- 2006.03.08
The concept of listening to music on your Mac isn't a new one -
essentially any Mac with a CD drive can play audio CDs - and even
the more recent fascination with newer digital music formats is
several years into its course. Yet many people have designated the
classic Mac platform as unsuitable for the task of audio jukebox,
which is not an entirely accurate assessment.
True, pre-OS X versions of the Mac OS may be limited in their
support for some recent codecs, particularly those which contain
Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) software (thus no iTMS
support or support for those service licensing Microsoft's
Play4Sure), but all is not lost.
The classic Mac OS remains surprisingly capable in its support
of non-DRM lossy audio formats. "Lossy" simply means the
compression used trades off some audio quality in exchange for
smaller files.
On the other end of the digital music spectrum are lossless
codecs, such as Apple Lossless and FLAC. However, other than the
common WAV and AIFF formats (audio CD format), there is zero
support for common lossless codecs, even the open FLAC.
Furthermore, I'm going to discount the various RealPlayer and
non-DRM Windows Media formats on account of the lackluster official
playback software from RealNetworks and Microsoft and the paucity
of support in alternative players.
MP3 and Ogg Vorbis
This leaves us with two remaining formats - the near ubiquitous
MP3 and the open Ogg Vorbis.
If you need your digital music to be compatible with the widest
range of hardware and software, MP3 is the safest choice. MP3 is a
lossy format, but quality it certainly acceptable at higher bit
rates, especially considering the much smaller files sizes granted
by encoding your music. By choosing different bit rates you can
further maximize file compression by encoding at a lower rate or
make better quality files by encoding at a higher rate.
Variable bit rate (VBR) adds another wrinkle by allowing the bit
rate to fluctuate higher or lower depending on the complexity of
sound at any portion of the audio track. The average bit rate is
calculated, giving the overall sound quality of the file.
Another wrinkle is mp3PRO, which allows even better compression.
This results in higher quality at lower bit rates, which means
smaller file sizes. There's not much support for this codec, but
non-mp3PRO players will play these files as normal MP3s, albeit
without sounding as nice and lacking the added mp3PRO
characteristics.
Free MP3 Software
MP3 Players
All the MP3 players listed have a few features in common.
Notably, support for creating playlists (either through the
application itself or via helper applications), recognition of ID3
tags (some provide more support than others), shuffle, repeat, and
compatibility with VBR MP3s.
Air
Whisper: A persistent window always on top ready for quick
access, coupled with a skinnable interface and low system
requirements make this player an interesting choice.
Aqueous:
A lightweight, simple to use MP3 player. Can use WinAmp skins.
Audion: A jack of
all trades. Supports many codecs other than MP3, including mp3PRO.
Some of the included features as follows: set wake and sleep
timers, encode music, stream music, listen to streaming audio, and
many more functions. Is skinnable with the ability to download or
create many different faces.
Cabrio:
Another basic player with modest system requirements. Skinnable and
has sleep timer.
iTunes
2: Similar to Audion, but does not support quite as many
features, nor codecs.
MP3 Strip
1.5: Very similar to its sibling, Air Whisper, except it
operates as a control strip module. Otherwise same basic feature
set.
MpegDec:
Another very simple player. Can play streaming MP3s and has 68k Mac
support.
MP3 Encoders
Both Audion and iTunes supports VBR encoding and CDDB lookup,
but Audion has more features overall, including support for the MP3
Pro codec along with the LAME MP3 codec.
Ogg Vorbis
Ogg Vorbis is similar to the MP3 codec in that it is a lossy
format and has access to VBR encoding, but sound quality is often
deemed to be superior. Whether this claim is true, Ogg Vorbis
benefits from the fact it is a truly free codec. There aren't any
licensing fees for building software to support this format.
Unfortunately, even with the openness of the codec, support is
not nearly as universal as support for MP3. This fact is reflected
in the relatively few applications supporting Ogg Vorbis encoding
and playback.
Free Ogg Vorbis Software
Ogg Vorbis Players
Audion: See the MP3 player section for more information
on Audion. The key here is support for Ogg Vorbis decoding.
JustOgg:
Essentially a twin to MpegDec, except JustOgg support Ogg Vorbis
decoding.
Ogg Vorbis Encoders
Ogg Drop:
The only Ogg Vorbis encoder freely available for the classic Mac
platform.
MacAmp: The
last versions of MacAmp ($10 shareware) has support for encoding
Ogg Vorbis files, but MacAmp for the classic Mac OS hasn't been
updated in five years.
Lastly, if superior sound quality is the goal, and hard drive
space is not an issue, you could always use iTunes or Audion for
playback and decoding of AIFF and WAV files.
I hope this article was able to serve as an adequate
introduction into the world of digital music on the classic Mac OS.
In my next article, we will proceed to step two, where we look at
ways to actually get audio into our digital audio jukebox. Until
then, feel free to start trying out some of the software I made
mention of during step one. Although I certainly have my favorites,
until we start getting into the details of setting up the jukebox,
there is no need to get too specific. Better to let you experiment
and enjoy the fun and frustrations of exploring each application.
Until then, happy computing.
Downloads
Where system requirements have been posted, we have included
them here.
- Air Whisper
1.5, Mac OS 8.6 or later, QuickTime 4.1 or later, CarbonLib 1.5
or later
- Aqueous
1.0.2
- Audion 3.0.2
- Cabrio
1.4.6
- iTunes
2.0.4, Mac OS 9.0.4 and later
- MP3 Strip
1.5, Mac OS 8.6 and later, QuickTime 4.1 and later
- MpegDec
3.1.1, 68020 or later (68040 or 50 MHz 68030 recommended),
System 7.0 and later (7.5 or later recommended), QuickTime 2.1 and
later
- JustOgg
1.0.1, 68040 or later
- Ogg Drop
10b2
- MacAmp,
PowerPC, Mac OS 8.5 and later
Articles on LEM
- Best
Web Browsers, Word Processors, and MP3 Players for the Classic Mac
OS, Adam Robert Guha. Recommends Audion.
- Software to Make Life Easier,
Evan Kleiman. Recommends Audion.
- Make Your Own Digital
Jukebox, Evan Kleiman. Recommends Audion.
- Picking MP3 Software, Evan
Kleiman. Recommends Audion.
- Review: Cabrio PR 1, Paulo
Rodrigues. "Cabrio gets my vote as the best everyday MP3 player for
the Mac."
- Cabrio a
Simple, Compact, Free MP3 Player Ideal for Older Macs, Charles
Moore.
