My Foobar setup with pics - Computer Audio

I think I might have my computer audio player setup how I like it. You can read about it at another thread HERE



For this thread, I'd like to see if anyone else is doing something similar...or completely different I guess, and hear peoples thoughts about this setup. This is a 2-channel only setup. Everything is stored as Flacs on a computer that sits inside a vintage stereo console out of sight. The screen can be my TV or an external monitor placed closer to the listening position...still working on these details.

This first shot is what the screen looks like when browsing for an album. You double click on an album to get to screen two in which you can play individual tracks or full albums.

 

Thanks for posting Dragon....cool setup. I've got about 300 GIGS and counting and I wanted to see at least 25-30 albums in one screen.

 

Would you be willing to post the fcs or whatever files needed to try out your interface?

 

Here's mine:

 

I’m a big fan of the DarkOne skin for Foobar.
It has plug-ins for FM Music for artist info.

 

Can you copy these with the album art to a portable digital player?

 

I really like the album view mode in the first picture, can you detail how you got it setup like that? (plugins, scripts, etc)

Thanks

 

YES!! I'd love to get my Foobar2000 set up like that..

 

I've been looking for the best way to rip and play my CD collection in my laptop and I have no interest in paying $40 for software that isn't that much better than free software like iTunes or Windows Media Player 12 (WMP12).

I've been dealing with those two programs and here are my main complaints about them:

iTunes

-> only supports embedded artwork unless you import the artwork from iTunes; I suspect that large embedded artwork was the reason behind my Squeezebox Classic playing pink noise instead of some tracks (scary thing, as pink noise is much higher in volume than anything other than highly compressed tracks!);
-> no syncing with non-apple mp3 players;
-> no folder navigation for those who have no interest in file tags

WMP12

-> poor fullscreen artwork support
-> childish appearance

As I love artwork and depend on folder navigation (I have no interest in tagging my files), I wasn’t satisfied with neither of these programs (although I love iTunes coverflow approach).

Let me clarify why I have no interest in tagging my files: uncompressed WAV and AIFF files don’t have much tag support outside WMP12 and iTunes respectively and I see no reason to use a compressed file format like FLAC just for its full tag support in an age where any cheap hard drive is able to hold a music library of hundreds of CDs in the old and trusty WAV or AIFF formats. All the important information like artist, album, track number and title are compatible with a folder implementation.

I had tried foobar 2000 before, but always thought it had a ridiculous name and icon and wasn’t much user-friendly. But I tried it again and put some effort in customizing it to my needs, which is something it does really well.

I ended up using a simple approach with large artwork navigation similar to iTunes coverflow, as I always dreamed. Remember when artwork used to have all the information you needed to identify the album? In a computer, you just have to make it large enough so that you can actually read it.

I used a tabs arrangement of foobar and three plugins: Columns UI for the playlist with artwork, Chronflow for artwork navigation and Waveform Seekbar to have a look at the waveform of the file being played.

 

Thanks guys. I didn't come up with it myself, but found it on this thread on hydrogenaudio. Post 8 from that thread is basically what I did.


http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=61333&st=0&p=695693&#entry695693


I forgot to mention that you can pull down the top menu screen from screen 1 to get to things like browse by genre, artist, etc. You can also play an entire album from the first screen as well. When you are in the second screen, just double click on the album name to get back to screen 1.

 

I guess I should also mention, that I arrange albums by folder structure, so I need to make sure that I am careful with my folder naming and structures initially.....but after that everything runs great. I like to use one folder....for example "Morrison, Van" , and then any albums go into that folder with a date...for example 1968 - Astral Weeks - whatever version. This way you can have myltiple versions of a particular album like I'm sure we all have, and have them come up right next to each other. This also sorts the albums by any one particular artist in chronological order. I also like to keep DCC, or MFSL, or Vinyl Rip, or other such info in my album name, so I can search in Foobar using "DCC" and all my DCC music will pop up.

 

Randy, I am having difficulty in extracting Jasons Theme into foobar.

I started with a fresh installation as suggested, downloaded the theme, but I can't seem to extract it into the installation directory as directed.

I opted for standard installation with full options, should I have used portable installation instead?

Any advice would be welcomed.

Bob

 

Just curious, is there FooBar app for a Mac or alternative?

 

I wish I knew how to set up my Foobar like you guys. Everything I have tried so far is too difficult for me to deal with. I admit I am pretty ignorant when it comes to command lines and building with source-based tools. You guys are geekier than me.

I wish there were just executable applications that would automatically overwrite the default skin to what you want.

 

I totally agree with you Grant, I'm almost certain that I will end up getting a Squeezebox or some other kind of interface.

Foobar is the perfect name.

Bob

 

You have to import the theme into Foobar and make sure the components are actually installed.

And portisphish, how do you get the album view all big like that?

 

Installation

1. Start with a fresh installation of foobar2000 1.0.1 (or a later version).

2. Download the attached "Jason's Clean Theme 1.0.zip" file and extract it directly into your foobar2000 installation directory (overwrite all necessary files/folders).

Step 2 is my roadblock, when I try to extract Jasons theme into foobar, WinRAR will not give me a installation directory destination.

Color me stupid, but I'm missing a step some where. How am I suppose to import this into foobar.

 

1. Download and install the latest version of Foobar2000.
- Do not select the "portable" option during install
2. Download and install the latest version of the DarkOne (v3.01).
3. Read the DarkOne pdf manual for the following instructions:

STEP 1
Open foobar2000 and choose Columns UI as your User Interface Module.
Choose Columns UI and in the following window choose one of the Presets (it will be overwritten after importing the DarkOne configuration file).

STEP 2
Import the file DarkOne v3.0.fcl from the folder
...\foobar2000\themes\DarkOne via the menu:
"File\Preferences\Display\Columns UI\Main tab\FCL importing and exporting\Import"
　
STEP 3
To avoid possible incompatibilities with a previous configuration, right-mouse-click as illustrated, choose Global Variables tab and hit the button Delete All
to reset the global variables.

 

DarkOne is awesome.

 

Where do I edit what text is shown in the center column? I want to see artist and album name instead of date and genre.

 

What the hell? What resolution is your monitor set at?

 

800x600 by the looks of it.

 

That is from a dedicated server using a built in monitor.

 

I see now it was just a resolution thing. When run with a big monitor I can expand.