Vox can also play Game Music and AAC, and it even has numerous cool effects built in like echo, pitch shift, and time stretch. In addition the software has reverb and a fully functional equalizer so you can make adjustments to the sound.

While it does have a lot of features, the interface and window are well laid out. As a lot of music players have evolved to become all in one media apps, Vox does only one thing, and that is play music.

Unlike other music players for Mac, Vox’s 10 band equalizer is at par with commercial media apps, and you can also chain effects. Of all the effects built in, one of the most interesting is definitely time stretch, as it can speed up tracks without affecting the pitch. It supports drag and drop so you can easily rearrange the tracks on your playlist.

There are a lot of free music players for the Mac but the problem with those is they are very large and take a long time to download. Vox on the other hand, is less than 10 MB yet comes packed with a lot of practical features. If you’re not in the mood for long downloads, then give this a try.

Related Links:
Official Website
Vox on Facebook

Bowtie also makes it easy to perform other tasks like upping or lowering a track’s rating, changing the volume, and you can also have the app stay visible or function like your normal Mac window.

One of the nice things about Bowtie though, is that it is skinnable, giving you control over the appearance of the controls. The themes are extremely varied, with some displaying album art and others more simple. Some of the fancier skins even come with animations and give you some control over the track you are playing.

There are a lot of themes available with more being made, and every single one can be downloaded from within the program. Once you have downloaded a theme, it takes just one click to apply it. The built-in keyboard shortcuts make Bowtie a great tool to use in managing iTunes, and while it may not be as fancy as other applications out there, it does the job right. Installing the app is a breeze, and it won’t take long before you get accustomed to it.

Bowtie doesn’t just offer complete functionality in terms of managing iTunes, but the many themes built in make it a nice program to have around. If you are having trouble managing your stuff on iTunes, Bowtie can help you out.

Related Links:
Bowtie Official Website
Bowtie on Twitter

Kantaris Media Player has top notch BASS audio and video codecs, so playback of audio and video is not a problem. It’s also worth pointing out that this player can get media info from the web automatically, it supports hotkeys, plus you can view it in full screen mode. Design wise, Kantaris looks very sleek, as its grey and black colors make it look very modern.

It has a Plugin Manager and Prominent Playback buttons so you can access those features that you use most often. If you are an advanced user, you can access a lot of other advanced features which are comparable to other popular media players out there. In other words, this is an all in one solution. What really takes the cake is that you don’t need to download a lot of codecs just to play this or that file.

Kantaris Media Player’s features do not end there. You can even use the program to play RAR files without extracting the files. Also it has no problems playing CDs or DVDs. If you open the program while you are online it will link up to its database. If you’re worried about the format, don’t be as it can play mp3, wma, mkv, wmv, MGEG-AVC, AVI, MPEG and many more.

Related Links:
Official Website
Download Kantaris

If you use it to record on exiting material the program can perform latency compensation and it can monitor using hardware, and this feature allows you to apply plugins to Ardour and see the effects in real time. Its anything to anywhere routing allows for support of unlimited track, and you can also automate panning as well as plugin parameters.

Adour also has extensive editing capabilities such as time stretching, splitting and dragging, and it also comes with a beat detector and cross fade editor. There are no limits to its redo/undo, and you can use it for audio mastering too.

Furthermore, Ardour conforms to industry standards so there will be no compatibility problems when you run it. You can also import or export entire sessions or just parts of it, as it has a database manager built in. Other notable features include MIDI level machine control, no copy-protection and 32 bit floating point for the audio path.

This is just an overview of the things that you can do on Ardour. If you’re looking for a free powerful audio editor this is the one to get. It is powerful and as far as learning curves go it isn’t that steep either.

Related Links:
Downlaod Ardour

The software has been designed so that professional and new video editors will find it easy to navigate. After installing the program you need to configure the preset timeline and once that has been determined, you can begin importing audio and video files cutting and pasting parts as you would with any other editor.

Cutting and pasting is pretty straightforward but that’s not where the strength of PiTiVi lies, rather it is in its special effects. You can add a ton of video effects including chroma support, gamma correction, black and white and more. In addition, PiTiVi has a lot of plug-ins with more effects like turning videos into cartoons, bulge, swirl and many more. You can also use the Mask0Mate plugin to make an alpha channel mask.

There are many rendering options in the program, and many presets are available such as iPod, Blu-ray, and DVD, but you can make other presets just as easily. While it may not have the features of other more expensive video editors, the things you can do with it are staggering.

Other notable capabilities offered by the software trimming, clipping and roll edits for videos, audio waveforms, ability to create video thumbnails, opacity keyframe curves and create custom ratios and aspects. Give it a try and let us know what you think.

Related Links:
PiTiVi Official Website
Download PiTiVi

The interface is simple: the playlist information, playback controls and equalizers are easy to use. The design is sleek, but you won’t get confused. In fact the controls are simple enough you won’t need to use the help file. AIMP lets you play compact discs. You can upload mp3s within the player.

But AIMP is more than just a free basic player. It has a powerful equalizer that allows you to tinker with the sounds. The presets alone give you plenty of options. Amazingly, the software lets you record Internet radio. Numerous effects are included such as speed, echo, pitch, chorus and tempo. Users will also appreciate the fact that AIMP can load multiple playlists.

