Seven months ago, I set out to create an awareness about amazing opensource music players I came across(as at that time). My thoughts at that time were that opensource software(music players) was underrated. The series was set-up with the aim to expose people to other amazing music players(opensource) that could replace their stock ones. The series also helped me make a decision on which music player to use. In that series, which I titled 'Are open-source music players good enough to replace stock music players and non-open source music players?', I reviewed 3 music players. They are; Retro Music Player. AB Music Player, and Jockey. Out the three, I was fond of Retro Music Player, so I made it my daily driver. 7 months have passed and it's still my default music player. However, I recently decided to explore other(opensource) options out there. And it didn't take long to find a suitable successor. I think of all the apps that exist in this world, music players are the commonest. Alright, to cut the story short, I will be talking about the new music player I found, in this article. I'll try not to make a long epistle out of it. Hitting 3,000 words in my last review isn't a milestone I'm in a haste to reach again.

Review of Canaree; An Android Music Player.

Reviewing music players isn't something I'd ideally love to do. I mean; what's new to talk about? Virtually all music players are designed in a similar fashion. By similar fashion, I mean similar features, so it's quite tough to choose a music player. But in the end, we do have a choice to make.
In this review, I won't talk much about the basic features that a music player should have, but, I'll highlight them anyway. The point is so that you know the features of the music player.

Without further ado let's delve into the review

Music menus.

Music menus isn't a feature per se. On a music player, there are different pages(menus). The pages are;

• Folders
• Playlists
• Tracks
• Albums
• Artists
• Genres etc.

Canaree has all the pages mentioned above. In some music players, 'genres' page isn't available.

Folders.

In other(most) music players, the folders page shows you the folders on your device storage. You'll then have to navigate to the folder where the music file(s) you seek is/are stored. This process is quite common in other music players I've used. But on Canaree, it is quite different. The app automatically scans your device storage and shows you only the folders that have got music files in them. I think I prefer this mechanism(sorting music folders) more. It cuts down a lot of click steps. Furthermore, on Canaree, I see some folders that other music players would naturally not show me. Once again, I'd say the folders mechanism on Canaree is cool. And Canaree gets the win against Retro Music Player. Retro Music Player folder menu is quite hard to navigate. Too many clicks to get to the folder you seek.

Playlists.

We all know what a playlist is. And how to go about setting up a playlist. The playlist 'feature' is quite basic. But there would have been a little talking point if Canaree offered the ability to import and export playlists. This(Importing/Exporting playlists) is not a common feature. Of all the music players I've used in my life, only a few of them had that ability. Too bad I can't remember their names(I've used quite a lot of music players).
The convenience that comes with importing/exporting playlists cannot be overemphasized. Sadly, Canaree doesn't have that ability and neither does Retro Music Player.

I'll skip talking about; Tracks, Albums, and Artists.

Genres.

I would have loved to skip talking about the Genres page too. But since this review has become somewhat like a comparison, I decided to talk about it.
So,

A Genre is a particular style or category of music.

Music players try to sort and group our music files into several genres. Most times the sorting is wrong though. But that's a fault caused by the music file's metadata and not the app itself.
The genre category is quite useful to me. I've got several kinds of songs on my phone. But most times, I love to listen to gospel songs. Playing a song from the default song list would mean that I'd have to actively control the music player. Because another kind of song I'd ideally not want to listen to would be next on the queue. To avoid all that stress, I'd just play the songs compiled in the 'gospel' genre. That's what I've been doing lately(On Canaree).
Retro Music Player doesn't have the 'genre' page. And for a music player of its calibre, it's quite a let-down.

The next feature I'll be talking about is; Now Playing

Now playing.

I wouldn't be talking about this feature if there wasn't anything special about it. The 'Now Playing' page in itself isn't a special feature. Every music player has it. As soon as you play a song, you can then access the 'Now playing' page.
However, there are some menus and functions that can be accessed on/from the 'Now playing page' (Depending on the kind of player). They are;

• Shuffle button
• Playing sequence (Repeat, etc)
• Lyrics etc.

These features/functions are available on almost every player. They are on both Canaree and Retro Music Player. But on Canaree, there's a feature/function I'm seeing for the first time. And that is; Playing speed/tempo.

Playing speed.

On Canaree, you can tweak the playing-speed/Tempo of any song. So if a song feels too slow, you can increase the speed to 1.2x to 3x. If it's too fast, you can drop the playing speed to 0.8x or 0.5x. The feature is quite cool. It would have been great if users could customize speed values themselves. I tried out the feature on a 'slow' song. I increased the speed to 2x. It didn't sound so nice in my ears. Maybe the speed at 1.3x or 1.4x would have been ideal for that particular song. That's why the ability to input custom speed values is ideal. I'll propose the idea to the project owner. I hope he buys the idea.

The next feature I'll talk about is Podcasts.

Podcasts.

You can listen to podcasts on Canaree. Canaree is the first music player I've seen or used that has this feature. I'm not a huge podcasts fan though. I have the urge to listen to podcasts once in a 'Red Moon'. The possibility of being able to listen to podcasts on Canaree would have spurred me to listen to podcasts more. But I never got to try the feature out. You'll find out later on in this article.

Last.fm

Canaree supports last.fm integration. I've read about last.fm on Wikipedia. I still haven't brought myself to set-up a last.fm account since that time. Maybe I'll try it soon. But forget about me. If you have a last.fm account, you can set it up on Canaree. This is also possible on Retro Music Player though.

Crossfade (Gapless playback).

Gapless playback is a feature that is seldom found in music players. I guess it's because it isn't really much of a big deal. Personally, I could care less if gapless playback exists in a music player or not, but, that is just my opinion and it may be a lot for some users. That being said, I utilize the feature anyway.

