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Form the author of AudioTester (viewtopic.php?t=21949), after ten years of inactivity, Bass based VUPlayer has turned Open Source and was recently updated.

To the best of my knowledge, VUPlayer (http://www.vuplayer.com/) used to be considered portable, but I didn't test the recent release, so YMMV...

author of http://www.vuplayer.com/ wrote:VUPlayer is a freeware multi-format audio player for Windows

Previous versions changelog is available at http://www.vuplayer.com/history_vuplayer.txt.

The latest VUPlayer release (currently v4.0) can be downloaded from https://github.com/jfchapman/VUPlayer/releases/latest.

Midas wrote:... after ten years of inactivity, Bass based VUPlayer has turned Open Source and was recently updated

Well that doesn't happen very often.

Anyway it looks really good -- are you using it actively or just telling the community about another portable possibility?

Just telling -- I've amassed more portable freeware for any given function than I could ever use during an entire lifetime...

Midas wrote:Just telling -- I've amassed more portable freeware for any given function than I could ever use during an entire lifetime...

It's good to know I'm not alone.

VUPlayer v4.1 released (changelog and download at https://github.com/jfchapman/VUPlayer/releases).

...well, let's clarify things:
I tested VUPlayer x64 today and was a bit afraid: although I played with the options, changed colors and added my base music folder (which revealed - after 20 minutes of indexing - that I can survive a nuclear war for 24 days by constantly playing music) nothing was written by VUPlayer... not in it's own folder, not in AppData, not into the registry... WTF?
Well - the information goes to \Documents\VUPlayer\VUPlayer.db (the file weights - for my 24-days-music-folder - 72 MB!)
The settings are inside the database, so deleting the database returns the application to it's original state.

State: not portable (although a launcher is no problem)

The player generally looks good, is on the right side between minimalism and comfort and has this irresistible vu-meter-visualization, that captivated me for hours in front of my fathers amplifier in the 70ties...
But:
- it lacks (for me) an equalizer
- it relies on the database, there's no option to choose music by folder structure (although you can add a folder to the playlist and then play it, but it's not really slick)

I'll stick with Winyl and 1by1 - if the latter happens to come with this vu-meter one day, I swear I will never test another player...

Oh, screenshot (standard colors - all colors all customizable):

VUPlayer v4.2 released (changelog and download at https://github.com/jfchapman/VUPlayer/releases).

VUPlayer is now at v4.5 >> https://github.com/jfchapman/VUPlayer/releases

Both - 32 and 64bit versions - available as ZIP.
Doesn't write to the registry, but stores its settings within its database that is written to the user's documents folder.

Noteable additions/changes/improvements since v4.2:
• added a folder browser (great!)
• added a graphic equalizer
• added audio-CD playback & extraction with gracenote-DB-support
• added conversion to FLAC, MP3 & WAV formats
• added basic command-line support
• added MIDI-support
• fixed high-DPI issues
• added some more customization and playback options

VUPlayer seems to evolve in the right direction, however (for me) there are 2 important caveats left:
• still not stealth since the database (including player settings) is stored in the "documents" folder
• no support for WASAPI-output, although based on the BASS-library that provides a wasabi-plugin (well, the same as for 1by1, sadly)

I will contact the author - with this 2 points fixed, VUPlayer would be a really good and handy audio-player.

For those who want to use it now and want it stealth - here's a batch starter that should work on all Windows versions starting from Vista:
Unzip the VUPlayer-ZIP to a folder of your choice and add a subfolder "data".

VUplayer's author also developed a nifty stand-alone VUmeter designed explicitly "for monitoring *recording* levels"


Wondering whether there is a way to make VUmeter work while *playing* music, (as opposed to recording),
together with 1by1 or similar third-party audio players...?

Somehow answering my own question (eh,eh... )

Looks like VUmeter v1.2 (Vista/Win7) *is* indeed capable of monitoring *playback* as well as recording levels...
(plus VUmeter v1.2 is resizeable, too...)

...And a quick test (using ffplay) proves this works beautifully, with VUmeter needles merrily dancing in unison to the playback tune

@zorro: game for testing VUmeter with 1by1 ?

..and done

Yeeess.... although I like 1-window-applications, this combination is versatile - if I should use it day by day, I sure get crazy about where the VU-meter looks best - and end up pushing it around instead of listening to music (or working..)



Drawbacks:
• VUMeter isn't portable - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VUMeter3
• like for VUPlayer, the meter isn't exactly the prettiest (well, if you had no choice, it would be quiet pretty, but... see below)
(• drawback one bypassed by batch script: ...only create an empty "vumeter.reg" file within application folder, start VUMeter with script, configure to your needs, settings are saved in vumeter.reg, no leftovers in registry or system )

Pretty or not? Well, recently I played around with the old vu-meter-plugin for Foobar2000. Since Foobar is at version 1.41 and this plugin was last updated somewhere in the 1950's, I was afraid my carefully crafted player would explode... it didn't, it works! And the best thing is: there are still some skins for this nifty little visualization out there. Time to show :


Synopsis: at least for me there is no need for another audio player... but wait, Foobar fully configured and running with more and more outdated plugins looses trustworthiness at times and is not really slim any more.
Wishes:
• VU-Player with some more customization options, WASAPI-support and portability
• 1by1 with WASAPI-support and at least some other visualization than the ugly one included
• Winyl with VU-Meter visualization and the option to show the technical parameters (bitrate, sampling, channels) somewhere


Well, nothing's perfect, so Philippe - thank you very much for pointing me towards VU-Meter (which I knew once, but completely forgot about), now I have my beloved vu-meter to play around

My, have we got a happy camper !
Wondering who deserves a cigar now ?

Happiness is a cigar called "Hamlet"

@zorro:

XMPlay!!!11

!!!1111!! forgotten!
XMPlay.... is my all time favourite.
But:
• I have to be sure what I want to hear before starting the player, because the handling with database and playlists is pain in the ass for me
• it's the only skinable peace of software where I have no clue how to hack my own visual style - see problem below
• looking at the player is like a hatefuck - after testing all skins from ca 10.000 b.c. to 2042 I found only two bearable skins (Neutron and Midnight), but both are far from useable, not to speak of sexiness (for me!)


...as you see in the screenshot, skin "midnight" has its own will - when I align both "windows" at the top AND at the bottom and then switch from visualization to library in the left window, the window enlarges a little bit at the bottom. Now I could align it again - but no, doing that in library view results in the window getting smaller when I switch back to visualization
...and yes, that's no real problem - in Africa children are starving! But for me it IS a problem