Advanced users can add plug-ins to the program. Hot keys can be added as well. AIMP has many other features worth mentioning. You can search for files inside the program. There is full Unicode support and multi-user mode. The interface is multilingual. Just like any other good player, it has a tag editor. Groups of files can be renamed. You can put tag values to several files.

There are a lot of features, but the player is very stable. One of AIMP’s unique features is Auto Shutdown. It allows you to set the time for the application to shut down. You can add bookmarks to the player too.

Related Links:
Download AIMP
AIMP Official Website
AIMP on Facebook

Miro allows users to import their libraries from iTunes. There is support for Android syncing. If you are looking for the iTunes equivalent in Android devices, this is it. Aside from supporting all popular video and audio formats, you can download or subscribe to podcasts.

If you are using iTunes, Miro’s interface will be familiar. There is a section for managing music files, videos and other devices hooked up. If you want to buy or download something, Google Play and the AppStore are right there too. After you download a file, it’s just a few clicks away to sync them.

Also included on the left pane are your playlists, a video search tool, sources and podcasts. If you are playing videos, the playback controls will be at the bottom. Miro is also compatible with Kindle Fire. It also syncs with tablets. With this app, you can update all devices quickly.

For many people though, the biggest benefit is Miro’s ability to do different things. You don’t have to leave the program to buy or download. You can stay in and let it sync files as you manage them. You don’t need to install a YouTube downloader because the program can do it. If two Miro apps are on a network, you’ll be able to share music and videos.

Miro is cross-platform so it can run on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Related Links:
Download Miro
Miro on Facebook

Clementine’s interface is basic but very workable. Users who don’t like a lot of information thrown at them will like its appearance. You won’t find a music shop link here. The program is built around the user. The main window consists of a big playlist. At its left are tabs vertically set. You will find categories like artist info, song info, devices, Internet, files and library.

Players start by importing their files in the playlist. You can then gain access to other options. You can save music streaming or from your local drives. The right click menu provides you access to a song’s metadata information. Edit Track information allows you to change the data there. Players can connect to the MusicBrainz online service to look for any missing data.

Fans of Internet radio can tune in to online streams like SKY.fm, Jamendo, Magnatune, SomaFM, Last.fm, Grooveshark and Spotify. These services have different features though.

Clementine’s music player aspect has visualizations, a queue manager, a cover manager and an equalizer. Also useful feature is the Transcode Music function. This helps a user save certain files for devices like a USB player, the iPod or iPhone.

Clementine’s music player has numerous settings that can be adjusted. The Preferences menu allows you to set keyboard shortcuts, Wii remote settings and song transitions. You can also change network settings, as well. The application can be integrated with Unity Dash.

Related Links:
Clementine Official Website
Clementine on Facebook

The feature and functionality embedded in Pandora that totally takes away the cake would be the Feedback function that has an impact not only on the particular track, but on the entire Playlist on a whole.

So here how it works: there are two feedback options thumbs-up and thumbs-down. So whenever you hit the thumbs-down button on any artist or song, Pandora remembers that and makes sure songs very similar to the disliked one are never played often on your playlist.

Similarly if you hit the thumbs-up button for an artist or song makes Pandora play that artist or song and everything closely related to that genre more often. The whole idea of this sort of feedback is to make music listening on Pandora more customized and also ensuring that only that music is played often which a particular user will prefer listening to.

After initial release in the year 2000, Pandora has diversified by infiltrating new areas such as Web-Browsers and Smartphone. So now, an Android user or iOS owner with internet connectivity can have Pandora access 24×7. The buck does not stop there, with a single account, a user can access his/her saved playlist, artist, music on various devices without taking the pain of setting up everything from scratch.

A question that frequently arises is “How does Pandora make money?” Well, they do make their own share of profits after paying the royalties to various record companies. The most important revenue is the advertisements but there is also user-subscribed accounts. So if a user doesn’t want to see or hear the ads, he or she can subscribe to Pandora One at $36 annually. Pandora greatly makes profit as this subscription fee to cover the users content cost per stream and make up for lack of the advertising.

The Pandora service is limited only to the United.States at this point of time, after the recent Copyright Royalty Board rulings increase the fees and seek license guarantees, this ruiling affects all U.S based internet radio stations. In the present times, Pandora service is widely accessible on all iOS devices, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile devices, HP WebOS and Sprint Nextel have their very own modified Pandora version.

Related Links:
Pandora Official Website
Pandora for iTunes
Pandora for Android
Pandora for Blackberry
Pandora for Google Chrome
Pandora on Facebook
Pandora on Twitter

The main advantage of MusicBee is the simple interface. Your tracks are situated in the middle of the screen. The left panel has a list of folders, reminiscent of other media players. One of the best features of the program is it can locate information about albums.

This is a great way to complete your album’s data. The auto DJ feature is more than a typical shuffler; it can be used to customize the playing order. You can play only tracks that are alike to the seed song. You can also determine the gap before an artist’s song is repeated. This free program has support for a wide array of music formats. You can use it to tune in to online stations, preview new and upcoming albums and concerts. MusicBee is simple enough to use, but anyone who needs guidance can use the help file online.

MusicBee gives you a lot of options when it comes to playing music. The search feature allows you to find files in a hurry. Its editing tools make it a breeze to add metadata.

When you are online, MusicBee can look for data concerning the songs you’re playing. You can make different kinds of playlists. Another cool feature is you can easily put more songs in from your CD collection. MusicBee supports plugins too.

Related Links:
MusicBee Official Website