MusicMatch... anything better?
 

My son just received a Dell Digital Jukebox MP3 player (nice gift!), but I'm not impressed with the bundled software; MusicMatch. For one thing, Dell only provides a crippled version with slower rip speeds. I also find the entire interface rather confusing. Does anyone have a suggestion for something better?

Thanks

Not really, personally I think MMJB is the best out there, perhaps the Dell supplied version is cripled to heavily.

Winamp v5.01 Professional

Nero Burning ROM

MusicMatch 8.20 Plus

Easy CD-DA Extractor

Windows Media Player 9

MusicMatch blows ass. iTunes is where its at.

wait till sixate sees this.....

winamp for life (except 3(bloatwarez))

My suggestion is that you take a look in to Exact Audio Copy.

It is by far not the fastest one out there but is the most accurate one I've ever used. So it is worth the time.

Also, be warned, if you choose to use a different bitrate than the one suggested, be ready to do some research into it.

You must get Dudebox Explorer. It's vastly superior to that shitty MM. It really makes file transfer a breeze, and allows you to make the DJ play the tracks in order. As far as ripping is concerned use EAC, a guide to this can be found here .

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll check them out!

Heh.
And I think iTunes sucks donkey balls. iTunes is a huge bloated program. Fucking Photoshop opens faster than fucking iTunes. Plus, iTunes can't even do everything that I can do with MusicMatch.

Although, the new versions of MusicMatch also suck dick. I've stuck with version 7.2. They're up to 8.something.

Same here.

Ok, tell me what MM can do that iTunes cannot. And I'm not trying to be a smart ass dick or anything, I would just like to know. I love the simplicity of ripping CD's in iTunes. I pop in a CD, hit "Import", and it does the rest. It creates a folder in my mp3 directory with the band name, creates a folder inside of that with the cd title, puts the tracks in cd title folder, puts track numbers on them, and puts ID3 tags on them. I rip a lot of cd's and make a lot of mp3 cd's, so this is awesome for me. What features do you love about MM?

I guess I didn't even try if long enough to find the option to rip... Either way, it's a shitty bloated program that uses way more resources than MM. A program that I use to listen to music shouldn't take more time to open than Photoshop. MM rips and categorizes basically the same way, but I hated the way the program was set up. I found it awkward. Plus, my music sounds waaaay better playing it through MM. I don't know what the difference is, but I've even let other people compare the sound difference on my PC between MM, iTunes, and Weakamp. There hasn't been one single person that thought either of those two sounded better. Lastly, the few times I did use it the stupid fucker froze up on me every time. I couldn't add my entire music library at once because it couldn't handle it. I can delete my library from MM, and import it in about 15 seconds. Plus MM has a great track renaming feature that takes only seconds. There's other things I like about it, but I'm getting tired of typing. ;)

hmm. Fair enough I suppose. I have found iTunes to be extremely stable, it hasn't crashed on me once since I dl'd it. I have dumped my 80 GB library into it many times and it hasn't choked. I can't address the differences in SQ versus other players, as my shitty speakers wouldn't reveal any differences anyway.

Looks like we both have our preferences, and aren't going to change our minds anytime soon. So sixate will jam on MM, and I'll jam to iTunes.

WINAMP 5.01! It is seriously the best program out there. Musicmatch is as bad as Real Player...

I use itunes and wouldnt change for anything. Opening itunes takes no time whatsoever for me but maybe it is just my computer. I also like the importing and burning on itunes.

agree with that first part but not with the first bit about WA. Winamp would be my first choice still if Foobar2k were not an option for whatever reason. And I personally use programs like EAC,dBpowerAMP, and others for most of my ripping and conversion. I have been using the diskwriter on foobar more though lately.

I intensely dislike the interface/controls/lack of support for almost everything I use (i.e. needs easy full support for MPC/FLAC/APE/Ogg-Vorbis) in iTunes but have purchased a few songs through it.
And I would rather use realjukebox again than touch that naaaaasty virus Realplayer/Realone.

I decided to stick with MM (the latest version). I really liked Dudebox, but in the end, I didn't want to deal with two programs (one for ripping and one for uploading). I still think MM is bloated with features and an interface that is not simple, but for quick ripping and uploading to the DJ, it seems to work pretty well.

Thats the only thing I really use MM for, but it does it so well.

I agree about not liking the sound with itunes. The equilzer was just strange. I've never played anything in music match long enough to notice.

For ripping I use CDex.

last time i checked musicmatch is a memory leaker...:(