The Automatic Equalizer for Android

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:13:00 -0400

When I wrote the [autoEqualizer ](http://kde- apps.org/content/show.php/autoEqualizer?content=70509 “autoEqualizer”)plug-in for the Amarok (1.x) media player, to the best of my knowledge, there weren’t any media players with this feature nor were there any plug-ins.

Recently, I came to know that the Samsung Galaxy S ’s media player looks to be having the Automatic Equalizer functionality. Not sure if this player is specific to Samsung Galaxy S or the Android Platform in general.

Amarok Magnatune Last.FM

rrs@researchut.com (Ritesh Raj Sarraf) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:53:00 -0400

I’m not a music fanatic. While I see many of my friends and colleagues working, with their headphone on and music playing, for me, it is not at all possible. It is just the opposite. I can’t work with music (or any kind of distracting sound) on.

So when I sometimes run Amarok, I used to think what a pile of crap it really is. I mean, look at the resource consumption. Amarok alone took around 20% of CPU cycles when just playing music. This was disappointing as I am a KDE addict and prefer KDE applications over any other. Trying to run other applications led to additional libraries being installed/loaded.

But last night when I was bored and was just running through some of Amarok’s features after reading an article about Amarok and Magnatune, I was surprised. Amarok is a music beast. It is a massive wolf. It rocks…….. Along with the superb services provided by the folks at Magnatune and Last.FM, Amarok is a wonderful music player to use. I have always advocated about software and related services being tightly integrated. Amarok + Magnatune + Last.FM is just that.

Magnatune , what to say about it. It is just awesome. You want to buy an album of a band but aren’t sure if the album is good enough. Magnatune is the answer. Magnatune allows you to listen to the music online (using Amarok) and then purchase at a nominal price in all major formats (ogg, mp3, flac et cetera). You can also order a CD to be delivered to you if you don’t prefer to download the music. This is awesome. Wonderful. Sweet.

Last.FM. Another wonderful service. Last.FM is an online community of music listeners. You create an account with Last.FM and then feed the credentials to Amarok. Then, as you keep playing your collection in Amarok, Amarok keeps updating the details at Last.FM. This has many benefits. It helps you find people and music, like-minded. You can then listen to music from your Neighbours (Last.FM) which would be similar to what you’ve been listening. This is again awesome. Wonderful. Sweet.

Podcasts. Another thing I wasn’t much aware of. I said it, I’m not a music fanatic. So that led me to not even explore features in Amarok which are beyond music. Amarok is awesome in tracking Podcasts and playing them for you. Now I have my KDE Radio and Linux-Foundation podcast added to Amarok. Amarok informs me of new podcasts, when released. Simple. Wonderful. Sweet.

There must be many more features in Amarok that I’ve yet not explored. But the above mentioned features alone make Amarok a great player for me. Thank you Markey and the team. Amarok Rocks.

Amarok on RESEARCHUT

The Automatic Equalizer for Android

Amarok Magnatune Last.FM