anyone use Quod Libet?

[jclmusic]

i found this program for playing music the other day called Quod Libet. strange name lol but i find it's a lot better than xmms, rhythmbox and amarok.

[shining]

I tried it a while ago, and it seemed nice but well, I guess I was using ncmpc, and didn't need any gui for music. Then I had a long amarok period. It's an amazing player, but it's awfully heavy. But I'm temporarily switching back from kde to a lighter wm, so it's time to find a lighter alternative to amarok.
So I just tried quod libet, and it looks pretty good, the interface seems better and I believe there are more features than the last time I tried. I believe I'll start using it a bit :)
I'm just missing a systray icon. It looks like there is a plugin for it: http://www.sacredchao.net/quodlibet/wiki/Plugins
but it's maybe included in the quodlibet-plugins package.

[Zdravko]

Yes, it is a nice application! Mainly because it handles well online radio formats.

[k1001001]

Some questions I had about Quod Libet:
-Does it have iPod support?
-Can it write ID3 tags?
-Is there an output to the JACK server? (This probably won't happen, but I'd really like to use the 31-band EQ in JACK if possible.)

I'm looking for a replacement to Rhythmbox. Amarok didn't quite do it for me. I've heard some good things about Quod Libet though, so I'm willing to try it if it does the stuff I listed.

[shining]

Some questions I had about Quod Libet:
-Does it have iPod support?
-Can it write ID3 tags?
-Is there an output to the JACK server? (This probably won't happen, but I'd really like to use the 31-band EQ in JACK if possible.)

I'm looking for a replacement to Rhythmbox. Amarok didn't quite do it for me. I've heard some good things about Quod Libet though, so I'm willing to try it if it does the stuff I listed.

Have a look at their site: http://www.sacredchao.net/quodlibet
It has apparently a pretty good tag editing support, better than other players. But they also provide an application dedicated to tag editing : Ex Falso
I didn't try them yet though.
As for iPod, it's apparently supported since they talk about it in the faq.
As for jack support, I don't think so, but I don't really know. Ask quodlibet people if you don't find any informations from their site:
http://www.sacredchao.net/quodlibet/wiki/Contact
mail, mailing list or irc

[Jay_Dogg]

I rarely write replies, thus you're seeing something special...

Quod Libet is really good and I've used it for a long time. It just has done something "right", because I might try Amarok, Listen etc. occasionally... But, sooner or later, I always switch back to Quod Libet.

[Mateo]

gui looks a lot like rhythmbox, not bad. but i'm completely happy with rhythmbox, there isn't a thing it doesn't do that I would like (except for maybe video, but that's not a huge deal since vlc is good for that) so i don't have a reason to switch..

[bonzodog]

Yeah, I like Quod Libet a lot, and Ex-Falso is positively the best tag editor I have ever used. It has quite a lot of plugins, and the systray is particularly useful. Another cool one is a bit of eye candy - when it changes songs you can get it to run some text down from the top of the screen displaying the artist and title.

[23meg]

Quod Libet is my music player of choice, reasons being:

- It offers multiple ways of accessing your collection and lets you of use them together and/or switch between them intuitively instead of providing a one-size-fits-all paradigm

- It has a simple (essential?) feature I like in media players, and many don't have it: drag and drop support (both internal and external)

- It has a powerful and easily accessible regexp search feature

- Everything about the library component works as I expect, unlike in most other players

[MkfIbK7a]

wow thanks for directing me to that i used rhymbox and amarok but this uses much less ram and has "ALOT" of plugins!

[SuperMike]

* Is this a GTK2 app or KDE/QT?

* I like Beep Media Player because it's compact and supports a great set of skins -- even Windows-based WinAMP skins.

[Polygon]

i have beep set as the player to play all of the music players by default as it loads 10X faster then any of the other programs, and usually when i search out a music file, i just want to hear IT. for listening to music for an extended period of time, i usually use a program like listen, etc

and im really loving the diversity of the music players here. I like listen, i just discovered exaile today (it wouldent install on my dapper box, but i upgraded to edgy and now it works) and now quod... they are all so good, which one do i pick? :-k

[nalmeth]

I think its great, although I don't use it often.

Cool features laid out by 23meg, for me, most notably the ability to browse albums by cover art.

AFAIK no other player (for GNU) does this immensely simple thing ](*,)

[23meg]

* Is this a GTK2 app or KDE/QT?It's GTK.

AFAIK no other player (for GNU) does this immensely simple thing BMPX does it. I think Listen does as well.

[darweth]

I tried Quod Libet and like how it looks and all but it is WAYYYYY too slow. Keep in mind I have a 21,500 song library, but I don't understand how Amarok (and Exaile, Rhythmbox, etc) operate much much faster. Quod Library is constantly refreshing my library after anything I do in the default song view (iTunes-like) list and I have to wait 30 seconds or so each time. It is also just not as responsive as other players in general.

