Strawberry
Strawberry is a cross-platform music player and music collection organizer and is forked from Clementine.
At first glance, Strawberry looks like Clementine; however, there are a lot of Differences from Clementine. It is more active development, frequent stable releases, puts more focus on local music playback, puts more focus on playback of high resolution audio and without resampling, and adapts faster to newer libraries and API changes. There is also improvements with the Engine such as: Support for multiple backends including Gstreamer, Xine and VLC engines, Advanced audio output and device configuration for bit-perfect playback on Linux, The GStreamer engine code is different and uses playbin, GStreamer engine is changed so that the analyzer does not cause resampling, and more.
How To Install Strawberry
Open your Terminal and enter the following:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonaski/strawberry
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install strawberry
You can also download the install file from GitHub, strawberrymusicplayer.org, snapcraft, AppImageHub, and pkgs.org
Recommended packages:
sudo apt-get install graphicsmagick-dbg xine-ui
Recommended Plugins:
sudo apt-get install libgraphicsmagick-q16-3 liblastfm5-1 libqt5concurrent5 libvcdinfo0 libxine2 libxine2-bin libxine2-doc libxine2-ffmpeg libxine2-misc-plugins libxine2-plugins
To remove the program enter the following:
sudo apt-get remove strawberry
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:jonaski/strawberry
Open your Terminal and enter the following:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonaski/strawberry
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install strawberry
You can also download the install file from GitHub, strawberrymusicplayer.org, snapcraft, AppImageHub, and pkgs.org
Recommended packages:
sudo apt-get install graphicsmagick-dbg xine-ui
Recommended Plugins:
sudo apt-get install libgraphicsmagick-q16-3 liblastfm5-1 libqt5concurrent5 libvcdinfo0 libxine2 libxine2-bin libxine2-doc libxine2-ffmpeg libxine2-misc-plugins libxine2-plugins
To remove the program enter the following:
sudo apt-get remove strawberry
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:jonaski/strawberry
You can access the program in your menu after you get the program installed. I am using Ubuntu MATE 18.04 LTS with the traditional menu, so I access it by clicking on the Applications menu, highlight Sound & Video, and then click on Strawberry.
When you first open Strawberry you'll see a simple looking interface.
Add/Remove Playlist...
To create a playlist click in the area around the large Strawberry on the left where it says, "Click here to add some music"
To create a playlist click in the area around the large Strawberry on the left where it says, "Click here to add some music"
A Settings dialog box will appear. Click the Collection tab or section on the left and then click on Add new folder...
An Add directory... dialog box will appear to allow you to select a folder where your albums are located. Select your folder and click Open.
When you see your music folder added to the Collection section click the Apply button and then the Ok button.
It will take a little while for your albums to populate. You'll soon see your albums on your left.
You can drag an album into the Playlist area or your can double-click on an album to place it in the Playlist area.
You can remove an album from the Playlist area by selecting the songs on an album and then right-click within the selected area and click on Remove from playlist.
When Strawberry loads it will place a strawberry icon in the panel.
You can quickly remove all the songs from your Playlist by right-clicking anywhere within the Playlist area and click on Clear playlist.
Now you're ready to load you a new Playlist.
Settings
Below is a look through the sections or tabs within the Settings dialog box. You can change the way Strawberry behaves on your system. You can select if you want to Always show the main window or Always hide the main window under When Strawberry starts within the Behavior tab.
Below is a look through the sections or tabs within the Settings dialog box. You can change the way Strawberry behaves on your system. You can select if you want to Always show the main window or Always hide the main window under When Strawberry starts within the Behavior tab.
If you do not want Strawberry to use your system theme or colors then click on the Tools menu and then Settings... When the Settings dialog box appears click on Appearance under User Interface on the left. You can change the program's Colors and add a Background image. You can add a Blur or change the Opacity of the program.
You can change Moobar colors underneath the User interface within the Settings dialog box.
Manage Cover Art
Strawberry allows you to manage your cover art for the albums in your collection. Just click on the Tools menu and then click on Cover Manager.
