Alternatives to the Music App on my new Mac, to play my own music collection

Typical Mac users continually replying to continue trying to use an app the OP clearly doesn't care for. Im OS Agnostic - I seriously don't have an issue using Mac or Windows. I am an Network Engineer and I support both. I have both, but the one thing that has always annoyed me about Macs isn't the Mac itself, its the users who pretty much are such a cult they cant believe that anyone would want to use something Apple didn't create. The music app sucks if your more than a casual music collector. I, like the OP have a ton of music - currently at 5 TB. Some of it I constantly listen to, some of it rarely, but what i have a taste to hear can change on a dime.

There are a lot more music managers out there than the Music app, some better than others, some for free and some that have a reasonable price and others that are insane.

My answer for the OP is this: Your probably going to use a combination of apps because I have not found a reasonably priced one that does everything I want AND has a good player app.

Personally, I use MusicBrainz Picard to organize. It is phenomenal for tagging and has hundreds of free plugins, and there are paid ones that provide even more database access. Its easy to use and gets somewhat regular updates. I use Swinsian for a player. It has some good oranization capabilities but I still prefer Picard.

A suitable solution here could be Elmedia Player. It has a folder-based structure, similar to Finder. Also, unlike Apple Music, Elmedia does not require you to upload or sync your files to a cloud service - if you've ever faced this issue, you realize how great it is.

You didn't mention formats or playback quality, but I'll note that it's great in that regard, too.

Next solution - VOX Player. It provides excellent playback choices and FLAC support, although its organization capabilities may not be as extensive as Elmedia player's. But it's worth a shot.

Another possible workaround can be found if you look up Retroactive iTunes.

tt2

Hi,

You could use Vox, VLC or fidelia. There are few others - search for other options.

Jim

My choice is VOX: MP3 & FLAC Music Player. It is a great and easy to use music player on mac.

Ihor280 wrote:

I'm new to the Mac environment and I think Apple Music sucks! What's a good alternative?

Before you dismiss Apple Music out of hand try using the Songs layout and enabling the Column Browser from the View menu. This should let you drill down into your artists and their albums. Try also View > Show Filter Field for an improved search function.

tt2

Ihor280 wrote:

BTW, I have a 2019 Mac with Intel 8-core i9, running the latest version of Ventura, I have no idea what Catalina is or how to run a "Windows" version of iTunes (an Apple program!) on a Mac (the whole idea sounds quite ridiculous!).

Catalina is macOS 10.15. It precedes Ventura (Catalina (10.15) -> Big Sur (11) -> Monterey (12) -> Ventura (13)).

Before Catalina came along, Macs used the iTunes application for playing music, managing the music libraries on (iPods, iPhones, iPads), accessing the iTunes Store, and accessing the Apple Music subscription service. There was a Windows version of iTunes (pretty obviously released to support iPod sales), also.

As of Catalina, Apple discontinued the Mac version of the iTunes application, and split up its functions. Apple has not split up the Windows version of iTunes yet. So what you call Apple's music player / store application depends on which particular platform and operating system you're running.

What happened to iTunes? - Apple Support

Since you're running Ventura, you're running the Music application – not iTunes. There's a good chance that the iTunes 12.8.3 application for High Sierra wouldn't install or run on your system even were you to download it.

If you have any iPods, iPhones, or iPads onto which you want to load music from your own CDs, the official way that you would do that is using Finder-based synchronization. The Finder would expect that your music and TV shows and movies are in the Music and TV libraries (the successors to the iTunes Library).

Within the Music app, do you have a structure of Playlist folders and Playlists in the sidebar? IMHO this makes everything simple.

My music is classical, so most of my folders are structured as Composer -> Works -> Performers etc. For example:

BACH

Cantatas

Choir A

• • • disc 1
    • disc 2

etc

Choir B

etc

Keyboard

Performer P

Performer Q

BEETHOVEN

xxx

xxxx

BERLIOZ

… and so on. When I add new items I simply create a new playlist in the relevant folder.

I started this structure more than 10 years ago with iTunes and have brought it forward through successive versions to the current flavour of Music. I'm sure you could develop something similar to meet your needs

HTH

Ken

Thank you so much for pointing this out!

I just installed the trial version and confirm it reads/plays my iPod Classic library on my mbp with Music/Sonoma. That’s worth the $25 purchase, as long as Apple fails this possibility in Music.

The playlist folder structure I created in iTunes 12.8.3 is a bit weird/different, but it is maintained and I am able to create a new playlist on the usb connected iPod Classic in Swinsian.

The interface looks a bit like iTunes, I like it.

Swinsian is a good alternative.

Tidal, Pandora and Spotify are decent alternatives. Personally, I prefer the Apple Music App and streaming over the others though and I’ve used paid versions of them all. You might play around with the Apple Music App for a bit and see if you can get comfortable with it.

Ihor280 Said:

"It's not a problem with playing my mp3s - it's being able to easily manage/play my personal collection of 1000s of albums"

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For thought…

Use of a Virtual Machine to Play in Windows:

On a Virtual Machine, you can enable FTP in the settings to allow it to sync with the Mac. For ease of access, create shortcut on the Desktop on your Mac to where you have these music files stored. With a shortcut, all will be accessible through FTP settings on the Virtual Machine.

Determining Virtual Machine Software to Get:

Virtual Machine applications include VMWare Fusion and Parallels. Learn more here: What Is a Virtual Machine? - VMWare Support. As of this reply, Parallels is what use for a Mac with a Silicon processor.

It is true that the interface of Apple music on Mac is a little outdated but we must not underestimate the power and sound quality of Apple music, without forgetting the live monitoring of instant lyrics (live sing).

After that if you are still not satisfied with this streaming service I invite you to go to the deezer.com website to download the Deezer app on your Mac to benefit from a more current interface, a rich catalog of more than 100M of songs and a quality of service (sound and visual) of high quality equivalent to the Apple Music service.

Are you talking about Apple Music – the application? Or Apple Music – the streaming subscription service, which provides ad-free access to a huge catalog of music for as long as you keep up monthly payments?

If you're talking about the streaming service, the most obvious competition would be Amazon Music Unlimited. I don't know if the other services have a selection comparable to Apple's and Amazon's, and some of them might spoil your listening experience with ads.

Ihor280 Said:

"It's not a problem with playing my mp3s - it's being able to easily manage/play my personal collection of 1000s of albums"

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Alt to Using Apple Music:

Use iTunes. Apple canned iTunes in macOS Catalina. So, using Mac that is is pre-Catalina, or use iTunes for Windows. Go Here for More: What Happened to iTunes? - Apple Support