14 DAY TRIAL // Some code is freeware and some is not, that's a fact. When it comes to the software you must pay for, things are even simpler: you just download a test-version which will work for a period of time or will have some limitations annoying (and sometimes even frustrating) enough so you will not get full satisfaction working with that program ? these limitations sometimes include the disabling of Save features, limited amounts of launches, limited file number or file size or nags. ?Nags?? this is where I wanted to get.
Lately, I have met more and more software which relies on nag-screens to protect itself ? VERY ANNOYING nag screens, that is. The first software to test and review today was a fairly decent audio player which was also full-working...except for the dementing 10 seconds delay at each launch. Now, I guess there may be people who would gladly accept such a thing ? but I really can't tell how they can do it! When someone usually wants to tear some audio file and decides to double-click it, it's expected that the playback would commence instantaneously and definitely not after 10 seconds! Should I have liked this program as I like some others I still use with all sorts of small nags or disabled features I guess I would have definitely bought it in just few minutes. Fortunately, I guess I will be able to live from now on without it :).
The Looks and The Works
When I have first seen the Music Stop I thought it was just another Winamp clone wannabe, but I was rather impressed by the fact that it wasn't, actually. Not a multi-window type of software but a single-window one, containing almost everything one could need in a similar piece of code: playlisty, playlist info, tags and playback controls. Much to my surprise, I soon learned that the actual settings and various options of the Music Stop were accessible only by right-clicking the tray icon and from the main window there was nothing to set up.
The Music Stop does not show any specter-like view, because it simply does not even sport any rudimentary EQ; it will just play the files exactly as they happen to be so should you have some supported audio (MP1, MP2, MP3, WAV, WMA, ASF, MIDI, MID or RMI) in a bad quality encoding or recorded lousy...that's it: nothing you can do about it, as you have no tool to correct the output sound! In the area where I (and I am pretty sure you did also) expected to see the (now) classic scrolling artist and song names, some nice and cool-looking, well-ordered and appealing info there was just a list with the line-entries in the audio file tags and that was all: no cool, no appeal whatsoever! As if trying to compensate for this lack, the developers of Music Stop have decided to fill in this remaining area with status indicators (playing, stopped and so on), the omnipresent and ?must? elapsed/total times and the track number.
As I played the content of various music directories on my PC in the Music Stop I have suddenly noticed that the track number was a bit strange. I looked closer and realized it was actually OK and it displayed the info in a very correct manner: the issue was caused by the playlist itself as it has been designed to order the files you may load in it in alphabetical order, hence the ?random? feeling I had before! Not exactly the happiest choice made by the creators of the Music Stop, but I must admit it's a way to solve problems... A not so handy feature is that the total area of the playlist is incredibly small and this can't be changed; as a matter of fact, you can only see 5 songs in it!
The Music Stop has a rather poor display space-management and this will certainly take some points off the final mark; combined with two other things which have annoyed me, the $19 price seems to be more and more unfair. First of all, the selection method inside the playlist has been chosen in a rather silly way: instead of working like all Windows GUIs did from the dawn of operating systems (click+Shift or Ctrl), you have to tick a box in front of each track; first, it's not at all convenient and second, it makes the already small playlist visible area even smaller! Now, you tell me: how should such a thing be called if not ?silly?? Buttons like Select/Deselect All do not make things much better as the Search engine does not provide too much of a quick, easy and efficient experience.
The Music Stop will not support any kind of dragging and dropping, not for folders, not for single/multiple files ? again less convenient than other similar programs! Music Stop will remain on top of other applications and this may hinder if you plan to use it when working on different tasks. Running it on the minimized to tray mode does not help too much either as unlike other software, hovering your mouse cursor over the tray icon will not display info on the currently playing track; the only thing the Music Stop will do is pop up a small transparent window at the beginning of every new song. The third mode, the ?minimal? one will reduce the size of the Music Stop by docking the playlist options (sequential/random/repeat play) and the small playlist, but the resulting window is still on top. Of course there are individuals who are suckers for all sorts of ?on top? applications but it's not my case...
A very good thing featured in the Music Stop is represented by the ?global hotkeys?! I must also say that Music Stop is one of the very few music players I have had the chance to lay my hands on and test to have this extremely handy option. Ctrl+Alt+ different keys (such as P for play/pause, S for stop, N for next and so on) will allow you to control the application without the need to be focused on it, even if the Music Stop is running in the system tray. There isn't a complete and extensive set of global commands available, but those which exist are more than enough to run your fav music.
The few settings available in the Music Stop are reachable only by clicking the tray icon and selecting the appropriate menu. Nevertheless, they are not what I expected to see: the ?sound options? do nothing but tap in the Windows sound settings whether we're talking about ?Audio Mixer Settings? or ?Windows Multimedia Properties?. The specific settings for the Music Stop are rather generic small-grade tweaks and they regard things of lesser importance that actual in-depth settings. Things like the coloring of the shaded background or startup integration are the kind of settings one will meet in the dedicated area.
Finally, two rather handy features manage to slow a bit the downwards spiral Music Stop is on, as far as the present review is concerned: the sleeper and the alarm clock. I guess there is no need for me to write any details about what does the ?sleep? function do; well, the alarm thing is a pretty nice thing... telling Music Stop what playlist to run at a certain hour so that you jump from bed in no time seems a really cool thing, at least for me, as I was thinking of playing some very loud metal songs early in the morning :))
The Good
There aren't too many really good things about the Music Stop (of course this does not mean at all that they are bad) ? I'll mention here the handy global hotkeys and the alarm clock.
The Bad
There aren't too many bad things either, but the ones which have annoyed me most were the extremely small playlist and its general operation, the lack of an EQ and the price.
The Truth
I daresay the producers of the Music Stop should be a bit more user-oriented and revisit the functional specs of their software so people won't have the chance to say it's a real music stopper...
See the screenshots below and think of giving Music Stop a try:
