GMPlayer

Nowadays music is found under an abundance of different file formats, some of which provide really high audio quality, but tend to eat a lot of space. Regardless of your choice, you need a specialized application in order to play them on your computer, and if you’re looking for something simple and straightforward, GMPlayer might just be it.

Before you get to enjoy what this little application has to offer, you need to make sure that your computer is fitted with .NET Framework. You’re prompted before being able to install, but the required Windows feature is not bundled inside the package so you need to manually grab it.

Upon launch, you’re greeted by a compact main window that doesn’t really resemble an audio player. Since it hasn’t been updated in quite some time, the visual layer might not appeal to everyone, being fitted with classic window style elements, as well as all the buttons. There’s absolutely no intuitive visual elements, and even playback buttons are described with text, with the overall look and feel leaving more to be desired.

Almost half of the space is used to show files you want to play. To add them, you need to rely on the open dialog, which can be either done for playlists, individual files, or entire content of a directory. Unfortunately, drag and drop is not supported, and selecting a folder attempts to load all existing files, not just audio, which results in error.

In case you want to turn down the volume and not use Windows controls, you have to switch to a different tab, which can get frustrating at times. There, you can also use a slider to adjust pan. More tabs let you launch a pulse visualizer, where you can set speed, or adjust the program’s interface and text color.

Playlists you create can be saved to file for later use. Supported audio formats only count as MP3, WAV, MIDI, and WMA. Unfortunately, hotkeys are not implemented, and this is a shame, considering it gets minimized to system tray, and can be a bit tricky to quickly pull it up when you want to pause or change the song.

To sum it up, GMPlayer is intended to be a simple utility with which you can relax at the end of the day by listening to your favorite songs. However, the amount of time passing without any new updates to improve it have left it far behind, both in terms of visual design and set of features. Although straightforward and easy to use, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.