AIMP Player, or Artem Izmaylov Media Player is a small but multifunctional program designed to play audio files. This article will tell you about its features, interface and how to add ready-made styles to AIMP - "skins" or "skins".
Main features and system requirements
This program contains many functions that will be useful to the average user, occasionally listening to music, and an avid music lover:
- Supports more than 30 formats without the need to install additional audio codecs. These include: MPEG (.mp1,.mp2,.mp3), M4A, M4B; FLAC; AAC, AC3, APE, AT3, AA3; CDA, DTS, DSF, DFF, IT; MIDI, MO3, MOD, MPC, MTM; OFR, OGG, OMA, OPUS, RMI, S3M, SPX, TAK, TTA; UMX, WAV, WMA, WV, XM MKA.
- Play online radio stations.
- Create multiple playlists and edit them while playing music in one of them.
- Setting up "local" and "global" hotkeys that allow you to control AIMP in the active andinactive windows respectively.
- Equalizer with dozens of presets for the most popular music genres.
- Deep change in appearance with extensive skin library.
- Edit audio tags.
- Scheduler. It allows you to turn off the computer after playing the last file in the playlist or wake up the user at the appointed time.
This program is undemanding to computer resources and is completely free. From the official site you can download AIMP for Windows (7, 8, Vista, XP) and Android. Other operating systems are not supported.
UI overview
AIMP is designed in such a way that its basic functions can be used using knowledge of Windows Media Player. Conventionally, the interface can be divided into 3 functional blocks:
- Playback.
- Manage playlists.
- Record library.
Note. Next, the cover interface installed by default in the current version 4.51 will be considered.
Playback unit
It consists of 3 parts:
- Line-header.
- Information block.
- Control buttons.
The header line contains 5 buttons and the name of the program in its center. The first is responsible for calling the AIMP main menu. The second button in the form of four small squares switches the cover color combination from gray and white to black.
The last 3 buttons control the window: minimizeit in miniature, expand to full screen and close.
The block of information contains the cover (it is automatically downloaded from the Web), the title of the record and album, the file format and the bitrate.
To the right and below it there are buttons:
- Playback controls ("Start"/"Pause", "Stop", "Next"/"Previous").
- Volume dial.
- Scheduler (looks like a clock). When this option is enabled, a timer will appear next to it.
- Displaying the visual image window as a monitor icon.
- A sound effects manager containing an equalizer and tools for distorting the original sound.
- Repeat the playing track and shuffle.
Below them is a rewind bar with timers at each end. The first displays the time elapsed since the beginning of playback, and the second - the length of the record.
When the window is minimized, a narrow bar appears on the desktop, displaying the track name, control buttons and the rewind bar. Good to know that AIMP has this feature.
Note. Control buttons appear only after hovering over a thumbnail.
Playlist
This window in AIMP for Windows includes the following items:
- A number of tabs with ready-made lists.
- A line with the total duration of the playlist, the size of the files and the number of recent ones.
- Playing song list.
- Buttonscontrols: "Adding" and "Deleting" files, "Sort". Playlist operations: "Create", "Open", "Close", "Save", "Rename".
- A string to search for an entry in the list.
You can display or hide the window using the "Playlist" command in the main menu. It can also be separated from the main one and placed anywhere on the screen.
Record library
The implementation of this function in this version of AIMP is such that it is very similar in appearance and capabilities to Windows Media Player 11. The Music Library is designed to structure the collection of music located on the hard drive. Her window consists of 3 blocks.
The first one (on the left) contains the composition tree. It is an automatically generated group based on tags embedded in audio files. The button at the top of the block allows you to change the way music is sorted by the following parameters:
- No grouping. A tree of folders containing the music will be displayed.
- Albums.
- Artist and album.
- Year, artist and album name.
- Genre, artist and album.
When you click on one of the groups in the list on the left, a list of files included in it will be displayed.
The third block is a string including:
- 2 fields to search by album or track name.
- Buttons for adding and removing files from the audio library.
- Three position appearance switchsecond block: table, album cover table, cover only.
Add downloaded covers (skins)
The first thing to do in order to add new covers to AIMP is to download them from the official website as an archive and unpack it. There are 3 ways to install them.
The first way is the easiest, and it consists in dragging a file from the archive to the playback window. After that, the settings window will open, in it you need to select the added cover, and then click "Apply" and "OK".
The second way is a bit more complicated. It runs like this:
Open the "Settings" window in the main menu and go to the "Covers" subsection
- Click on the inscription "Install" and specify the path to the extracted file.
- Apply the cover using the button of the same name.
The third method is universal for all versions of the player and is as follows:
- Find the AIMP folder on your hard drive. It is usually located in the system partition of the hard drive in the Program Files directory.
- In it, go to the Skins folder and copy the previously unpacked files into it.
Note. AIMP 4.51 supports covers from versions 2.x and 3.x.
Open the cover settings window using step 1 from the second method, and enable the added "skin" using the "Apply" or "OK" buttons
This completes the procedure for adding a new skin for the player.
Summarizing, AIMP is such a handy music player with customizable design and intuitive interface.
