Children of God, dont download Winamp 3. The simple, clean, classic face of the Winamp 2.x series is gone. An ugly split-window monstrosity has replaced the old playlist editor. Its no longer possible to drag and drop files from the window the opens when you click open/browse. Well, okay you can right-click and select enqueue, but after you X the window, the whole fucking Winamp3 closes with it. Whats up with that?

What ever happened to the old, friendly, intuitive Winamp? My first experience with Winamp was with v. 2.65 I think. Ive downloaded every other decimal-point update Winamp came up with, 2.71, 2.73, etc. Version 2.79s installation even came bundled with a Strokes skin!

What the hell else is wrong with Winamp 3 aside from the oh-so-difficult to use playlist editor? My Winamp 2.x skins dont work as well anymore. Only the top part and the equalizer gets skinned. The playlist editor, the ugly split-window thing, remains unskinned. (well of course its because its got a different shape from the 2.x series, so fuck that split window thing) Theres a button you can press to make the other half disappear, but your old Fight Club 2.x skin isnt gonna skin the editor anymore. Your old pink editor with SOAP replacing playlist is replaced by the ugly playlist editor of Winamp 3.

Winamp must have realized that people are gonna hate Winamp 3, so upon installing this thing, it actually doesnt delete your previous Winamp 2.x player. Its just like having another media player. Winamp 3 apparently isnt an update to the 2.x series. Its supposed to be a totally different player. Well it sucks, so stick to the twos.

To create playlists for Winamp, you have to select tracks from your Windows folders and add to your media library, just like for Windows Media Player and MusicMatch. The thing is, the interface is so fucking hard to understand. In WMP, especially the lovely version 8, your mp3s, after adding them to the library, just sit to the right of your player in a long list. In the middle of the screen is the visualizations panel. You can choose what to play through a drop down menu at the topby artist, title, genre, whatever. Its not as easy to create playlists as with the Winamp Twos, but it wont give you high blood. MusicMatch also makes you put stuff in a Media Library and then create playlists from that. The playlist editor sits to the top right of the screen, and you just select and edit whatever kinda like the Winamp Twos. The only thing that annoys me about MusicMatch is that it doesnt automatically update tracks and add them to your Media Library if youve new stuff added to the folder youve selected to be added to the Library. (You have designated C:\My NSYNC collection as one of your Library folders. After downloading Blowing Me Up With Her Love, you have to manually add it. It wont magically add it.) It only does the automatic update thing with the registered version. Since Im a kuripot freeware-only user, I gotta add stuff manually. But thats a minor thing to complain about compared to the other pluses of this software. This player even lets you tag your songs with extra stuff aside from the ordinary ID3v1/2 stuff. You can add lyrics and shit, perfect for karaoke junkies. You can do the lyrics thing now with Version 8 of Windows Media Player.

But wait, Im digressing. I was bitching about Winamp 3. Ayan, Im willing to go through the rigmarole of adding tracks to a Library, if thats gonna be the future. Real One player does that too. But I dont understand all the stupid splits in the screen! Jeez. And I dont think theres an option to set what folder as a directory for the library like in WMP and Musicmatch. (Like set C:\My Music, etc). Then to add tracks from the library to the playlist editor, thats another headache. You dont know what to do. Currently I have a CD playing. CD info has been retrieved through CDDB lookup, the real titles are listed neatly in the Media Library window (I didnt add to the library, it was just listed there.) But when you select those tracks to the playlist window, it gets listed as Track 01, 02, etc. what the hell? Im sure theres some magic button to press, but I dont see it anywhere. I right-clicked and looked for options, theres reload file info but it just reloaded Track 08. Brilliant. Whereas WMP 8 even puts the album cover of the thing onto the visualizations panel if you ask it too. Winamp 2.x, where have thou gonest?

So I was feeling bummed and all, right? So I go to this online opinion forum where I sometimes post my complaints about buggy software (but why should I complain, right, im not paying for them. But I have no friends so I need other people replying to my complaints/comments about programs/cellphones/computer accessories to validate my existence.) and I find out that Winamp has released a v.2.81 pala in August! Why didnt I know about this?

All I knew was that Winamp released version 3 around August also. I just hadn't downloaded it yet cause I had other things on my mind then. So why would Winamp release a 2.81 if its coming out with a version 3 anyway? Because Three sucks! Sucks Sucks I say! Ayan, Winamp knew that also.

And to think this thing is supposed to be a FINAL version! I looked at the programs version history (its included in the player. The version histories are always included in Winamp) and there was a list of version 3 alpha, beta 1, 2, 3 whatever, and this one is supposed to be the final version. It said v.3.0 - "everything!" (that meant they have fixed everything daw) Final my ass. Oh wait, maybe FINAL, as in theyre not gonna make anymore 3.1s, 3.2s, yay! I mean if its gonna look like this and work like this, forget it

On the brighter side, there is a version 9 already of Windows Media Player. (You wont get to download it by your usual route of clicking help then check for player upgrades.) Its only a beta version, yes, but dont let things like bugs! Bugs! ring in your head. Its a release candidate. So it works and stuff. Okay I dont know yet if it really does, but it looks very nice, and it was able to organize my friends mp3s so prettily. As in it looked for album covers and all, organized the tracks by artist, and put thumbnails of the album covers on the folder icon. (He sent me his first page, all the As and Bs, so I see mga cool bands like AC/DC and Agent Orange (whos agent orange? It sounds like a band thats supposed to be cool).. then I see AVRIL LAVIGNE!!! Hahaha. When I messaged him hey, I see avril, he didnt reply anymore.)

I checked the other features of this version 9 in the windowsmedia site. its great. It allows for automatic updating of the folders which you have set as part of your Media Library (unlike MusicMatch, which as I have said, you gotta pay dollars to be able to use that feature). So you dont have to manually select and add. (Well, you can reselect C:\My NSYNC Collection, but youve already 10 songs from that folder in your Library, and you just wanna add the eleventh. So its a hassle.) So anyway, maybe Ill download it.

Oh yeah, MusicMatch has a 7 point something new version, but Im not gonna download anymore. WMP already offers that lyrics tagging thing for karaoke purposes.

But there is one nice thing about Winamp3, gotta be fair. In the options/preferences thing, one of the languages you can set it to display aside from English is the Happy mode. It adds an exclamation to all commands. So System settings becomes System settings, weelaaa! allow multiple instances of Winamp to start becomes allow multiple instances of Winamp to start, yipee! and so on. But christ, thats only amusing for like one minute. Its not like this happy mode will cheer me up while I try to figure out how this thing works. There are cool skins though. The Friday after next skin is in Xmas colors, and the Coldplay skin is very hip looking. But it still sucks. Sucks sucks sucks sucks! It has way more functions nga than 2.8, but what goods that gonna do if I cant figure out how to use them?

Maybe Im doing something wrong, baka itd work better if I clicked this shortcut or this button was supposed to do this and all. But Winamp was never about that. That was always for more complex players like Windows Media Player or MusicMatch or even Real. And even then, these more complex players did the complex thing better. Youd still be able to figure out what to without losing temper/mind. You dont think learning curve when using Winamp. You think, Oooh, new baduy pop song, click, play! Winamp was always the player you turn to when all you want to do is listen to music and not have to fiddle with stupid controls and shit. You click open and a window appears and you drag and drop the song (Or click enqueue). Or you can click the +DIR button on the lower left if you wanna play a whole folder, click add and voila, the songs in that folder is in your playlist. What a bleak future its gonna be for my grandchildren if this is gonna be the future of Winamp. No wait Im not having grandchildren. But theoretically.

Nov. 28, 2002