally settled on simply using foobar2000 to play from an SMB share.

I used iTunes for a long time with a library of around 1,000 albums. If you weren’t too lazy to add proper covers and ID3 tags, it was actually pretty enjoyable to use – especially together with an iPod. But the problem is that iTunes imposes a very “flat” structure on your library, while for some collections a hierarchical folder/subfolder/file structure just works much better. Not to mention that you can keep all kinds of related files alongside the music itself – booklet scans, lyrics, interviews, links, PDFs, and so on.

I imagine the shittiness of iTunes doesn't really show up as much with a music collection as small as 500 files. I remember it being a slouch with more files. I'm currently at 73,000.

I buy mostly music on Bandcamp and iTunes/Music is my sole driver for my 30k local song files. It's unfortunate that it has been neglected over so many years. There is a plethora of well known bugs and the sync with iPhone works most of the times, but not always and is in general quite cumbersome. The UI has become ridiculous over time (for example: it features two search/filter fields). It would be an easy mark to simply fix and polish it a bit. Sad.

iTunes/Music has its merits but in my opinion has been in decline since between versions 6 and 10 depending on the aspects being spoken about. For most of its existence it was subject to constant bloat and always felt a bit "off" compared to other Mac apps due to its nature as a cross-platform Carbon app full of bespoke UI widgets, and though its feature set got pared down and it technically became AppKit-dominant in the transition to "Music", it still doesn't feel right and is out of step with the rest of the OS.

A proper AppKit iTunes-style player with the best parts of iTunes across versions but without the bloat would be a beautiful thing. Even better if it's FOSS so it doesn't get abandoned a few years down the road, as paid players tend to. While there's several apps in this general direction like Doppler[0], nothing really nails it satisfactorily.

[0]: https://brushedtype.co/doppler/

Quasi-normie computer users: Linux will never take off on the desktop. I want to use my computer, not spend all day configuring it.

Also quasi-normie computer users: Windows/Mac is great as long as you go into Settings/the registry/PowerShell and disable all the user-hostile anti-features first.

It seems like most of the iTunes hate has historically come from people who used iTunes on Windows because they needed to use it to sync their iPods. Apparently it wasn't very good on Windows?

I do agree that it had been getting worse and worse on Mac before it was rebranded "Music" in 2019.

I also hate the idea of streaming, but I have been super lazy in the past

I have listened to 44,000 songs on Spotify over the last 13 years. It has brought me a ton of value, but I would love to move back to owning my music as files. I've been getting fancier with managing self-hosted infra at home, especially using AI to help me out.

Maybe I'll get back there, but I also can't imagine only listening to 500 songs!!!!

iTunes is still the best I have, mainly because it syncs well with iPhone, but also because it (kind) of just works, and I have a pile of applescripts to beat it when it doesn't.

I still wish it was a bit better at finding lost files, but maybe I'll vibe code something to do that for me someday.

(I'll have an album in the folder it doesn't see anymore, point one song at it, and it can't "find the rest" of the album, but I have to point each one out)

> I still manage my own ~500 file mp3 collection

Huh?

Just checked my 'collection':

     Total Files Listed:
           17250 File(s) 232,520,192,270 bytes
            6431 Dir(s)  1,053,563,486,208 bytes free

Not audiophile scale, for sure - but only 500 looks quite low. No wonder iTunes can manage it snorts.

complete opposite, i hate it

ITunes and Aperture were the apps that made me buy my first mac. Music and photos were just handled so easily, unlike anything else that came before. Smooth, intuitive and quick, everything else felt stale or broken.

These days Aperture is long gone and Itunes will let me make playlists where if I own the song, I can't play it cause it's not synced. If I don't own the song, it plays fine.

It's like nobody cares anymore, and back around 2008 that was the killer feature of the Mac - it was the computer and OS where it seemed like someone cared, about every little thing.

you're crazy

There's no source code? Why is it on GH then.

Thank you for the kind words!

https://audacious-media-player.org/ has a winamp mode which does

It doesn't, and I don't think there's value in literal carbon copy of Winamp. You can adjust shader backgrounds to the taste though.

Thank you. I like the way you phrased this, especially the "just launch & listen with minimal involvement" part. That’s very close to how we think about it too.

If by OSX you mean macOS, yes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45928363

Thanks!

There are some similarities for sure! I also like IINA and have used it extensively in the past. The main additions are the flexible layout, waveform view, shader background, better performance and smaller app size, pitch and effects and bunch of other small things. So even though they can look similar (both have album cover and playlist), the experience is hopefully quite different.

It’s actually extremely useful for DJ’s listening to their music collection. I always miss being able to adjust the bpm when listening to some of my songs that I always play a lot faster or slower than they’re produced.

I personally own a bunch of vinyl records and love to change pitch while listening to get a different feel for the familiar music. DJs used to mix with turntables that have only pitch and phase adjustments, it was very minimal.

Not at the moment, but this is actually a good idea. Thanks

Have you actually used it? I didn't like it that much, and the subscription model turned me off.

I remember using that "green head" Windows Media Player. It's fun for like five minutes, then you get back to the default, but maybe that's just me. But we definitely need more "weird shaped" apps, that's for sure.

Nice, thanks for the link. It actually works, but lacks basic features as opening the whole folder with subfolders, pressing spacebar to play or loading large amounts of files, the app hangs immediately.

Amazing, thank you for the reamp tip! I used winamp always in my Windows years like 15yrs ago. But then I switched to Mac and forgot about winamp completely.

What for? It's just streaming audio chunks with Core Audio that you cannot bypass. Even if there's resampling of 44.1khz to 48khz (Mac's default nowadays), it's not audible. Bit by bit perfection matters when you do a lot of processing, like in the context of a DAW or sound plugins, but not so much in the listening context. DA (digital-to-analog) end-chain matters much more – the actual audio interface and speakers, where all file-to-sound-wave reconstruction magic happens.

You didn't like shader backgrounds?

My first thought. The title is so typical for this kind of projects.

Not really, why?

MPlayerX and IINA are the best free video players for macOS, hands down. Music mode needs more love though.