How to Use Winamp's Advanced Features

Now that you've got Winamp and played some music, its time to customize it and try out some of Winamp's cool and amusing features. My personal favorites are MilkDrop, Global Hotkeys, Auto-Tagger and Playlist Generator.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Winamp
• A Modern Winamp skin (I used Bento)

1. 

   First lets change Winamp's color theme.
   
   Go to Options, Preferences, Skins, Modern Skins, Color Themes tab.
   Select a color that suites you, I like Blue Invasion.

2. 

   Now we'll adjust some of the skin's settings to optimize Winamp and utilize some features.
   
   Go to the General tab and click the As fast as possible for this machine button. You may use this setting or alter it slightly with the slider above.

3. 
   35% Transparent

   Now go to the Alpha Blending tab. If Winamp makes your computer much slower try unchecking Enable Desktop Alpha Blending.
   
   For a fun effect, check Link all windows in all skins, select Auto Opaque on Hover and slide the slider to the Transparent side. I have it set to 10% which is very transparent.
   
   Bellow you can adjust the speed of the Fade in, Hold and Fade out. I use 495, 2000, and 1000 respectively.

4. 

   Next we'll set up Global Hotkey support.
   
   Go to Options, Preferences, General Preferences, Global Hotkeys. Check Enabled and if you have a keyboard with multimedia buttons check Enable default multimedia key support.
   
   Remove all the existing Actions in the list, and start adding those which you will use. Select the action via the drop down box, click the Hotkey box and press the key(s) you want to use and then click Add (Or Set if you're updating one).
   
   Here is what I use:
   Playback: Play/Pause - Ctrl + Shift + P
   Playback: Previous in playlist - Ctrl + Shift + ,
   Playback: Next in playlist - Ctrl + Shift + .
   Playback: Volume down - Ctrl + Shift + Down
   Playback: Volume up - Ctrl + Shift + Up

5. 

   Now we'll set up Winamp's Playlist Generator, make sure you have media within you're library
   
   Go to Options, Preferences, Plug-ins, Media Library. Select Nullsoft Playlist Generator, and click Configure selected plug-in.
   
   A new window will open, select Automatically start background scanning when Winamp launches, check all the boxes and set your desired playlist length. Click Scan and wait, once it has completed return to Winamp.

6. 

   To use the Playlist Generator right click a song and click Play tracks similar to.... A list of songs will begin to play that are similar to the one you selected.

7. 

   Winamp's Auto-Tagger is another great feature, especially if you've got a number of songs named "Track #" or if you are missing some important information on a few songs.
   
   Select the songs you wish to tag, right click and go to Send To, Auto Tag.

8. 

   A new window will appear and the Auto-Tagger will begin analyzing your songs and fetching the tag information. Once all the songs are done click Apply Changes to set the tags.
   
   Note: Auto-Tagger will do its best to determine the correct information but it can be mistaken, so its a good idea to double check if you already know some of the information.

9. 

   One last feature, my favorite by far, is Winamp's visualizer which is powered by MilkDrop.
   
   We'll need to configure MilkDrop so go to Options, Preferences, Plug-ins, Visualization. Select the newest version of MilkDrop and click Configure.

10. 

    On the Common Settings tab, set the Display Mode under Fullscreen to a good resolution. I recommend using the same resolution your computer normally uses.
    
    Make sure Integrate with winamp skin and Save CPU by loosely enforcing Max Framerate are checked.
    
    If you have two or more monitors, click the DualHead button to configure settings for your monitors.

11. 

    On the More Settings tab, adjust the Canvas Stretch and Mesh size if MilkDrop does not perform well. I like to check Disable preset rating, although this is a matter of preference. Click Ok and return to Winamp.

12. 

    Start playing some music and then click the Visualization tab on the music library.
    
    MilkDrop will start and begin displaying its many visualizations.
    
    Here are a few things to try:
    Alt-D - Desktop mode (MilkDrop will run as your background)
    Alt-Enter - Fullscreen mode
    Space - Fade to next preset
    H - Cut to next preset
    A - Perform mash-up of presets
    F1 - Display help and more commands

13. You're finished! Although there are still plenty of features to try so feel free to explore. Enjoy.

Tips & Warnings

• If the Playlist Generator gives you an error, try reinstalling Winamp.
• The Auto-Tagger can make mistakes.

Resources

• Winamp