PsyMP3

PsyMP3 is a tiny and portable application that has a simple purpose: to play MP3 files. It features just basic audio player controls. Apart from MP3, it offers support for OGG, ASF, WMA and FLAC audio files, in addition to playlists with the M3U or M3U8 extension.

Since there is no setup pack involved, you can save the program's directory anywhere on the disk and simply click the executable to launch PsyMP3. It's also possible to copy it to a pen drive to run it on any machine with minimum effort and no previous installers. Unlike most installers, it doesn't modify the Windows registry configuration.

At startup, you are greeted by a classical file browser that asks you to select an audio file to play. As far as the interface is concerned, PsyMP3 adopts a small window with a black background that shows a colorful spectrum analyzer, in addition to the artist, title, album, position in the playlist (if any), song duration and current position in the playback.

PsyMP3 doesn't support mouse commands. Instead, it contains several key commands that can be consulted in a plain text document in advance. It's possible to hide the spectrum analyzer, restart the song or load a new one, enable repeat mode, display a framerate counter, add a new file or playlist to the current playlist, pause and resume playback, as well as go back or forward by 1.5 seconds (or hold down to seek a position).

Although it hasn't been updated for a very long time, PsyMP3 didn't hang, crash or display error messages in our tests. Unsurprisingly, it had minimal impact on computer performance, using low CPU and RAM. However, it has some issues.

For example, we have noticed that the "Ok" and "Cancel" buttons of the file browser and cross-wired. While "Ok" button keeps popping up the file browser to ask for a track, the "Cancel" button is responsible for loading the song.

On top of that, the interface shows no sign of existing documentation with the key commands, which means that impatient users are likely to think PsyMP3 doesn't respond to any commands, since the mouse is typically the go-to device for controlling an audio player. Otherwise, PsyMP3 has all the necessary basic commands to play audio tracks, and it works on the latest Windows editions.