Audio player

[DonCachopo]

Hi

What audio player do you use (Windows) to listen files?

I like VLC, but I don´t know why, the shortcut for time steps don´t work properly. In fact, is a madness: I press shift-left (short jump backwards) and it go back 3 secinds and then goes forward 1 minute. And these shortcuts are a must for me.

 

And in android, do you know a good player for learning languages??

 

Thanks!

[Shelley]

I would suggest GOM player https://www.gomlab.com/

 

Or winamp here http://winamp.en.softonic.com/

 

VLC is good i am surprised you have this problem.

 

I just use the standard Android music player to listen to my audio on my android devices.

 

[Yadang]

You could try WorkAudioBook. It analyzes the sound and cuts it into phrases (more or less), so you can repeat phrases without having to find each one.

 

See the forum discussion here.

 

The developer also has an android app with a free trial for two weeks. $5 to buy.

[akdn]

 

And in android, do you know a good player for learning languages??

 

 

Try Music Speed Changer. It is aimed at musicians who want to practice by playing along with audio files, using loop and tempo change functions.

 

I've tried it with extracts of Chinese and it does a reasonable job of slowing down tricky sections (maintaining the original pitch) and listening on a loop.

[TheBigZaboon]

My candidate for an Android player is Maple, sometimes referred to as The Maple Player.

There is a free version with ads, and for around USD 3.00, an ad-free version with on-going development and updates. The interface is easy to use, and quite intuitive. It has speed-up and slow-down functions, A-B repeat, and pitch control. It also has a number of music-related features that might make it your standard player for any audio.

But the real reason I use it for my language player is its file management system. I have files with names (and sometimes meta data) in four languages that I use regularly, and it reads and displays them all like a champ. I stopped using several very nice, full-featured players because they couldn't display file names that came along with mp3 discs pressed in other countries. This is particularly important when you want to advance to another file in a folder or when you want to start a file from inside the player, rather than starting it from a separate file manager.

I don't normally use Windows for language study because it ties you to the computer, and up until recently, even a laptop was a pain to drag around. Recently, however, I bought a 2-in-1 with Windows 10 on it, and found that Windows Media Player has been replaced with a new app with a generic-sounding name that I've already forgotten. It seems to work OK so far, but I still keep the VLC player handy.

As for the VLC player, I've had problems once in a while, but normally it's very useful. But I have both high-quality Japanese machines and the cheap Chinese knock-offs I prefer, and they have to play both audio and DVDs from four or five countries for both my wife and myself. So it is understandable that VLC will choke and spit up a hairball occasionally. My wife likes things to work first time, every time, so she is willing to accept restrictions Windows or Apple insist on. I have no patience for region codes or copy protection that makes legally purchased material difficult or impossible to use for studying, so I prefer the Chinese software that comes with my cheap knock-offs. Chinese software usually happily ignores restrictions. But still, it's hard to beat the VLC player.

Just my two rupees...

TBZ

[大块头]

I like Audipo, which lets you change playback speed and play sections of an audio file over and over.

[onebir]

On Linux MP3splt is primarily for splitting MP3 files, but can display a waveform, and remember breakpoints, making it quite useful for jumping around language audio.

 

http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/

[Luxi]

I just installed the free "Advanced Learners' Player" for Windows 10 from the Windows store. It has everything I wanted for audio files (can play videos too) and more. I'm really thrilled with it.

 

- plays wide variety of file formats

- clear, easy controls

- variable player speed

- play lists

- a 'back a bit' function

 

I think it also allows notes but I haven't finish trying it yet. The Back a Bit function works a treat, I can play the same bit time and again until I understand it (and vary the speed too). 

 

It is for Windows 10 only (PC or mobile). Here's a link to the developers' blog:

https://akitools.wordpress.com/  

[DonCachopo]

You could try WorkAudioBook. It analyzes the sound and cuts it into phrases (more or less), so you can repeat phrases without having to find each one.

See the forum discussion here.

The developer also has an android app with a free trial for two weeks. $5 to buy.

That app is absolutely awesome! Thank you very much.

I'm having a issue, but I'll comment it in the proper thread

Enviado desde mi SM-N9005 mediante Tapatalk

[TheBigZaboon]

I admit I had always avoided WorkAudioBook because the early descriptions made it sound rather complicated, and not much of an improvement over Audacity. I pored over the descriptions of manipulating subtitle files for clues to help me in learning from movies and TV shows, but in the end, I always felt I would spend too much time fighting with the details that would be better spent with a player than with an editor.

But I looked at WAB for this first time this morning, and to my delight, I found it had everything I wanted, right out of the box. And in addition to being user-friendly, it is very, very intuitive, allowing even a novice to use it right away. It has all the things everyone praised it for before, but it really, really is the easy-to-use all-purpose language learning tool it promises to be.

You don't have to pay any attention to talk of subtitles or audio-books unless you actually want to. This app is the answer to the dreams (and cries for help) of even the most absolute beginner. There's no need for operations like cut and paste, or anything more than navigating to the mp3 of your textbook, no matter how basic. The app does the rest automatically.

Anyway, this is the end of my gushing rant, try it, you will love it.

TBZ

[Alex_Vlasenko]

I strongly recommend to use any audio editor, not just a player.

I use Audacity audio editor to listen mp3 and other audio files

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audacity_(audio_editor)

It is much more convenient than if you use just mp3 player,

because you can view the structure of the audio record,

you can select a piece of record and listen and repeat it

or even loop it.

I use the Audacity under Ubuntu environment, but there is a version of this software for Windows too.

[Mati1]

I've recently started doing more language learning related listening on my Windows desktop computer and am staggered to experience the same issues with VLC. Changing the playback position sometimes results in random jumps and even crashes VLC in the end. (There is most likely an updated version available which I haven't tried yet.)

 

WorkAudioBook looks very promising, I will install it soon.

 

After I started learning Chinese I found out that mp3 files can have embedded text (eg. a tag for lyrics).

I then looked at some mp3 players and ended up buying Poweramp for Android. With Poweramp you can listen to an mp3 and open a lyrics window to read along. You might not know that the Chinese Pod lesson mp3 files have the dialogue text embedded -> nice! (At least the old lessons have it, didn't buy new ones in a while.)

 

Edit:

Forgot to mention the tool I use for splitting mp3 files on Windows: mp3DirectCut.

It lets you split mp3 files without recoding (faster and without loss of quality).

I've also used it successfully to do a batch job on my newbie CP dialogue files to cut out the sound before the dialogue.

Edit2: Fixes mistakes.

[onebir]

 

Forgot to mention the tool I use for splitting mp3 files on Windows: mp3DirectCut.

 

Similar app for linux, also very useful for playback:

http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/mp3splt_page/home.php

[DonCachopo]

You might not know that the Chinese Pod lesson mp3 files have the dialogue text embedded -> nice! (At least the old lessons have it, didn't buy new ones in a while.)

In fact,I had no idea. Is there any good program to read those lyrics in Windows?

Thanks

Enviado desde mi SM-N9005 mediante Tapatalk

[Mati1]

Good question.

 

I just installed Gom Audio for a quick test http://audio.gomlab.com/

It lets you open a big lyrics window . The text in this window is not copyable, but the lyrics can also be read and copied from the file info window. Excellent.