[hugmenot]

I also have tracks in excess of 20k (depending on which shares I mount). It starts up quite slow because it doesn’t cache the artwork. But after that its fast enough. I suspenct a problem or a weird config on your end.

[darweth]

It could be... but the entirety of my library is on a freshly formatted reiserfs partition. Every other program works flawlessly (in regards to speed)... quod libet is the only one I have trouble with. :)

[aktiwers]

Wow.. I think I finally found my favorite music player!

[nalmeth]

BMPX does it.
Damn, that is looking to be a good player!
I'm glad they've taken some new initiative with it.

Last I used listen didn't do that sort of thing, but that was some time ago. I must check it out again. It was my full time player for a few months.

How quickly things change

[tv0571]

I really like Quod Libet. You can create custom tags, and then do sophisticated searches. For example, I've catalogued my entire collection of Bach with a custom tag for the BWV number. Now I can find any combination of BWV, album, performer, etc... And oh, by the way, this is on something like 200 CDs ripped to Ogg Vorbis. :)

I think QL is for the person interested in big, searchable collections.

[bionnaki]

I highly recommend exaile http://www.exaile.org/ - a most excellent player.

I switched to kde, though, so I'm using amarok.

[aktiwers]

After using Quod Libet a bit more, I found it too be very slow.
Im back on Xmms and Rhythmbox

[Mystere]

I love Quod Libet! the main thing is that it lets you do lots of ID3 stuff. renaming files from the ID3 tags, changing the ID3 tags from the file name, it's an OCD person's dream.

[MkfIbK7a]

After using Quod Libet a bit more, I found it too be very slow.
Im back on Xmms and Rhythmbox

true for me too used 30mb ram

xmms uses only 8mb

[jclmusic]

does anyone know how to get quod libet to play mp4 and m4a files? i'm guessing it's a plugin or something?

[MkfIbK7a]

i dont think it plays movies...

[hugmenot]

does anyone know how to get quod libet to play mp4 and m4a files? i'm guessing it's a plugin or something?

You need gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse for AAC.

[jclmusic]

You need gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse for AAC.

i installed that package and then restarted quod libet. didn't work! does it require a restart of X?

edit: it does.

[klato]

I've been using Quod Libet for a couple weeks now. I really like it. I only wish you had the ability to have a sidebar or some easy way to look at all your playlists while having the paned browser open too. Oh, that and podcast support.

[23meg]

I only wish you had the ability to have a sidebar or some easy way to look at all your playlists while having the paned browser open too.The ability to have multiple configurable views is one of Quod Libet's strengths. Go to Music / Browse Library / Playlists and you'll have a separate playlist window.

[Artemis3]

I have used Quod Libet and it has good and bad things.

It uses gstreamer with its pros and cons. Make sure you add all the missing codecs...

Among the bad things is the lack of unicode; and bugs like persistent songs in the list you removed appearing again, and again, and again... When you add folders/files, it likes to not add them inmediately, but close/reopen the program and they will hopefully appear "somewhere", along with the group of files you removed from the list many months ago... It also follows the very bad "Media Library" (sort by tags) trend without providing an option to sort by file name/folders. Something this simple and yet so widely ignored by recent players. Gapless is also absent. Gstreamer apparently has it, but players must be aware to make use of it. It also won't open compressed files.

Among the good things is that suports ReplayGain. The no. 1 most missed feature in free software players; specially replaygain tag values inside mp3. Unfortunately, it seems to prefer said tags in the rare ID3v2.4 format. As Replaygainers know, mp3gain writes them in APEv2... The author for some reason choosed this combination but failed to provide a tag converter or ReplayGain scanner in his preferred tag format; one wonders why bother adding RG support in the first place...

Foobar2000 0.8.3 running under wine is still the best perfomer, what a pity.

[hugmenot]

How does it lack unicode? QL is the prime example of pervasive Unicode support.

[stoffepojken]

I have not experienced any lack of unicode in quodlibet. It displays my swedish characters as it should, better than most of the players I tried.

[klato]

The ability to have multiple configurable views is one of Quod Libet's strengths. Go to Music / Browse Library / Playlists and you'll have a separate playlist window.

Ah yeah I've never seen that, but I'd prefer to have everything in 1 window =)

[23meg]

I have not experienced any lack of unicode in quodlibet. It displays my swedish characters as it should, better than most of the players I tried.
Same here; in my experience Quod Libet has been the least problematic audio player in that department.

[bramvandijk]

And another great feature that I haven't found in any other player, is the ability to tag one song with two artists, or even more. This is a great solution for artist collaborations.

For example, this way, my Neil Young & Crazy Horse albums have as artists "Neil Young", and "Crazy Horse". This is much better that having an artist "Neil Young & Crazy Horse", because I also have albums of Neil Young without Crazy Horse, and of Crazy Horse without Neil Young.

