There’s a vast array of free and open-source music software available on the Linux platform, offering both maturity and sophistication. Linux boasts numerous music tools that provide enhanced functionality and seamless integration with various internet music services. With most desktop environments equipped with multiple audio players, alongside cross-platform applications and integrated media players, you’ll find yourself spoiled for choice when it comes to music players.
Every music library is unique, and selecting the right open-source music player can truly elevate your listening experience, especially if you have a large collection.
Musicat is billed as a sleek music player for your local music library. It supports MP3, FLAC, WAV, AAC, and OGG formats. It’s free and open source software that runs under Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Installation
I evaluated Musicat with the Manjaro distribution. There are three packages in the Arch User Repository. I installed the binary package using pamac, Manjaro’s GUI package manager.
Installation proceeded with no issues, so I’ll keep this part short.
In Operation
This is what you’ll see on the first run.
The first step is to import a library or add folders. I added my small test library of CC-licensed music. The program crashed, but my library was present after a restart. The software is in an early stage of development so the initial crash wasn’t unexpected. On my test system the program crashes each time a folder is added to the library, but it does get added.
Here’s an album being played.
The first thing I check out is whether or not gapless playback is supported. Gapless playback is the uninterrupted playback of consecutive audio tracks, such that relative time distances in the original audio source are preserved over track boundaries on playback. It’s essential if you listen to classical, electronic music, concept albums, and progressive rock. There are a few Linux music players that don’t offer gapless playback. Fortunately, Musicat supports gapless playback.
The software has a useful mini player.
Despite the program being in an early stage of development, the software already has a good range of features including:
- Views – albums, library, and favourites.
- Playlists including smart playlists.
- Metadata tagger (read and write ID3v2, Vorbis).
- Auto-watch and re-scan folders.
- Linked library.
- The ability to download album art.
- World map view — this is an interesting feature rarely seen on other music players.
- Stats of your library.
- Tag a track as a favourite.
- Waveform view.
- Lyrics support.
Summary
Musicat surprised me. It’s already a fairly good music player which will improve a lot with bug-fixing and maturity. Its UI is not to my personal state but it’s perfectly usable. And it offers features you don’t see in other Linux music players such as access to the internet archive, a world map view, and more.
The useful ps_mem tool reports that memory usage is around 117MB which is perfectly respectable.
For the finest GUI-based Linux music players check out this roundup.
Website: github.com/basharovV/musicat
Support:
Developer: Slav Basharov
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
Musicat is written in Svelte and TypeScript. Learn TypeScript with our recommended free books and free tutorials.