Strawberry allows you to manage your cover art for the albums in your collection. Just click on the Tools menu and then click on Cover Manager.
You'll eventually see a Cover Manager dialog box that will allow you to View your covers, Fetch Missing Covers, and Export Covers.
The View mode allows you to view All albums, Albums with covers, or Albums without covers. If you have some albums that do not have any cover art then click the Fetch Missing Covers button. It will use the metadata for those albums with missing cover art and look across the Internet to find cover art for those albums. However, if you have missing metadata or incorrect metadata then it probably won't find cover art for those albums. You need to view those albums metadata a fix them.
Edit Tags or Metadata
Strawberry has an automatic tagger for songs within albums. Load your songs and select them and then right-click them and select Complete tags automatically...
Strawberry has an automatic tagger for songs within albums. Load your songs and select them and then right-click them and select Complete tags automatically...
You can tag your songs manually by clicking on Edit track information...
You also have the choice to Complete tags automatically within the Edit track information dialog box. You can manually fill-in all the common tag information to prevent from typing the same material multiple tmes.
Then click on the first song in the list and type the song title to the right of Title and then click the Next button to move to the next song. When you're finished entering all the individual song titles, click on the Save button.
Changing Columns
You can change the columns within the playlist area by right-clicking any coulmn topic and check or uncheck a topic. The checked topics will be the ones displayed.
You can change the columns within the playlist area by right-clicking any coulmn topic and check or uncheck a topic. The checked topics will be the ones displayed.
Strawberry Updates
If you install Strawberry using the Terminal and adding the PPA then you should receive regular updates via the Software Updater.
If you install Strawberry using the Terminal and adding the PPA then you should receive regular updates via the Software Updater.
Tools Menu
Strawberry contains a lot of neat tools. Click on the Tools menu and you can see a variety of tools. You can adjust the treble and bass using the built-in Equalizer. You can convert from one music format such as .ogg file format to an .mp3 format by using Transcode Music tool. You can also check for Strawberry updates via the Check for updates... command.
Strawberry contains a lot of neat tools. Click on the Tools menu and you can see a variety of tools. You can adjust the treble and bass using the built-in Equalizer. You can convert from one music format such as .ogg file format to an .mp3 format by using Transcode Music tool. You can also check for Strawberry updates via the Check for updates... command.
Equalizer & Pre-amp
You can turn on an Equalizer and Pre-amp through the Tools menu. Click on the Tools menu and then on Equalizer.
You can turn on an Equalizer and Pre-amp through the Tools menu. Click on the Tools menu and then on Equalizer.
The Equalizer has nineteen Preset settings to help you get the most of your music. You can select the Custom setting and then make the adjustment and save it as a new preset setting. You can also Enable stereo balancer and then use the slider to adjust the difference in balance between the left and right channels of a stereo system.
How to Convert Audio Files
You can convert one song or a whole album by clicking on the Tools menu and then click on the Transcode Music command.
You can convert one song or a whole album by clicking on the Tools menu and then click on the Transcode Music command.
This will bring up a Transcode Music dialog box allowing you to select a single song by using the Add file... button or you can select an entire album by selecting multiple songs. In my example below, I selected only one song to convert from an .mp3 file to an .ogg audio format. After you made all your selections, click on the Start transcoding button.
You will notice a progress bar grow as it converts your music.
It is completed when the bar reaches 100%. You can now select your song or songs and click the Remove button to remove the song(s) from the Transcode Music list. Then click the Close button.
You will now see that song number 8 has an .mp3 file and an .ogg file. The transoder tool within Strawberry works great and it's fast at converting.
Remember, Strawberry is a cross-platform music player that works on a variety of operating systems. Below is a screenshot taken on a Windows 10 system. If you learn to use Strawberry on a macOS or MS Windows operating system, then it will make switching to Linux a lot easier.
Strawberry is packed full of features. It may take a while to learn to use all the tools built into this program. You may not use all the features, but it's nice to know that you have access to them in case you need them.
Mar 25, 2020