Is Vanilla music Player any good?
Vanilla Music Player is an open source music player for Android that has been around since 2012. It was originally developed by Android developer Yuri Kun and released under the GPLv3 license (Github). Vanilla Music aims to provide a clean, simple, and customizable music playing experience on Android.
Some of the key features and capabilities of Vanilla Music Player include:
- Support for common audio formats like MP3, OGG, FLAC, etc.
- Multiple playlist support and organization by artist, album, genre, etc.
- A stylish Material Design interface with color palette customization
- Powerful search and discovery tools
- Lyrics display and synchronization
- Customizable widgets and notification controls
- Tag editing capabilities
- Gesture and shortcut support
- An active open source community providing updates and add-ons
With its focus on simplicity, flexibility, and user experience, Vanilla Music aims to provide one of the best free and open source music players available for Android.
Interface and Design
Vanilla Music sports a clean and minimalist user interface focused on providing a simple music playback experience. The dark theme features bold colors with high contrast to make controls and menus easy to see. According to reviewers on Reddit, Vanilla’s interface is “pretty good since it is lightweight” yet offers many customization options.
The app uses standard Android navigation patterns like the navigation drawer and overflow menus, making it intuitive even for first-time users. Key playback functions like play/pause, next/previous, and shuffle/repeat are conveniently located on the now playing screen. The queue lets you easily reorder and manage upcoming tracks.
Overall, Vanilla Music aims to get out of the way and let you focus on listening to music without visual clutter. While some users may desire more visual flair, the simplicity of Vanilla’s design is appreciated by those looking for a lightweight, no-frills music app.
Playback Features
Vanilla Music Player supports playback of common audio formats including MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC, ALAC, WMA, and WAV (Google Play). It can handle high quality lossless audio playback for an enhanced listening experience. The app provides gapless playback so there are no distracting pauses between tracks (Steemit).
In terms of library management, Vanilla Music lets you view your music by songs, albums, artists, playlists, and genre. You can edit metadata like album art and song info right within the app. It has advanced organizational features like support for embedded cuesheets and disc numbers (Google Play).
For playback controls, Vanilla Music includes options like shuffle and repeat, as well as a 10-band equalizer. You can customize the layout, font sizes, and color themes. Gestures and shortcuts can also be configured to control playback how you like.
Search and Discovery
Vanilla Music Player has robust search capabilities that allow you to easily find music in your local library. You can search by artist, album, song title, genre, and other metadata tags. The search is quick and intuitive. As you type in the search bar, Vanilla instantly populates suggested results.
Beyond local library search, Vanilla integrates with online services to enhance music discovery. The Lyrics Search plugin (https://github.com/vanilla-music/vanilla-music-lyrics-search) allows you to look up song lyrics by artist and title from lyrics.wikia.com. Vanilla can also parse lyrics tags directly from music files if available.
For finding new music, Vanilla lets you search YouTube right within the app. You can browse YouTube music videos, playlists, and channels without leaving Vanilla. This makes it easy to discover new artists and songs. Overall, Vanilla offers robust tools for searching your personal music library and finding new music online.
Customization
One of the standout features of Vanilla Music Player is its extensive theming and customization options. The app comes with several built-in themes like Dark, Light, and Black that tweak the colors and overall aesthetic. Users can also create custom themes by changing things like the highlight color, card color, and text color (Vanilla Music Player for Android). There are even third party theme packs available for download to completely transform the look and feel.
Beyond theming, Vanilla Music offers plenty of ways to customize the player to user preferences. Users can enable or disable certain UI elements like the tab bar, status bar, and notification controls. The number of tabs and columns, font sizes, and more can also be adjusted in the settings. Playback options like crossfade and gapless playback can be toggled on or off. Vanilla Music also allows creating custom playlists and queue organization.
Overall, theming and customization are two of the biggest strengths of Vanilla Music Player. With the combination of built-in and downloadable themes, along with the ability to extensively tweak the UI and playback, users can mold Vanilla Music into their perfect music player (Vanilla music player, is there a way to add multiple songs …).
Performance
Vanilla Music Player is designed to be lightweight and efficient in terms of system resource usage. According to the Google Play listing, it uses less than 15MB of RAM even with large libraries, making it less resource intensive than many other music players [1]. Reviews on Reddit praise Vanilla for its low battery drain, with users reporting minimal impact on battery life even during extended listening sessions [2].
In terms of stability, Vanilla Music seems relatively bug-free according to most user reports. However, some users have reported issues with scanning large libraries resulting in crashes [3]. The open source nature of the app allows bugs to be identified and squashed quickly by the active development community.
Overall, Vanilla lives up to its lightweight and performance-focused design. With efficient resource usage and minimal battery drain, it delivers a smooth music playback experience on most Android devices.
Price and Availability
Vanilla Music Player is a free, open-source application. The source code for Vanilla Music Player is available on GitHub under the GPLv3 license, allowing anyone to use, modify, and distribute the application for free (1).
Vanilla Music Player can be downloaded for free from the Google Play Store for Android devices running Android 4.1 or later (2). There are no in-app purchases or premium versions available.
While Android is the primary platform, the open source nature of Vanilla Music Player means it could potentially be ported to other platforms like iOS or desktop operating systems. However, currently it is only officially available on the Google Play Store for Android.
Alternatives
Vanilla Music Player has some stiff competition from other popular Android music players like Spotify, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music. Here’s a brief comparison:
Spotify offers a massive library of streamable music and podcasts, but lacks advanced local playback features. Amazon Music provides similar streaming along with integration with Alexa and Amazon services. YouTube Music allows you to play audio from YouTube videos, but lacks a dedicated music player interface.
Compared to these streaming-focused options, Vanilla Music Player stands out with its focus on local music playback, advanced audio options, custom themes, and light resource usage. Its main downsides are the lack of a streaming library and less name recognition than brands like Spotify.
Pros and Cons
Some of the main advantages of Vanilla Music Player include:
- It’s open source and free to use (GPLv3 license) [1]
- Supports common audio formats like MP3, OGG, FLAC, etc. [1]
- Clean and simple interface that’s easy to navigate
- Allows creating playlists and queue management
- Has gapless playback and crossfade features
- Extendable with plugins
Some of the disadvantages or areas for improvement include:
- Limited options for customizing the interface
- No cloud service integration for online music
- Lacks more advanced features like equalizer
- Searching for songs/artists can be improved [2]
- Some users report bugs or crashes occasionally
Overall, Vanilla Music Player provides a solid open source option for Android users looking for a simple but capable music app. While it may not have all the bells and whistles of paid options, its simplicity and active development help make it a popular choice.
Conclusion
Overall, Vanilla Music Player is a good choice for Android users looking for a lightweight, customizable, and ad-free music experience. Its clean interface and robust playback features make it easy to browse, organize, and listen to local music collections. The app particularly shines in its advanced audio options, queue management, and fast search. Vanilla Music Player will appeal most to power users who have large local music libraries and want granular control over their playback without sacrificing an intuitive interface.
While it may not have all the bells and whistles of some competitors, Vanilla Music Player excels at the core functions most important to music lovers. Its focus on smooth performance and customization options offer a refreshing ad-free listening experience. For those seeking a capable, open-source player to manage and enjoy their personal music collection, Vanilla Music Player is a great choice.