[dmcdante]

i've been using tons of audio players, from xmms and rhythmbox to exaile, amarok, bmp, bmpx to audacious, listen, banshee, some console players, mpd, xmms2, mocp, and gosh i can't say any of them have suited my needs better than quod libet.

some things about it:
1. it _does_ have unicode support (look at their page if you don't believe me) and displays chinese chars as well as any other language.

2. it supports about any format if you install it the right way:
i can play mp3, ogg, flac, wma, mp4, m4a, even mp4 videos (quodlibet thinks it's a sound file and plays it anyway ^^)
it does podcasts, internet radio streams, supports my ipod, supports hdd-players if you plug them.


3. it's awfully fast. i don't know how you can get to the idea that it's slow, maybe it depends on how many songs you use compared to other players.
i have 18000 songs in my library, and _every_ player except xmms and quod libet died when i tried to add them all in one piece. quod libet needs about 3 minutes on my box to add all those songs to a library, and believe me, that's fast.
ram usage clearly is bigger than the one of xmms, but it does a lot more, too, from multiple playlists to library to album coverart and tray icon and customizeable song information display.

4. it has more ways of viewing files than you can imagine: browser, playlists, search library, album view, file view...
you can also have them all open in different windows or switch with shortcuts (yes, first press alt+v for the view menu and then the letter of the view underlined)

5. it has the best masstagger i've ever seen (and i've got loads of files, believe me), because the tagger can easily and quickly tag lots of files and has presets for tons of tags.
you can also add multiple artists in one of the various tags in the category "people".

i'm clearly concious that the player also has heavy negative points, as in:

1. no equalizer (i have a 2.1 with a woofer that's way too strong - i needed one desperately)

2. no tabby-thing as i.e. foobar does, but multi-window suits me better anyway coz i have 2 screens.

3. no albumgain (sorry audiophiles)

4. no ipod playlist support



for me, the arguments clearly speak for quodlibet. it's stable, fast, uses more ressources than xmms or mpd, but also does a lot more. it's almost feature complete and plays anything you throw at it.

if anyone of you needs help installing it the right way, i'll gladly help. talk to me at

danteonline@gmail.com

or in one of the messengers i supplied addresses for.

[hugmenot]

3. no albumgain (sorry audiophiles)


Heh, it does! It just tries to be smart about it. It assumes that when you play in the playback order "Normal" that you want album gain, and when you use "Shuffle" it uses track gain. There is even more logic behind it but I know this for certain because loudness changes when you switch between these two.

[dmcdante]

lol thank you so much
a friend of mine kept complaining about this

now find me an equalizer for gstreamer or quodlibet only and i'll kiss your feet XD

greets, dante

[hugmenot]

As far as I can tell (fuzzy) from the source it goes to track in the Devices and the Playlist browsers.

There's an equalizer element in recent Gstreamer-bad but I don't know about nor have a use for it, I use a flat signal always.

[dmcdante]

yea, i've heard about that equalizer, if you've noticed, there are tons of people around the internet and also in this forum looking for a common equalizer in alsa in general.
no luck so far...

[hugmenot]

QL can write to a user-specified Gstreamer pipeline. I assume it would be possible to write a plugin for the GUI. Find someone who knows Python to write it, it might be a simple feat.

[Arathorn]

Even though I'm a KDE user I'd like to try Quod Libet, because I'm not satisfied with Amarok. However when I start Quod Libet I get the error that it can't find the filesrc GStreamer element. I do have Gstreamer installed, but not all of it's plugins. Do I miss any plugin or is it a configuration problem?

[hugmenot]

Do I miss any plugin or is it a configuration problem?

It’s GStreamer-VFS you lack.

[Arathorn]

Yes that works, thank you.

[bramvandijk]

There is one point though that QL still lacks, gapless playback. I know that they claim it is gstreamers fault, but even rhythmbox claims to be gapless now, and they certainly do use gstreamer too...

[dmcdante]

good point. I wonder when the next release is going to be out... There's a couple of points I'd like to see added, even though I'm a huge fan of the player.

[graabein]

I've been mainly using Banshee and xmms at home on my main box but this holiday I'm at my parents house where I've installed Xubuntu 7.10 on an old computer. I've looked for a good music player that mom can understand and easily browse for albums/artists and Quod Libet fits the bill!

I've enabled a couple plugins for tagging and setting cover art so album list looks great now. Really impressive thus far but I've yet to try iPod support and stuff like playing flac and ogg files. The GUI is great and it loads pretty fast for an old computer.

[graabein]

Hi, I'm still in love with Quod Libet. Just discovered File System view and got flac up and running.

Next up is the NowPlaying Screenlet (http://www.screenlets.org/index.php/Home). Anyone know how to get it working?

