Audacious is a semi-lightweight audio player with a WinAmp/XMMS-like skinnable GUI.
It supports most popular audio formats including but not limited to: MP3, AAC, WMA v1-2, Monkey’s Audio, WavPack, various module formats, console/chip formats, CD Audio, FLAC and Ogg Vorbis.
It has a compact, collapsible, movable playlist editor allowing you to view, sort, shuffle, load and save your music playlists. Content can be dragged directly onto the playlist, making it quick and easy to add media from different sources.
The built-in equalizer is also collapsible and movable. Equalizer presets can be saved and loaded, and configured to load presets automatically depending on the file being played.
Oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, and voiceprint visualizations are built in and can be customized. Audacious also supports external plugins, allowing endless possibilities for visualizations, new input and output capabilities, and audio effects and enhancements.
Audacious is a fork of beep-media-player, a multimedia player that uses a skinned user interface based on Winamp 2.x skins, which itself was initially forked from XMMS. Gentoo published an interesting article about the reasons why their distro dropped XMMS.
The reason for the creation of Audacious was mainly because of technical problems with Beep Media Player.
Key Features
- Seeking in files.
- Volume/Balance.
- Shuffle play.
- Repeat play.
- Playlist editor.
- Spectrum Analyzer.
- One Line mode al’a WinShade in Winamp.
- Oscilloscope.
- Timer Elapsed/Timer Remaining.
- Plug-in system Output/Input/Effect/General/Visualization:
- Scrobbler Plugin – a plugin that enables you to listen to Last.FM streams and submit tracks to Last.FM.
- Song Change – a plugin that executes scripts at the beginning, end of songs and the end of a playlist.
- EvDev-Plug – a plugin that allows you to control Audacious with a gamepad or joystick.
- Status Icon – a plugin that allows you to shrink Audacious down to the system tray.
- Audacious OSD – a plugin that announces songs for you.
- Alarm – a plugin that can schedule playback at a given time each day (like an Alarm Clock).
- “Search tool” plugin that allows searching a music library and creating playlists by artist, album, title, or genre.
- Equalizer.
- Double Size option.
- Winamp 2.0 skin support (can use wsz files), XMMS skins.
- GTK Requesters (with theme support).
- Streaming/Shoutcast(1.0/1.1)/Icecast support.
- Auto remove borders if the WM has support for it.
- Fast jump in playlist.
- Scroll wheel support.
- Saves HTTP streams to HD.
- HTTP authentication.
- Plays MPEG layer 1/2/3, WAV, Ogg Vorbis.
- Proxy authentication support.
- Dock some of the plugins into the GTK interface.
- Configurable playlist columns.
- Supports the following codecs: MP3, AAC, AAC+, Vorbis, FLAC, Wavpack, Musepack, TTA, WMA, ALAX, 150 different module formats, a dozen chiptune formats, Playstation audio, Ad-lib chiptunes via AdPlug library, Microsoft ADPCM, RIFF .wav, data, more than 18 other WV formats, MIDI, and CD Audio.
- Support for a subset of the MPRIS 2 protocol, allowing Audacious to be controlled from the Ubuntu Sound Menu.
- Internet streams can be recorded while playing via a simple record button.
- Visualization:
- Paranormal Visualization Studio — a plugin like AVS.
- ProjectM — a plugin like Milkdrop.
- Blur Scope.
- Spectrum Analyzer.
- RockLight — a stroboscope for Thinkpad and Macintosh lights.
- Transcoding.
- Support for GTK 3.0.
- Plugins:
- Winamp Classic Interface.
- Playlist Manager.
- Search Tool.
- Status Icon.
- Translated into many different languages including Bulgarian, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Russian, and more.
Website: audacious-media-player.org
Support: Forums, Audtty
Developer: Audacious Development Team
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
Audacious is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Graphical Music Players | |
|---|---|
| Tauon Music Box | Python-based music player that's an absolute gem |
| fooyin | Customizable music player similar to foobar2000 |
| Strawberry | Music player and collection organizer originally forked from Clementine |
| Rhythmbox | Integrated music management application, originally inspired by iTunes |
| Sayonara Player | Small, clear and fast music player written in C++ |
| Audacious | XMMS-like skinnable player |
| Exaile | Music player aiming to be similar to KDE's Amarok, but for GTK+ |
| DeaDBeeF | Basic and simple player with a small footprint. |
| Clementine | Modern music player and library organiser. Inspired by Amarok |
| Lollypop | Modern music player for GNOME |
| Amarok | KDE audio player offering a wealth of features, yet intuitive to use |
| Musique | Small but sophisticated graphical music player |
| Cantata | Feature-rich client for Music Player Daemon |
| Quod Libet | GTK+-based music management program |
| GogglesMM | Polished music collection manager and player |
| Aqualung | Advanced, gapless Gtk2-based audio player |
| MusicPod | Music, podcast and internet radio player |
| gmusicbrowser | Music jukebox for large collections |
| Yarock | Qt music player with browsing based on cover art |
| qoob | A foobar-like music player |
| GNOME Music | Simple music player |
| Pragha | Distinguished and resplendent open source music player |
| Deepin Music | Visually attractive and simple music player |
| Musicalypse | Music player and server built with Web technologies |
| Melody | Music player designed for elementary OS |
| Elisa | Simple music player developed by the KDE community |
| QMPlay2 | Video and audio player which can play most formats and codecs |
| Tomahawk | Qt-based music player |
| mtoc | Visually-rich music player and library browser |
| Kalorite | Lightweight audio player |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
| Internet Radio | |
|---|---|
| Tuner | Minimalist radio station player written in Vala |
| Transistor | Polished internet radio app written in C++ |
| Shortwave | Rust based dedicated internet radio program |
| MusicPod | Music, podcast and internet radio player written in Dart |
| Tauonx | Python based music player |
| QMPlay2 | C++ based music and video player |
| Yarock | C++ based music player |
| Olivia | C++ based music player |
| Sayonara Player | C++ based music player |
| Radio | Vala based radio station player |
| Rhythmbox | C based music player |
| Quod Libet | Python based music player |
| Byte | Vala based music player designed for elementary OS |
| StreamTuner2 | Python based dedicated internet radio program |
| Banshee | C# based music player |
| Amarok | C++ based music player |
| Clementine | C++ based music player |
| Radiotray-NG | C++ based dedicated internet radio program |
| Goodvibes | C based dedicated internet radio program |
| Melody | Vala based music player designed for elementary OS |
| Exaile | Python based music player |
| GogglesMM | C++ based music collection manager and player |
| Audacious | C++ based music player |
| Aqualung | C Gtk-based audio player |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |