Review of Songplayer for Amiga

Here I want to reveal some of the apps that are much easier to use, got the best playlist functions, and overall works as they should. These audio players for AmigaOS should also be able to play WAV,  MP2, MP3, and OGG sound files. So, let’s roll on! Here is what you can do with SongPlayer!

SongPlayer is Available for AmigaOS 3.x and MorphOS with MUI 3.3 or higher

Since the end of the ’90s. I have been using the SongPlayer audio player for Amiga as one of my main audio players. I was using it on my Amiga 1200 with 68030 50MHz set up earlier, and since 2004 I also had it running on our MorphOS machines at Amitopia office until today. I am still saying that this audio player for Amiga is still One of the best Audio Players for any system out there in my own view. Yes, I want to even go as far as saying that it is even better to use than AmigaAMP (which is based on WinAMP) and AmiNetRadio because of its minimalistic form.

Stephane Tavenard managed to create this audio player so that it just works out of the box for users with AmigaOS 3.x and MorphOS with MUI 3.8 installed. It also works on 68030 50MHz, but then you need to adjust all of the settings to low and Mono. On 68040 you can reach Medium, while on 68060 or even 68080 you can have all of the audio settings on full without any issues.

Works amazingly on 68080 accelerated Amiga setups

On 68060, 68080, and on PowerPC this audio player for Amiga shines. SongPlayer doesn’t have any advanced skin functionalities like AmigaAMP or AmiNetRadio. Instead, SongPlayer shines at speed. It loads very fast as it is system-friendly once all MUI libs can be found.

The MUI sliders and everything on the player can be changed as you want because of the power that MUI got. The buttons can be replaced too. But that’s it. Even all of the Scopes and Meters animation visualizations are nicely animated in a dedicated MUI window, which is pretty cool. Every button on the player’s front end can also be switched on and off in the settings without any difficulties.

SongPlayer plays 14-bit Paula tracks without issues

The support for Classic Amiga Paula’s 8-bit and 14-bit sound is not an issue if you have configurated your Amiga correctly. SongPlayer is also an advanced player with lots of various AHI configurations too.

You can use AHI configurations to configure Paula that use an Amiga sound or any soundcard that you use. This is fine, especially for Amiga users with 68030 and DelfinaDSP z2 Lite with a DSP set at 70MHz. Then you can play MP3s in full quality without any CPU usage at all, leaving the CPU for all other tasks. Quite handy.

No Amiga MODs support in SongPlayer

Including being able to play audio files, SongPlayer can also be an Audio CD Player. Which is good. However, if there is anything to nag about is that there is no native version available for AmigaOS 4.x Other than that, SongPlayer shows that you don’t need to go big. You can be a simple music player and deliver quality to the ears listening.

My dream is that SongPlayer music player should have streaming capabilities also. Also, the fact that this music player lacks support for Amiga MOD songs is maybe the biggest negative side. Both AmigaAMP and AmiNetRadio got this.

Songplayer doesn’t require so much of your Amiga system like other similar apps. It lets 68030 owners be able to play MP3 music with the lowest settings on, but if you got a DSP soundcard then it helps a lot. SongPlayer supports both playing from Paula directly and DSP 16-bit soundcards for Amiga or 68060++. The player does its job very well. This is a remarkable music player for Amiga that I think is one of the best ones and it is totally free on Aminet.