I am looking to find a really light weight music player that I can use to play songs while I am running games. iTunes and WMP are just too bloated. I am assuming that the 3 major contenders will be Winamp, VLC, or Foobar.
Anyone care to share their experiences with these?
There are a lot of lightweighting music players out there, for example:
- musikCube: http://www.musikcube.com/
- Evil Player: http://www.hakeem.gigahost.dk/
Personally, I use iTunes and I'm really satisfied with it. I used Winamp for many years, but switched to iTunes 2 years ago.
I also have tested a lot of other players and if I'm in the same position as you, then I would either use foobar2000 or musikCube.
I don't know if VLC would be the best choice, I find it to also have as heavy of a footprint as iTunes or WMP. It may not, really, but it feels like it. It's more of a video player.
Sorry, I haven't used any others, except for iTunes (me is purist). And I haven't used a Winamp version since version 2, and before AOL bought them out; when it was good.
+1 for musikcube. Extremely lightweight and fast databasing. Takes about a 1 and a half synchronize the database to the drive with well over 8000+ songs. Takes roughly only 3-4 minutes for a fresh database.
WMP is closer to 10-15 and iTunes was a dog at it...after 10 minutes and only a quarter of the way through, I gave up. And this isn't an ancient computer either...
I'm sold on Foobar. When minimized to the tray it has a very small footprint, perfect for multitasking.
It is also very customizable, so you can set it up any way you like.
Well what i like is winamp, mainly because there is a ton of skins, and it has ipod support.
Have you thought of Xmplay, it's simple, supports playlists and dozens of formats and above all it's skinnable
BTW, there's a nice itunes skin...
i recommend foobar.. nice on the eye too 
Definitely go with foobar2000. Its not just the lightest player, but in my opinion it is the best.
The only reason I use iTunes is because of it's library management. If there's any way at all to do that in Foobar, I'll switch over in a second. Anyone?
If you are talking about the sound quality Foobar2000 is the best !
AIMP 2.0. I like its sound better than Foobar. Plus it can convert and record better than Audacity. Mind all these things its incredibly light.
Ok,Alabanco,want to try it,is is it freeware?,search in google it says in Russian,please help me,thank's
you can get Winamp 2.95 from OldVersion.com. An music player doesn't need to be more than a MB 
Husaini HB
yes. it is a product by Russian developers. And you know what, it has been done by a very small group of people who happened to be smarter enough to make it really cool from the very beginning.
it is 100% free
There is an english version http://www.aimp.ru/index.php?newlang=english
Ok,I've D/L it,installed it and I think kind of like it,have to learn it,thank's alabanco
maybe foobar2000 is a good choice.
Billy MP3 player from sheep friends is the most minimalistic music player I ever seen. http://www.sheepfriends.com/?page=billy
Currently it eats less than 3 megs from my physical memory.
+1 for foobar2000. It's extremely lightweight, has great sound, and the new default UI of 0.9.5 beta is a HUGE step forward - it's no longer totally unusable and ugly out of the box! And if you so wish, there's still Panels UI to make it very, very pretty. Syncs flawlessly with iPods too. It's perfect.
tried itunes lite?
its coded using the iTunes engine, looks like the mini itunes controller and is able to open plist files, or create a "now playing selection" full of mp3's u select.
its made by a third party dev.
JK. it doesnt exist. gotcha. ok. lame. sry.
+ for evil player, lighter and faster than foobar 2K, and more important you can change the theme easily to match with your system
I'm going to try this one out (found it on subdemon in a similar thread.) It's supposed to be very very lightweight and fast, emphasis on the "very very",
Husaini HByes. it is a product by Russian developers. And you know what, it has been done by a very small group of people who happened to be smarter enough to make it really cool from the very beginning.
it is 100% free
There is an english version http://www.aimp.ru/index.php?newlang=english
I wouldn't recommend AIMP. After I installed it and ran an anti-spyware software, I got a warning message that I have a spyware module installed inside its exe or its dir. I'm not sure now. I used XenAntiSpyware and AIMP was downloaded from the official website.
Smarty
Don't worry. That's the wrong threat. there are no viruses there. There are lots of talks about it but there are even more disproofs.
you could check that on official forum of AIMP
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