/dev/null/kevin

A while back I blogged about incompatibilities between iTunes and Yahoo's Musicmatch Jukebox.  That issue is still unresolved, but there were some comments about which interface is better.  In the spirit of fair play, I decided to give iTunes a try.  Note that I an not comparing the online music stores, just the players.

Summary: iTunes has more player options, but Musicmatch is a better ripper and organizer.  Musicmatch still wins, in my opinion.

Many features are available with both players and comparing those features is not really valuable, so I'll try to just focus on the differences.  I'm not claiming to be an expert with either program so if you know how to do something that I don't, let me know.

iTunes Pros:

• Lots of statistics.  iTunes keeps track of how often songs are played and can use that information to generate a playlist.  It's also easier to add your own personal ratings with iTunes since you can also do so via your iPod.


• Better "between song" features.  iTunes realizes that some songs need to be played right after other songs with no gaps.  It also has the cross fader feature that blends songs together like a DJ.
  


• "Endless" random play.  iTunes' "Party Shuffle" is slightly better the MM's "auto DJ" since it's open ended.  MM requires that you enter a total time and then generates a fixed playlist.
  


• iTunes' search is better and faster.  MM is a little clunky.

iTunes Cons:

• Doesn't play all mp3 files well!  This surprised me.  I have some older mp3s, ripped in the old days, and when iTunes plays them there is digital static for the first few seconds.  It's very annoying.
  

Musicmatch Pros:

• Tagging and super tagging.  Musicmatch absolutely blows away iTunes in this area.  iTunes only allows you to edit one song at a time.  iTunes can edit more than file at a time, but in a very limited fashion [see comments].  Musicmatch can edit multiple songs at one time, use one song to tag other songs, tag files based on the filename, and even rename the files based on the tags.  But the best feature is access to the online database of tags, and album art, that allow you to tag an entire album based on some search criteria.
  


• Mini player is better.  It's more mini.


• Fast ripping.  Very fast.

Musicmatch Cons:

• Can't update my iPod.  'nuff said.

It seems to me that iTunes is really geared towards Apple's iTunes store and playing music that has already been tagged and downloaded.  Musicmatch, while it also has a large online music store (Yahoo Music now), was written for the old school crowd (like me), who rip their own CDs and like to manage the meta data themselves.

For me, may of iTunes' "pros" aren't as important to me, so I'd like to stick with Musicmatch.  Now only if someone would fix this incompatibility problem.

Tags: itunes, music, musicmatch, apple, yahoo