Top Streaming Audio Tools
1. Pulptunes
PulpTunes is an open source web server that enables you to access and play your iTunes library remotely from any computer on the network. The music can then be accessed in any modern web browser including Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Opera. After installing the software users will be provided with an IP address that will allow them to access their music from any web browser.
If you want to customize the app, you can dig into it a bit, but you don’t have to in order to get your stream working. Songs can be played directly in the web browser or downloaded with a right-click. All iTunes playlists and genres are available in the interface which makes it easier to locate albums or songs. PulpTunes supports MP3 and AAC files, so it can even handle your DRM-free downloads from the iTunes music store. Additionally, the app supports iTunes DJ, displays the cover art of your music as it plays, and even allows you to download the songs right from your library to your remote computer
Download here
2. Grooveshark
Grooveshark is an internationally-available online music search engine, music streaming service and music recommendation web software application. Grooveshark launched in 2007 after co-founders Josh Greenberg and Sam Tarantino met in a University of Florida entrepreneurship course. Users have the ability to listen to single songs from the 7-million song catalog, save playlists, and embed both on other websites, blogs, and social media profiles via the Grooveshark Widget. Grooveshark also allows artists and record labels to promote themselves through the application with both advertisement and paying for listens from Grooveshark users
Grooveshark’s WordPress plugin is also an impressive service. Once installed, this service allows WordPress users to post as many songs as they’d like from Grooveshark’s library. Once installed you can configure your Grooveshark account and adjust the plugin options. For each blog post you write, you’ll now have the option to search songs, as well as view favorites and playlists, and play tracks right from the post admin page.
Grooveshark’s new Facebook application is about to make music waves throughout the social site. After installing the application, you can then search the Grooveshark database of songs — 10 million strong — to select a song to share with friends or publish to your profile.
3. Spotify
Spotify is a proprietary peer-to-peer streaming music program that allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums with almost no buffering delay. Spotify is invite-only and currently offers streaming music via Mac, Windows and Linux, and device integration on the Android, iPhone and Nokia S60 series is well on its way.
Spotify has created a lightweight software application that users will simply download and then log onto their service enabling on demand streaming of music.The service also allows users to scrobble to Last.fm and keep track of their listening through the popular music recommendation site.
One of the software engineers at Spotify is Ludvig Strigeus, the creator of uTorrent. It is therefore no surprise that the application uses very few resources,it is just 12k memory. The quality of the music on Spotify is comparable to 160kbps MP3s, which is more than decent for a streaming application. To fill its library, Spotify has cut deals with EMI, Warner Music, Sony BMG and three other major labels, which all responded positively to the new concept.
4. Boxee Alpha
Boxee, the open source app that ives viewer TV like experience with Web streaming as well as your media contents stored on the hard drive. The open-source Boxee platform brings together apps from such Internet media providers as CBS, Hulu, MTV, Netflix, Revision 3, and The WB.
The development team behind Boxee, the cross-platform, open-source media center with social networking features, has finally announced the release of a public Alpha version for Windows. The streaming media software company recently celebrated a Windows release, a deal penned with Major League Baseball (complete with instant replay on games) and partnerships with Digg, Tumblr and Current TV. Even though the public Alpha version of Boxee seems to be more stable and responsive than the private Alpha.
Installing Boxee was easy, as was getting started. The slick, attractive interface fills the screen and is heavy on blacks and grays. The main menu, which hides itself on the left until you mouse over it, directs you to applications (Internet-based content such as YouTube or CNN), local media (content on your computer, such as downloaded songs or movies), a browse feature, and the ‘App Box’, where you can download more applications developed for the platform. The main menu also reports the time and weather–helpful if you tend to get engrossed in media viewing.
5. BeatScanner
BeatScanner enables creating workout play lists from your music by scanning your music files and detecting the beat tempo of each file. The results can be queried to match your workout rate and assembled to create your perfect workout play list.The ideal BPM for workout music is somewhere between 120 and 140 BPM. That means if you wanted to use BeatScanner to help you build a killer workout playlist. Let BeatScanner can scan your entire music collection, detect the tempos (measured in beats per minute) of each song, then set 130 BPM as your target and set the range to 10. It’s easy, it’s quick, it’s effective – and of course, it’s totally free. Requirements: Media Player 9 of higher, IE 5.5 or higher
6. Last FM
LastFm is a music discovery and listening service owned by CBS Interactive. It’s got a wide range of tracks users can listen to and share with others. One of its more helpful services for music junkies is Scrobbling, which tracks the music you’re listening to on your computer and sends the information to Last.fm. From there, everyone can look at what you’ve been listening to, how often you’ve listened to it, and give it a go themselves. Users can make their own playlists and even share them with friends using the service’s widget-making tool or Facebook application. Last.fm’s mobile application for the iPhone and iPod touch is also available for download, either through the iTunes storefront for directly from the mobile device. In May, Last.fm has added a visual element to Last.fm radio, so you can now watch either music videos or related slideshows while you’re enjoying some streaming music.
7. SweetFM
SweetFM is a new Last.fm client that offers up a seriously sexy way to listen to your favorite Last.fm stations on your Mac. SweetFM is a Mac application that will allow you to switch seamlessly between Last.fm and iTunes. Tune to any station and you can control Last.fm with SweetFM’s interface – stop the stream and you can use it as an iTunes controller!
Export to iTunes: Yes it’s true, you can directly export streamed songs to your iTunes library for local storage. SweetFM can automatically export your loved, playlist or all tracks. This certainly isn’t legal in every country, but it is very slick. And in case you were wondering, even on poor connections with continued buffering the resulting iTunes stored copy is identical to the original stream.
8. Songbird 1.2
Songbird is an open-source customizable music player that’s under active development. Songbird employs Mozilla’s XULRunner platform, and is thus capable of running on Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, Solaris and Linux. Songbird utilizes the GStreamer media framework.
The Songbird developers have announced the release of version 1.2 of their open source media player. Songbird can now automatically organize the files that are contained in your library. Once enabled, it will consolidate your media in one location. You can customize the structure of the folder and file names based on metadata contained in every track. In addition to several performance improvements to features like search, Songbird 1.2 now supports 2-way syncing with iTunes, which is especially useful for users who purchase songs in the iTunes Music Store. Songs added to Songbird can also be synced back into iTunes for syncing with iPods and iPhones.
However, the most awaited feature is probably the 10-band equalizer and it is available using the Controls -> Equalizer menu option (or Ctrl+E). Here’s how it looks:
Songbird 1.2 is available to download here
9. Blip.fm
BlipFM is often described as a twitter for music. It is a a micro-messaging service that allows folks to tweet their favorite songs and create social interactions around music, is on life support. Users post short messages on what music they are listening to at the moment, the site then turns them into streaming links using Imeem. Blip is essentially “Twitter for Music.” It allows you to suggest music and share your thoughts about it with a network of contacts. It was launched in June 2007. Jeff Yasuda, founder and CEO, tells the Journal that he is going shut down Fuzz.com but will be keeping Blip.fm going since the company has some money.
10. Hypetape
Hypetape, The new music site Hypetape, takes the search and indexing capability of Hype Machine, and adds it to the playlist creation and interface of Muxtape. The site scrapes the MP3 blog aggregator Hype Machine in order to let you make shareable playlists (example), and all you need to use it is a Google log-in (it runs on the Google App Engine). Sign up, choose your favourite artists, and create and online playlist of their tracks. It’s simple, elegant and lovely.
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