It all started years ago when I was still in high school. I used to have a really shitty laptop that even struggled to play a 1080p YouTube video without some stuttering, let alone doing any kind of multitasking. So I thought, why not just use a lightweight music player instead of spinning up a whole browser instance just to play some music?
So I did what any normal person would do: I opened Google and searched for the world’s most lightweight music player. That’s where I found this freeware music player called “1by1”. It’s really tiny. I didn’t know which version/binary and where I got it from back then, but as of now, if I’m correct, it’s now hosted here.
It is so tiny that it’s prolly smaller than most of the bloated and vibe-coded portfolio websites out there. Only 210 KB in size!
If I remember correctly, I began to use it for about 2-3 years before I finally built my PC. Which was a significant upgrade and which meant I no longer needed a lightweight music player, and I could just spin up a browser and open YouTube instead. That was the last I ever used “1by1”. Feels a bit nostalgic as I wrote this post.
I really like YouTube for listening to music not just because it is free, but also because it offers a balance between convenience and the vast library of music available, even some obscure music covered by a not so popular artist.
However, it is not perfect. Sometimes you find yourself on some random music that you didn’t intend to listen to even if you started with your own playlist. Of course, I enabled repeat playlist, but somehow it fails super consistently and redirected me from my playlist to some random songs recommended by YouTube’s algorithm.
It happened so often that their algorithm would throw that same random music over and over again, playing it in the background. And since most of the time I didn’t care that much, I just let it play – which was a fatal mistake that led their algorithm to think I liked that random ass music recommendation.
Why not YouTube Music? That’s because of their dog water volume control that makes it either too quiet or way too loud. There is no in between. There’s even a chrome extension to fix that crap.
That was the catalyst I needed to start exploring other music platforms. That’s when I tried Spotify. At first, I was hesitant to switch from YouTube, but after trying it out, I was hooked. I found myself using Spotify and eventually, it became my go-to music player, even though the music selection is much more limited compared to YouTube – it was fine.
This was back then after I got a job while I was still in college, which Spotify catered to with its student discount. This made it even more appealing, as I now have a steady income and could afford the subscription with discounted price.
And with that, I fully transitioned to Spotify as my primary music player, leaving behind the days of using YouTube for music.
Months after I graduated, I kept using Spotify until they revoked my student discount. By then, I had already started to feel the limitations of its music library. I found myself missing some of the more obscure tracks and artists that I used to listen to on YouTube.
If you play any sort of rhythm game where most of the music is Japanese, you know how hard it is to find those tracks on Spotify.
That’s when I decided to go back to YouTube. I missed the vast library of music and the ability to find those obscure tracks that I loved. I started using YouTube again, but this time I was more careful not to let the algorithm take control. I created my own playlists and made sure to only play the music I actually wanted to listen to. If I found a random song I liked, I would add it to my playlist instead of letting it play in the background.
Which I thought was enough, until I realized after my internet got shutdown for just 1 day, I couldn’t play any of my music. That’s when I knew I needed a better solution.
This is where I now started my 102138129-th journey to find – yet again, the perfect music player that could cater to all my needs without relying on an internet connection.
So I made a list of requirements:
With that, I tried a few different music players to see if they could meet my requirements.
Needless to say that I might have missed some features or nuances in my evaluation, as this is just me telling my personal experience. And of course I haven’t tried every music player out there. With that out of the way, let’s dive into my findings.
This was the most visually appealing option I found. However, when I tried it, I just couldn’t figure out how to import my existing playlists from YouTube. Which was a dealbreaker for me. Also the download button for the youtube metadata plugin didn’t seem to work – the other one which I forgot the name, works just fine.
Moosync is another interesting option I found. It is also as visually appealing as Spotube. It was originally written in Vue using Electron, but then it was rewritten in Rust using Tauri. However, as I’m looking at the GitHub repo, I noticed a commit that said “Get rid of youtube support”, which made me hesitant to even try it out.
AudioTube seems like a more standard music player that just works. That was the first impression I had, until I started to use it. The interface is clean, and the playlist import works well. However, this might be me being stupid, but I couldn’t find a way to download the tracks offline, which again, is a significant drawback for me.
Another problem I encountered was when I tried to switch tracks back and forth, it looked like it had to re-buffer the tracks instead of keeping them cached, which was frustrating since the playback is not instantaneous.
At a glance, it looks really underwhelming compared to the other options. The interface is quite basic, and it doesn’t have as many features. However, it does have offline support and the ability to import playlists, which are two of my must-haves. I decided to give it a try and see how it performed. Turns out, it actually works quite well for my needs. The out-of-the-box experience is smooth, and I appreciate the simplicity of the design.
However, one thing I noticed is that when I tried to download my whole playlist, it looks like it just won’t actually start downloading, maybe I got rate limited? Not sure… But the individual track download works just fine
One more nit-picky thing, this app doesn’t seem to cache tracks (I might be wrong) – Which leads to longer load times when switching between songs if you don’t have them downloaded.
But overall, I think Monophony is a solid choice for anyone looking for a simple, no-frills music player that gets the job done.
So yeah, as I’m writing this, Monophony seems to be the best fit for my needs. It has the essential features I’m looking for, and while it may not be the most advanced option out there, it gets the job done without unnecessary complexity, even if there’s 1 or 2 minor hiccups.
I might update this post in the future if my experience changes or if I find a better alternative, but for now, I’m satisfied with Monophony.
Anyway, thanks for reading me yap nonsense about music players. If you have any suggestions or recommendations, feel free to email me at grip-plank-cuddle@duck.com