I know that I like musicolet and recommend it for anyone who wants to use mp3 files to listen to music on their phones, but I want to see how it is similar and different from othe music players so I downloaded a few to test out and compare
First Up let's look at the Albums screen since albums are a great way to listen to music.
VLC does a good job of detecting albums and does maintain sorting of songs, however you cannot alter the location of a song within an album. Additionally it does not let you sort albums by number of songs making it harder to find full albums, but it does have an option to sort by album length
Oto music detects songs and maintains order, it also lets you edit the order of albums, as it should, and allows you to sort by number of songs, but does not detect album artist by use of the songs
Pulsar does detect albums and order but does not let you sort by number of songs or anything similar. It does let you edit the order of songs in albums
Musicolet detects songs and maintains order but lets you edit the order of songs if need be, as it should, and allows you to sort by number of songs. It does not day the album artist at all
AIMP does detects and maintains orders, it does not let you edit the order within an album, it does not have song number sorting
And finally Metro detects songs and maintains order, let's you edit song order within albums and has song number sorting
Because it is useful to control music without opening the app, let's compare the widgets
First Up is VLC which shows artist, album art and songs title, and let's you play and pause the song
Oto shows artist, album art and songs title, and let's you play and pause the song, as well as skip forward and backwards
Pulsar shows artist, album name, album art, location in the playlist, and songs title, and let's you play and pause the song, as well as skip forward and backwards, loop the song, and shuffle music
Musicolet shows album art and songs title, and let's you play and pause the song, as well as skip forward and backwards, like songs, and add them to playlists
Pulsar shows artist, album name, album art, and songs title, and let's you play and pause the song, as well as skip forward and backwards
AIMP shows album art, album name, artist, and song name, and let's you play and pause, as well as skip forward and backwards
Next up let's do what I should have started with and compare the control screen for the music, from left to right, top row then bottom, is VLC, Oto, Pulsar, Musicolet, AIMP, and Metro.
All except for VLC have a shuffle button, and VLC shows the playlist and current song controls together whereas all the other apps have them separate
All have options to play songs next, add to queue/current playlist, and just play now
Let's see how the it works to make a playlist
For VLC, Oto, Pulsar and Metro, you long press on the first song then tap on all other songs you want to add before tapping the 3 dots in the upper corner and pressing the add to playlist button
For AIMP you do the same process but press the Playlist button on the bottom of the screen instead
For Musicolet you long tap then tap the songs, then press the options button then tap the add to playlist button
Random notes about the musician section
In VLC you can see how many albums you have songs from on the musician tab
In the musicians section on Oto, it adds photos of the musicians to the image
Pulsar does the opposite and needs you to add images, ignoring the album art for these blank images
Musicolet stores them in a list
Metro has a controlable grid set by default to circles and 2 per row
AIMP has that thing where there are big letters separating the sections in a list
VLC does have a shuffle button, you just need more than 2 songs in a playlist
All apps except for VLC media player have a tags editor to edit things like album art, song name, genre, and location in albums
AIMP's song tag editor is under the file information tab
Minor notices
Oto and Metro are the 2 apps with a homescreen
VLC scans all files before allowing you to select music each time you open the app instead of remembering what files are open, which means it takes a few moments to open
I have no real notes on Pulsar
Musicolet let's you choose what happens when you tap album art
Metro is a fork of Retro, just need to bring that up
AIMP has navigation on the side instead of bottom and has playlist bookmarking
just as a note, VLC's widget does let you skip forward and backward, you just have to change that in the settings, and if you make the widget bigger you can skip forward and backward within songs. still no shuffle tho
also you can go in settings and change it so it doesn't rescan all your music every time you open it
whimsical-catacombs:
amtrak-official:
amtrak-official:
amtrak-official:
amtrak-official:
amtrak-official:
amtrak-official:
amtrak-official:
amtrak-official:
amtrak-official:
amtrak-official:
I know that I like musicolet and recommend it for anyone who wants to use mp3 files to listen to music on their phones, but I want to see how it is similar and different from othe music players so I downloaded a few to test out and compare
First Up let’s look at the Albums screen since albums are a great way to listen to music.
VLC does a good job of detecting albums and does maintain sorting of songs, however you cannot alter the location of a song within an album. Additionally it does not let you sort albums by number of songs making it harder to find full albums, but it does have an option to sort by album length
Oto music detects songs and maintains order, it also lets you edit the order of albums, as it should, and allows you to sort by number of songs, but does not detect album artist by use of the songs
Pulsar does detect albums and order but does not let you sort by number of songs or anything similar. It does let you edit the order of songs in albums
Musicolet detects songs and maintains order but lets you edit the order of songs if need be, as it should, and allows you to sort by number of songs. It does not day the album artist at all
AIMP does detects and maintains orders, it does not let you edit the order within an album, it does not have song number sorting
And finally Metro detects songs and maintains order, let’s you edit song order within albums and has song number sorting
Because it is useful to control music without opening the app, let’s compare the widgets
First Up is VLC which shows artist, album art and songs title, and let’s you play and pause the song
Oto shows artist, album art and songs title, and let’s you play and pause the song, as well as skip forward and backwards
Pulsar shows artist, album name, album art, location in the playlist, and songs title, and let’s you play and pause the song, as well as skip forward and backwards, loop the song, and shuffle music
Musicolet shows album art and songs title, and let’s you play and pause the song, as well as skip forward and backwards, like songs, and add them to playlists
Pulsar shows artist, album name, album art, and songs title, and let’s you play and pause the song, as well as skip forward and backwards
AIMP shows album art, album name, artist, and song name, and let’s you play and pause, as well as skip forward and backwards
Next up let’s do what I should have started with and compare the control screen for the music, from left to right, top row then bottom, is VLC, Oto, Pulsar, Musicolet, AIMP, and Metro.
All except for VLC have a shuffle button, and VLC shows the playlist and current song controls together whereas all the other apps have them separate
All have options to play songs next, add to queue/current playlist, and just play now
Let’s see how the it works to make a playlist
For VLC, Oto, Pulsar and Metro, you long press on the first song then tap on all other songs you want to add before tapping the 3 dots in the upper corner and pressing the add to playlist button
For AIMP you do the same process but press the Playlist button on the bottom of the screen instead
For Musicolet you long tap then tap the songs, then press the options button then tap the add to playlist button
Random notes about the musician section
In VLC you can see how many albums you have songs from on the musician tab
In the musicians section on Oto, it adds photos of the musicians to the image
Pulsar does the opposite and needs you to add images, ignoring the album art for these blank images
Musicolet stores them in a list
Metro has a controlable grid set by default to circles and 2 per row
AIMP has that thing where there are big letters separating the sections in a list
VLC does have a shuffle button, you just need more than 2 songs in a playlist
All apps except for VLC media player have a tags editor to edit things like album art, song name, genre, and location in albums
AIMP’s song tag editor is under the file information tab
Minor notices
Oto and Metro are the 2 apps with a homescreen
VLC scans all files before allowing you to select music each time you open the app instead of remembering what files are open, which means it takes a few moments to open
I have no real notes on Pulsar
Musicolet let’s you choose what happens when you tap album art
Metro is a fork of Retro, just need to bring that up
AIMP has navigation on the side instead of bottom and has playlist bookmarking
just as a note, VLC’s widget does let you skip forward and backward, you just have to change that in the settings, and if you make the widget bigger you can skip forward and backward within songs. still no shuffle tho
also you can go in settings and change it so it doesn’t rescan all your music every time you open it
Okay, that’s good to know, thank you for telling me about this, because those were my main 2 issues with VLC
