China DOS Union

A Few Practical Winamp Tips

2002-08-01 10:26:00 Wang Xin　　

　　1. Batch format conversion

　　Sometimes you need WAV files as editing material. If you already have MP3 files, Winamp can handle it easily. From the main menu choose Options→Preferences→Plug－ins→Output, then in the window on the right select: Nullsoft Disk Writer Plug－in v2.0c（x86）. Click the Configure button below and make the necessary settings for “output path” and “output file mode,” then save the settings and return to Winamp’s main window.

　　Select an MP3 song and play it normally to carry out the format conversion. There is no sound during the conversion process, and it is very fast; it does not require the actual playback time of the song.

　　Special note: do not choose repeat playback while it is playing, otherwise it will keep converting the song over and over. After the conversion is finished, be sure to go back to Options→Preferences→Plug－ins→Output and restore the first item, Winamp2 waveOut plug－in. Otherwise, every time you open Winamp later it will be converting to WAV, you will hear no sound, and it will waste a huge amount of hard disk space.

　　2. Make Winamp more attractive and practical

　　(1) Winamp uses its built-in bitmaps to display numbers and letters, and sometimes Chinese song titles cannot be displayed properly. From the main menu choose Options→Preferences→ Options→Display. In Display options on the right, remove the check mark before Use bitmap font for main title display so that Winamp uses fonts to display text, and Chinese will display normally.

　　(2) Winamp pays a lot of attention to details and comes with a set of 3D mouse pointers, but sometimes problems occur such as “bad aiming” (you can only point with the tail of the cursor, not the tip), or the pointer keeps flickering. In that case, disable the built-in pointers. In Preferences→Display options, remove the check mark before Use Winamp－styled cursors so that it uses the standard Windows pointers.

　　(3) When playing games while MP3s are playing in the background, the game may become slow or pause. You should reduce the number of disk reads (MP3 CD-ROM) and increase Winamp’s cache (provided the machine has more than 64MB of memory), generally to about twice the default value.

　　Through plug-ins, Winamp supports almost all kinds of audio formats, but bigger and more complete is not always better. The playback effect for some audio files is not very good, and when playing WAV, CD, etc., its CPU and memory usage is higher than that of some other players. In that case, it is best not to use Winamp as the default player for WAV and CD playback; for such functions, something single-purpose is still better.

　　(4) Faced with hundreds of MP3 songs on the Internet, you can use Winamp’s “browse network MP3 files” function to preview them first, listen to the quality, and then download them later if you want. Right-click on the Winamp panel and choose the Play Location command（Ctrl＋L）. In the Open location dialog box that pops up, enter the MP3 download address, press Open, and you can listen to the MP3 music online.

　　3. Improve playback quality

　　You can drag the sliders with the mouse to adjust each frequency range according to the effect needed by the song or your own preference. You can also adjust a certain mode according to your own needs or taste, then go to Presets→Save→Preset to save it. Give it a name, and later you can call it up flexibly whenever needed. More conveniently, turn on the equalizer switch, then go to Presets→Load→Preset to call up various preset modes such as Pop, Jazz, Rock, and so on.