If It Ain't Broke, Don't Try To Fix It. Review on Winamp 3

I’ve been a hardcore audiophile for the last 3 years and the advantage of being one is the knowledge and expertise of all the major audio playback software that comes out of toying incessantly with them day and night. I have some good news and some bad news – the former is that Winamp has recently launched its new version (3), the latter is that my neighbours have threatened to boot me out of the society if I indulge in any more non-discretionary vocal exercises in the bathroom.

Honestly, I feel that the new version is a major let down to the millions of Winamp’s faithful fans across the globe. I was always under the misguided impression that sequels are always better than their predecessors but Winamp has delivered a stinging slap on my face to prove me wrong.

Downloading & Installation

The saving grace is that Nullsoft is yet to succumb to commercial temptations by making it a pay-and-use software. Off I went to https://download.com and having found the new Winamp version easily, proceeded to download it. The download time is approximately 10-15 minutes (might be longer for slower Internet connections) and the installation went off without a hitch in the span of a few seconds. If only they could do away with that annoying screen that insists on having your name, e-mail ID and trivia, life would have been a lot more easier.

Welcome to Hell

The appearance of Winamp on running it for the first time is a veritable visual genocide. The huge integrated browser window opens with much fanfare whenever Winamp is run and insists on attaching itself to the right of the main player, thus blocking up much of the desktop real estate. Agreed that the browser window contains links to radio stations, downloadable skins and plug-ins, but why does it have to make its mandatory presence felt in such a harsh manner?

The whole setup looks so cluttered and jumbled that I wondered if I had downloaded Winamp or some other software by mistake. For one thing, the main player looks so small as it is and to add to it, the order of the player buttons is as confusing as ever. For all the tom-toming that Winamp resorted to before the launch proclaiming that the new version was radically different from version 2.81, they have actually ended up changing a lot of things that were not required in the first place.

In the main player control window, little has been changed except that the buttons (play, pause, etc.) are a little more shinier and seem to have undergone a few tense moments under a varnishing machine. The stereo and mixer icons have thankfully been changed for the better as compared to their miniscule “avatars” in the earlier versions.

The “Thinger”

Then there is this contraption innovatively titled by some neurologically challenged chap as the “Thinger”. This comes right beneath the main player interface in place of where the Playlist used to appear previously. For one thing, these icons look like they have been robbed from a pre-historic antique shop in the backstreets of Cairo. These icons cleverly disguise other suitably modified contraptions like the browser window (again!), visualization editor, playlist editor, video preferences, etc.

In a none-too satisfied way, this is a stoic development because it saves the trouble of right clicking on various places half a dozen times in the old version to get the menu bar to change these very options. Cheers are in order to the Nullsoft team for having the foresight to give users the option of turning on and off the “Thinger” section via a stylish icon in the top window. Other radical changes include the provision of “Round” skins like in Sonique (precisely why I hated it) and the ability to change the colour layout of the main player window. Ah, if only the better things in life were left untouched…

My Misadventures with Winamp

Now comes the best part. Since I had first downloaded and was running Winamp at office, I reduced the PC master volume level to a little above the 25% mark and proceeded to click on the playlist option from “Thinger”. Fortunately, this seemed to be a tad better than the previous version which I found to be to tedious a job of clicking on folders and sub-folders to select songs.

I selected one particular song and clicked on “Play”. The moving bar that denotes the progress of the song began to move but I couldn’t hear a thing. So I increased the Winamp volume level to 100% and the main PC volume to about 50%. The bar continued its westward progress steadily but I still could not hear anything that remotely resembled a song. In frustration I increased the PC volume to 100% and waited for 10 seconds as the progress bar reached one fourth of its destination. Still no response! Just as I was wondering what had gone wrong, the Beatles blurted out “Loove mee Doo” at the top of their throats and went silent. All my colleagues were looking at me and as I was trying to cover up by grinning stupidly, the Beatles added to my discomfiture by crooning again “Loove mee Doo”. Silence again.

I later discovered that the song was audible only once in 10 seconds of its playing time. As I tried to stop the song and play another song, I met with the same result. And then all of a sudden, Winamp defiantly refused to play anymore songs for me. Not only did the stupid thing(er) crash but it also forced me to reboot my PC. The same Beatles who were singing so wonderfully on my WMP (Windows Media Player) met with failure on Winamp again and again. Ditto with Bryan Adams and MLTR too. Out of frustration, I uninstalled the damn thing and re-installed Winamp 2.81 which was functioning normally.

Thus Spake TiC

Later, a friend of mine (who had downloaded it from Winamp website and faced the same acute embarrassment as me at his workplace) also told me that version 3 does not support a single plug-in of the previous version and that it had a thousand other bugs. Add to that the fact that it takes eons to launch and devours precious bytes of memory and I felt that Version 3 was not for me.

In trying to change it too radically, I’m afraid that the Winamp team has made a major mess of a great product. They ought to realize that in trying to make something better, its always advisable NOT to tamper with the aspects that have been widely accepted as being favourable and change only those that cause problems. The reverse seems to be true in this case.

My advise to all those planning to graduate to Version is to hold on to Version 2.81 till such a time as the bugs are not set right and the plug-ins not made compatible with V 2.81. Till then, I don’t have an option but to risk my vocal cords in the bathroom.