Software for playing music at a party

[Astraeus]

Got a friend's house party tomorrow and, owing to having the largest library, I've been asked to compile a playlist. I have done so and now want to know what software is the best for playing the music through over 4 1/2 hours with about a 3 second overlap on the tracks and, if possible, a tamperproof interface to stop people changing the order of play.

Any recommendations?

[unique]

winamp is good for making giant playlists and you can add/remove/change order as it plays. you can also get plugins that do the simple crossover you want

as for stopping people changing it, if you can "lock" the computer, like when you log out, it should keep playing. i'm not sure how easy it is to do that on a home pc/laptop though. you could maybe play with the screensaver as you can set it to that and need a password to bring the pc out of the screensaver

[Scholes18]

Not sure if it still does ( as it doesnt play well with itunes wich i need for the phone ) but it used to have a crossfader built into the player which could be adjusted within the preferences..

And its free..

[Chadford]

Try MediaMonkey....

MediaMonkey » Free Media Jukebox, Music Manager, CD Ripper & Converter

It has 'Crossfade' and also a 'Party Mode' that can be configured for all sorts of levels of access including 'Lockdown' (I think that's what you're looking for).

Oh.. and its free.

[Astraeus]

I've already got both Winamp and MediaMonkey on my PC so I'll start having a toy around with them and figuring it out then. I could remember a Party Mode on one of them - it must have been MM.

In MM, do you know how to set Party Mode so the only thing displaying is the Now Playing window and not the list of folders to the left?

[RMCF]

Would 1 CD full of MP3/WMA files set on random not do the job?

[Chadford]

Originally Posted by Astraeus

In MM, do you know how to set Party Mode so the only thing displaying is the Now Playing window and not the list of folders to the left?

I've not used MM 'Party Mode' before so I'm not sure exactly what you can do with it, however to configure it...

Tools -> Options -> (under 'General') Party Mode

...gives you all sorts of options

To toggle 'Party Mode' on off...

CTRL + ALT + M

There you go...

[_dark_blu]

Originally Posted by Chadford

Try MediaMonkey....

MediaMonkey » Free Media Jukebox, Music Manager, CD Ripper & Converter

It has 'Crossfade' and also a 'Party Mode' that can be configured for all sorts of levels of access including 'Lockdown' (I think that's what you're looking for).

Oh.. and its free.

Crossfade, sounds interesting. Damn, it's Windows only (Mac owner here).

[PoochJD]

Hi,

Originally Posted by RMCF

Would 1 CD full of MP3/WMA files set on random not do the job?

A standard CD disc wouldn't be able to store enough music (if the OP meant having enough music to fill 4-hours worth of party time, with no songs being repeated) on it, either in MP3, WMA or standard audio track format, unless they were so severly compressed, that they would be worse than listening to old mix cassettes, from the 1980's! A CD can only hold about 70-minutes of actual music, or a max of about 690mb of data.


Pooch

[RMCF]

Originally Posted by PoochJD

Hi,



A standard CD disc wouldn't be able to store enough music (if the OP meant having enough music to fill 4-hours worth of party time, with no songs being repeated) on it, either in MP3, WMA or standard audio track format, unless they were so severly compressed, that they would be worse than listening to old mix cassettes, from the 1980's! A CD can only hold about 70-minutes of actual music, or a max of about 690mb of data.


Pooch

My maths was based on MP3 files I have, which all tend to be around 5mb each.

So 1 single CD would hold 138 songs/tracks.

IF each song/track lasts 4mins, thats 552mins, which is over 9hrs running time.

[gavan]

Originally Posted by PoochJD

Hi,



A standard CD disc wouldn't be able to store enough music (if the OP meant having enough music to fill 4-hours worth of party time, with no songs being repeated) on it, either in MP3, WMA or standard audio track format, unless they were so severly compressed, that they would be worse than listening to old mix cassettes, from the 1980's! A CD can only hold about 70-minutes of actual music, or a max of about 690mb of data.


Pooch

Next time you play an mp3, take a look at the file size.

Now bear in mind that 700megs can be stored on a CDR.

You should be easily able to get 9-10 hours of music onto a CD in mp3 format. I know that when I was using them in my car I was able to get 12-15 albums in mp3 format per recordable CD.

[PoochJD]

Hi,

Thanks to everyone for their corrections. Apologies too.


Pooch

[Pincho Paxton]

I usually make my own music software, and SFX for parties.

[Uridium]

The Free VidZone service on the PS3 if you have one

[Toasty]

I did this recently and my tip is to use Winamp to not only construct your play list, but to also analyse your playlist for volumes. It will then tag each mp3 with a volume value that is used on playback so you don't get any jumps in volume between tracks.

This may not be so relevant if your playlist is all new music, however, I had a lot of early CD rips in mine and the production, volume levels on some of the earlier album tracks were noticeably lower until I did the above.

Oh, and as a bonus, my creative Zen also supports the volume tag