My Top 7 WinAmp Plugins:
8 November 2008 | Music, Tech Stuff | 1 Comment
WinAmp is one of my favorite media players due to it’s optional plugins and customization. I also like that the player is also a heck of a lot faster at handling a large mp3 libraries. I love that WinAmp can easily search a particular song within a 50GB of music/video library without a hassle. Try doing that with Itunes without it eating your RAM.
Below I mention a few Plugins that I find very useful for WinAmp:
For anyone that refuses to install Itunes to manage their ipods, ML iPod is a great plugin which allows you to access, manage and sync your music/video collection to your ipod thru Winamp. This basically replaces iTunes. Even thought Winamp comes with iPod compatibility by default it doesn’t compare to ML iPod’s features.
Cool Features:
- Syncs Album Art
- Syncs Ratings from Winamp to iPod and vice versa
- Compatible with all ipods including iPod Touch
- Scrobbles tracks to Last.fm (optional)
- Syncs Smart Playlists
- And a bunch more handy options
Find On Disk
This handy plugin has saved me so much time when trying to find the physical location of my mp3 files. Suppose you want to send an mp3 to a friend through instant messenger but you don’t remember where exactly the mp3 file was saved. Find On Disk automatically opens the explorer window where the mp3 file lies by hitting CTRL+F in the Playlist Editor assuming that it’s registered in your music library.
Live Messenger Status
This plugin allows you to display the music you are listening to in MSN messenger’s status window. There are a few other similar plugins that I came across but I considered this one to be my favorite because has more customizable options.
WiltAim 
Wilt Aim, also known as What I’m Listening to Aim plugin is the equivalent to Live Messenger Status for AIM users. It allows you to display the music you are listening in AIM.
Album Art Viewer
By default Winamp’s Classic Skins do not display any album art but with this tiny little plugin it lets you have a window that shows the album art that is embedded in the mp3 tags or a folder.jpg file found in the root folder of mp3.
Lyrics
This plugin is pretty straight forward. It allows you to view lyrics in WinAmp. Without the need to search online.
Just start listening to your favorite songs and lyrics will be displayed automatically. I’ve had a 90% success rate at finding the correct lyrics. As long as the MP3s are properly tagged then you should be good to go. The coolest thing is that if the lyrics are not on lyricsplugin.com server you can add them in yourself and save them for others with the same plugin to see.
Enhancer
Last but no least is a plugin called Enhancer. This is the best audio enhancing plugin for WinAmp I’ve tried. It makes your MP3 sound so much clearer. Once installed you will definitely notice the difference. It has several presets to match your style of music or you can use the slider controls for custom sound.
*QUICK TIP:
After you have successfully installed the plugin go to:
- Right click on WinAmp >>Options>> Preferences>>
- Scroll down to Plug-Ins
- DSP/Effect >>Enhancer
- click on Configure Active Plug-in
When you do this will bring up the Enhancer window where you will be able to change the settings as you wish. The reason I mention this is because when I first installed it I couldn’t figure out how to change setting on Enhancer.
Tags: Winamp Plugins
I used to use Winamp back in the day, maybe I’ll reinstall it and try it out again. I do like that you can manage an iPod without iTunes, I hate that program so much. That and QuickTime!
And thanks for the comment on AwkwardRules, I’m thinking about making the entries wikis so that people can make ammendments.