Plex, a cloud media server, introduced its solution for desktop music playback today. Inspired by Winamp (throwback!), the company's Plexamp app features a single window. You can get it for free through Plex Labs, the company’s experimental division for employee “passion projects.” Plexamp runs on macOS or Windows and should support "any music format you could dream of throwing at it." Perhaps most exciting, though, is that it features playback visualizer, just like old media players.
Plexamp also includes some other nifty features, like normalizing playback from songs on various albums, a lack of a playback gap, and "smart transitions," or seamless transitions between songs. Of course, because Plex's whole thing is its server technology, the company's also introduced new radio features that'll help you comb through and play music from your massive library. Something called "library radio" just plays from your whole library, whereas "artist radio" travels through your library based off your first artist pick.
Overall, Plexamp looks like a modernized version of my old Windows Media Player, or, yeah, Winamp. It’s cleaner, smoother, and still extremely colorful and customizable. I haven't used a dedicated desktop music playback app in years, so it feels nice to remember that they can exist. Plexamp seems simple enough to figure out, and the modernized graphics are an appreciated touch, if this is something you still use.
