Rhythmbox is a
free and open-source
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
audio player software
Media player software is a type of application software for playing multimedia computer files like audio and video files. Media players commonly display standard media control icons known from physical devices such as tape recorders and CD pl ...
,
tag editor and
music organizer
Desktop organizer software applications are applications that automatically create useful organizational structures from desktop content from heterogeneous types of content including email, files, contacts, companies, RSS news feeds, photos, music ...
for
digital audio
Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical samples in a continuous sequence. For example, in CD audio, samp ...
files on
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...
and
Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...
systems.
Rhythmbox is designed to work well under
GNOME
A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...
, but can function on other desktop environments. It is very scalable, able to handle libraries with tens of thousands of songs with ease. It provides a full feature set including full support for
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
, fast but powerful tag editing, and a variety of
plug-ins.
Rhythmbox is the default audio player on many
Linux distribution
A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
s including
Fedora
A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both side ...
,
Ubuntu
Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...
since v12.04 LTS, and
Linux Mint
Linux Mint is a community-driven Linux distribution based on Ubuntu (which is in turn based on Debian), bundled with a variety of free and open-source applications. It can provide full out-of-the-box multimedia support for those who choose to i ...
as of version 18.1.
Features
Rhythmbox offers a significant number of features, including:
Music playback
Playback from a variety of digital music sources is supported. The most common playback is music stored locally as files on the computer (the 'Library'). Rhythmbox supports playing streamed
Internet radio
Online radio (also web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio, IP radio, Internet radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitted ...
and
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
s as well. The
ReplayGain standard is also supported. Rhythmbox also supports searching of music in the library.
Playlist
A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs, but sometimes a loop. The term has sev ...
s may be created to group and order music. Users may also create 'smart playlists,' ones that are automatically updated (like a database query) based on a customized rule of selection criteria rather than an arbitrary list of tracks. Music may be played back in shuffle (random) mode or repeat mode.
Track ratings are supported and used by the shuffle mode algorithm to play higher-rated tracks more often.
Gapless playback
Enabling the crossfading backend option with a duration of 0.0 switches Rhythmbox into gapless playback mode for music formats that support it.
Gapless playback is not enabled by default.
Music importing
* Audio CD ripping
* Comprehensive audio format support through
GStreamer
GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework that links together a wide variety of media processing systems to complete complex workflows. For instance, GStreamer can be used to build a system that reads files in one format, processes the ...
*
iPod
The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes wa ...
support
*
Android support
Audio CD burning
Since the 0.9 release, Rhythmbox can create audio CDs from playlists.
Album cover display
Since the 0.9.5 release, Rhythmbox can display cover art of the currently playing album. The plugin can search the internet to find corresponding artwork, and as of 0.12.6, can read artwork from ID3 tags. If an image file is saved in the same directory as the audio track this is used instead.
SoundCloud
Rhythmbox can browse and play sounds from SoundCloud, via built-in SoundCloud plugin.
Song lyrics display
Since the 0.9.5 release, Rhythmbox can provide song lyrics of the currently playing song by pressing
trl + L as long as the lyrics are stored in a lyrics database.
Audio scrobbling
Rhythmbox can submit played songs info to a remote
scrobbling
Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Using a music recommender system called "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of the tracks the user listens to, ...
service. This information is used by the remote service to provide user specific music recommendations. Rhythmbox currently supports three scrobbling services:
*
Last.fm
Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Using a music recommender system called "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of the tracks the user listens to, e ...
*
Libre.fm
Libre.fm is a music community website that aims to provide a Free Software replacement for last.fm. The website was founded in 2009 by Matt Lee.
Libre.fm can optionally store a user's listening habits using information sent to the website's ...
, the open-source drop-in replacement
*
ListenBrainz
Music can be scrobbled to all services at the same time.
DAAP music sharing
Rhythmbox supports sharing music and playing shared music on local network via
DAAP sharing plugin. The plugin use
libdmapsharingto provide this feature.
Devices
Rhythmbox uses the Linux
udev
udev (userspace ) is a device manager for the Linux kernel. As the successor of devfsd and hotplug, udev primarily manages device nodes in the directory. At the same time, udev also handles all user space events raised when hardware devices ...
subsystem to detect player devices.
Podcasting
Rhythmbox can subscribe to podcasts from the
iTunes Store
The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...
Miroguide.comor by manually providing a podcast feed URL. Subsequently, new podcasts are automatically downloaded and available from the Library under the section Podcasts.
Web remote control
Rhythmbox can be controlled remotely with a Web browser, via inbuilt Web remote control plugin.
Plug-ins
Rhythmbox has a
plug-in API for C,
Python, or
Vala
Vala or VALA may refer to:
Religion and mythology
* Vala (Vedic), a demon or a stone cavern in the Hindu scriptures
* Völva, also spelled Vala, a priestess in Norse mythology and Norse paganism
Fiction
* Vala (Middle-earth), an angelic being in ...
.
