Music Management Software

Krysanthemum

Hi guys,

I work from home, and I listen to my music A LOT. What's more, I have quite a bit of music, and I've always enjoyed having it all saved on my iPod, all in one place. However, as a piece of software, iTunes is beginning to shit me more and more, and it's always irritated me that I can't back-up the playlists that I've created on my iPod.

Then yesterday, I lost my iPod. I have all my music backed up, but I find myself in a position of having to buy a new iPod and continue organising my music as I always have, or try a new system.

So my question for you is this - is there better music management software than iTunes which can be used with an iPod? And/or is there a better MP3 player than an iPod (keeping in mind that I would need at least 32gig of harddrive space with the sheer amount of music I have)? I'm not terribly concerned about appearance of the player, but cost is a factor.

All advice is greatly appreciated!

EggyToast

Before we offer suggestions, what are you looking for in music management software. My needs are drastically different from my wife's -- I create smartlists that self-populate continuously based on a tiered rating system and time-based; she creates static playlists generally based on full albums.

Quid

I really liked my old iPod, but I'd strongly recommend looking into a Zune and Zune software as well as the Zune pass. I broke down because my wife didn't want an iPod and, quite frankly, love it.

Krysanthemum

Definitely not self-populating playlists. I like creating my own playlists that can then be played in random order. I'm a bit anal-retentive, so allowing software to make my choices for me isn't on.

What I'm looking for in the software is something intuitive, not too fussy, which is easy for me to scroll through and find a particular song / album (given I'm dealing with approximately 4,500 songs here). I tend to like being able to browse through my lists and play whatever grabs me on a particular day.

Quid

A Zune can be placed on random so that all songs are played in a different order. It's pretty much on par with the iPod in terms of capabilities with a couple extras. I'd honestly recommend checking out the software. Their players are generally slightly cheaper and they also have an 80G, letting you avoid spending the cash necessary for a 120G iPod or a 32G iPod touch.

Djinn

I use foobar2000. Its simple but highly customizable. Eg:

RocketScience

I second foobar.