[lancerocke]

Anyone have any ideas on how to speed up Quod Libet?

[drvid]

I luff quod libet :D

[chris4585]

I tried Quod Libet and like how it looks and all but it is WAYYYYY too slow. Keep in mind I have a 21,500 song library, but I don't understand how Amarok (and Exaile, Rhythmbox, etc) operate much much faster. Quod Library is constantly refreshing my library after anything I do in the default song view (iTunes-like) list and I have to wait 30 seconds or so each time. It is also just not as responsive as other players in general.

Really? now that is odd, I boast Quod Libet for being so fast, I have a rather large collection, 15,000 songs, all load super fast, and more importantly when I switch to the next song, it takes no time... banshee, and amarok are horribly slow.... Quod Libet and bmp are all I use. Quod Libet for managing my large collection, and bmp for single files.

[Hiankun]

Due to some reasons I don't (have time and ability to) figure out, my Rhythmbox often cause my gdm to log out when I was working in consoles. So I was considering to use other software to replace the Rhythmbox. After some searching, I found QL.

I just installed QL yesterday and it works fine for me. All the information I could found say that OL supports internet radio and podcast. I've add an internet radio successfully but I can't find where to add new podcasts.

Do I misunderstand anything about the podcast function of QL? Any help appreciated.

OS: Ubuntu 8.04
QL(version 1.0) was installed via ``sudo apt-get install''

[hugmenot]

Do you have an Audio Feeds menu entry? This is meant for Podcasts.

[lazka]

Launchpad PPAs for Jaunty/Karmic:

quodlibet-stable: https://launchpad.net/~lazka/+archive/ppa

quodlibet-unstable: https://launchpad.net/~lazka/+archive/dumpingplace

please test :)

[lazka]

I just installed QL yesterday and it works fine for me. All the information I could found say that OL supports internet radio and podcast. I've add an internet radio successfully but I can't find where to add new podcasts.

Do I misunderstand anything about the podcast function of QL? Any help appreciated.


Install python-feedparser and restart QL. (python-feedparser a is recommended package of the QL package)

[Hiankun]

Install python-feedparser and restart QL. (python-feedparser a is recommended package of the QL package)
I have to apologize first, because I've forgot to check this thread after my question being posted.

Thank you, lazka. I have installed python-feedparser and restart my QL, then it comes with the Audio Feeds, which has been mention by hugmenot. Now I have podcast feeds in my QL.

Thank both of you.

[docus]

Well, since this thread has been necromanced ;) , I'll take the chance to say that I'm a big fan of Quod Libet - it's fast, simple, customisable and stable. For me, it's best alternative to Rhythmbox.

[Henry Flower]

And I'll take the chance to grumble that Quod Libet is the only player I know of which, bizarrely, went from gapless to non-gapless rather than the other way around. Last I heard they were working on fixing it, but it doesn't seem to have been finished yet.

[hugmenot]

Henry, it works very well here. What version are you using?

[Henry Flower]

The version in the repos (2.1) is not gapless. I just tried the same tracks (flac) with it and mpd - gapless in the latter, but not the former.

[docus]

The version in the repos (2.1) is not gapless. I just tried the same tracks (flac) with it and mpd - gapless in the latter, but not the former.

I'm not on my laptop at the moment, so I can't check gapless support. I use Arch and the version in their repo is 2.2 - I haven't had any problems with it. Maybe there's a PPA on Launchpad you could use to update from 2.1 to 2.2?

***EDIT*** Here's a link to a PPA with the latest stable version of Quod Lbet (2.2):

https://launchpad.net/~lazka/+archive/ppa

[hugmenot]

The version in the repos (2.1) is not gapless. I just tried the same tracks (flac) with it and mpd - gapless in the latter, but not the former.

I just checked, FLACs are gapless with 2.2 and I’m fairly confident that it worked in 2.1 as well.

Did you try other formats as well?

[Henry Flower]

Docus, thanks for that link - 2.2 gapless works perfectly with flacs. I see there's a note about gapless playback on that PPA page, so I'd guess it is something new.

It doesn't work with all my LAME mp3s, but mp3 gapless is always tricky.

Now I'll explore this player a bit more. :)

[howlingmadhowie]

A quick FYI.

Quod Libet is actually an interesting name for a music player. A quod libet (latin for "whatever pleases") is a type of composition popular in the late renaissance and early barock, usually contrapuntal and consisting of musical jokes or citations from other popular works. Probably the most famous example is the 30th variation from the Goldberg Variations which combines elements of 2 German folk songs ("Ich bin solang nicht bei dir g'west", and "Kraut und Rüben haben mich vertrieben") on top of the cantus firmus.

[hugmenot]

There is also the BWV 524 Quodlibet (http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~wfb/cantatas/524.html), which is actually quite funny.