There are nearly 50 third party plug-ins for Rhythmbox. including a 10 Band audio Equalizer, and many official plug-ins including:
* Cover art search
* Audio CD Player
* Last.fm / Libre.fm / Listenbrainz
* DAAP Music Sharing
* FM Radio
* Grilo media browser
* IM Status
* Internet Radio Streaming
* Song Lyrics
* Magnatune Store
* Media Player Keys
* Portable Players (generic, iPod)
* Android devices (via MTP)
* Notification
* Power Manager
* Python Console (for debugging)
* LIRC
* Send tracks
* Replay Gain
* MediaServer2 D-Bus interface
*
MPRIS D-Bus interface
* Browser to integrate Rhythmbox with iTunes
* CD/DVD burning based on
Brasero
Brasero may refer to:
*Brasero (heater), a heater or an oven
*Brasero (software)
Brasero is a free and open-source disc-burning program for Unix-like operating systems, it serves as a graphical front-end (using GTK) to cdrtools, cdrskin, gro ...
Integration
![GNOME Music-Applet screenshot](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/GNOME_Music-Applet_screenshot.png)
Rhythmbox has been extensively integrated with a number of external programs, services and devices including:
* Built-in support for Multimedia Keys on keyboard
*
Nautilus file manager
GNOME Files, formerly and internally known as Nautilus, is the official file manager for the GNOME desktop. Nautilus was originally developed by Eazel with many luminaries from the tech world including Andy Hertzfeld (Apple), chief architect for ...
context-menu integration, "hover mode" playback in Nautilus
*
HexChat, via a HexChat plugin.
* Pidgin-Rhythmbox automatically updates the
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...
user profile with details of the currently playing track
*
Gajim and Pidgin include options for automatically updating the user status with details of currently playing track
[ /code.google.com/p/pidgin-musictracker/ musictracker on Google Code/ref>
* ]aMSN
aMSN is a free Windows Live Messenger clone. aMSN attempts to emulate the look and feel of Windows Live Messenger, and supports many of its features. It has been downloaded approximately 40 million times as of January 2011, making it the 21st mo ...
and emesene can change the user's personal message to current track via the "music" plugin (aMSN) and the "CurrentSong" plugin (emsene), similar to Messenger Plus! Live
Messenger Plus! (formerly known as Messenger Plus! Live, commonly abbreviated MsgPlus, Plus!, or incorrectly as MSN Plus) is an add-on for Windows Live Messenger and Skype. The software provides additional functionality to Microsoft's Instant ...
* Music Applet (previously known as the Rhythmbox Applet), a GNOME panel applet that provides Rhythmbox playback controls from within the panel. Music Applet has since been superseded by Panflute
* Rhythmlet, another gDesklet that retrieves album art locally or from Amazon.com, has configurable display strings, playback controls, editable ratings and a seek bar
* SideCandyRhythmbox, a gDesklet-based Rhythmbox control and SideCandy display
* Rhythmbox XSLT allows the music library to be viewed as a web page
* Drivel inserts the name of the track Rhythmbox is currently playing into a LiveJournal
LiveJournal (russian: Живой Журнал), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary.
American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, a ...
blog entry
* Rhythmbox Tune Publisher publishes the currently playing Rhythmbox track to XMPP
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP, originally named Jabber) is an open communication protocol designed for instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), i ...
via the User Tune protocol (used by the Jabber World Map)
* FoxyTunes, a Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current an ...
extension that provides Rhythmbox playback controls from within the web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
* Plugins for browsing and listening to Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
licensed albums from Jamendo
Jamendo is a Luxembourg-based music website and an open community of independent artists and music lovers. A subsidiary of Belgian company AudioValley, and Independent Management Entity (IME) since 2019.
Originally, Jamendo was a music platform ...
( via grilo plugin ) and Magnatune
Magnatune is an American independent record label based in Berkeley, California, founded in spring 2003. It only sold music for download through its website but added a print-CD-on-demand service in late 2004 and in October 2007 began selling co ...
.
* Rhythmbox Remote helps to remotely control Rhythmbox through an Android powered device.
* Rhythmbox WebMenu is a fully personalizable plugin that integrates Rhythmbox with several music websites.
Version history
See also
* Software audio players (free and open-source)
* List of feed aggregators
The following is a comparison of RSS feed aggregators. Often e-mail programs and web browsers have the ability to display RSS feeds. They are listed here, too.
Many BitTorrent clients support RSS feeds for broadcasting (see Comparison of BitTor ...
* Comparison of feed aggregators
The following is a comparison of RSS feed aggregators. Often e-mail programs and web browsers have the ability to display RSS feeds. They are listed here, too.
Many BitTorrent clients support RSS feeds for broadcasting (see Comparison of BitTor ...
References
External links
Rhythmbox website
{{Aggregators
2001 software
Applications using D-Bus
Audio player software that uses GTK
Free audio software
Free media players
Free software programmed in C
GNOME Applications
Jukebox-style media players
Linux media players
Online music database clients
Software that uses GStreamer
Tag editors for Linux
Tag editors that use GTK