The statement above is an excerpt from my review(article) of Retro Music Player. As at that time, I wasn't so fond of Gapless playback. It's been 7 months since that time, and things have definitely changed. I'm now very fond of the Gapless playback feature. In fact, it's one of the features I look out for in a music player. So what's gapless playback? Here's an explanation from Wikipedia;

Gapless playback is the uninterrupted playback of consecutive audio tracks, such that relative time distances in the original audio source are preserved over track boundaries on playback.

The keyword to note in the explanation above is; uninterrupted playback. It means that if you have more than one song in a music queue, there'll be no interruption between the transition from one track to the next. But, to embellish this feature, 'Crossfade' was introduced. I'll define crossfade in layman terms as 'Fade-In/Fade-Out'. Something fades in while the other fades out. We mostly see this transition (Fade-in/out) on Android launchers. You can check out Nova Launcher if you wish to experience that transition(In terms of visualizing it).

So what happens when you have enabled crossfade?

With Gapless playback enabled, and crossfade in place; the music that's currently playing will fade-out as soon as it is about to end. As the song is fading out, the next song on the queue is fading-in. If you are attentive, you'll hear the two songs playing together, but with time, the previous song will then give way for the new one to continue playing. It's a nice time really. Disc Jockeys(DJs) are the ones who use and appreciate this feature more.

Midnight mode(Audio).

This is a feature/function that can be enabled or disabled. But it is advisable to keep it enabled at all times. With the feature enabled, the music player automatically lowers the max volume at night. So at a time which the app recognizes as night time, you'll get a lowered sound volume. If you don't care about waking up your roommate sleeping beside you, I urge you once again to enable this feature.

Floating window (To shows lyrics and youtube video).

This feature allows you to open a floating window of the current song you are playing. What happens when you click on the floating window button? The lyrics of the current song you are playing is automatically searched for. Then when you click on the 'video' icon, you'll see search results of the song on Youtube. The first(or last icon. Depending on the direction you counted from) is where you can paste the lyrics you must have gotten from the search results.
This feature is really cool. You can decide to watch the song's video on Youtube, or just view the song lyrics and sing along. And you can do all these without necessarily being on the app itself. It's amazing really. I've not seen another music player with this feature. Not even proprietary ones.

Canaree's User Interface (UI)

You didn't think I forgot to review the app's UI right? This review would be incomplete if I didn't talk about the app's UI.
One of the factors that made me settle for Retro Music Player 7 months ago was it's UI. If it was in terms of app features, I would have chosen AB Music Player. AB Music Player had some really nice features, but it's UI wasn't so great. And Oh! It had ads too. Which was really annoying.
Retro Music Player has an amazing UI. One of the best I've seen. But seven months is enough time to get over being fond of something(except a woman though). I became so familiar with Retro Music Player's interface, I wanted to test new waters. But, the only reason I'd switch to the new app I find is if it's UI is better/equal than/to that of Retro Music Player. Then I found Canaree(amidst others).
Canaree has an amazing UI. It's as good as that of Retro Music Player. It is also materialistic(which makes it really good). The icons are nice. Font style and size is an excellent choice. There are UI/Appearance customizations too. The themes available are;

• White theme
• Almost white theme
• Dark theme
• Black theme

As is my preference most times, I chose to use the black theme. Then I laced it with a gold accent color. It looks really nice that way(Black theme and gold accent color).
Aside from themes and colors, there are other UI options you can enable or disable. They are;

• Adaptive colors.
• Immersive mode.

Adaptive colors

When you enable adaptive colors, the 'Now playing' page adapts to the colors of the album or artist cover arts. It's quite cool.

Immersive mode.

If you enable this option, the app takes up your whole screen. Your notification panel is hidden. The fullscreen view looks really good.

Overall, the UI of Canaree is great. I wouldn't say it is better than that of Retro Music Player. Neither will I say that that of Retro Music Player is better.

Here are the interfaces of both apps placed side-by-side;

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Aside from the features I've discussed, there are other basic music player features which Canaree has. But I purposely chose not to review them. But just in case you were wondering, Canaree also has;

• Sleep Timer
• Equalizer
• Blacklist
• Sorting
• Search etc.

From my review so far, you can see that Canaree is quite an interesting music player. In fact, I can call it a complete music player. It has amazing features, and a great user interface, but.

But.

I titled this article Canaree; A Music Player with cool features and amazing UI, But. I know a lot of you might be surprised to see 'but' there. You must have thought it was an error. But it was deliberate.
In this article, I've said so many nice things about Canaree. I've talked about its amazing features and UI. But what if all the features I talked about in this article weren't readily available to you? How would you feel? I'm guessing not happy. Yea, I felt that way too when I discovered that the app wasn't quite free to use. The project owner locked away virtually everything that makes the app cool and left the boring stuff. To be precise, the whole settings page is locked. The podcasts feature is locked, as well as the floating window. What's left of the app is your typical average music player.
I don't blame the developer for wanting to make money off his project. I have zero ideas about writing codes, but I know it isn't a small deal. So it's not bad to 'want' to get compensation for the work done. But, I think locking everything up wasn't a good idea though. It'll scare away potential end-users. I think a freewill donation system would have worked better.
Well, the good news is that the app is opensource. So you can always build your own version with the source codes. If you aren't a developer like me, but like the app, you can just pay for it. Inasmuch as I don't really like paying to unlock app features, I might do so this time around. To be honest, the app is a good value for the amount it takes to unlock it. But, if you aren't interested in all those extra stuff(features), you can always use the app the way it is. It is still a great music player nonetheless. And if you still want to have a feel of what the premium features look like, the project owner gave the privilege to enjoy those features for one hour.

Summary.

In this article, I've been able to review Canaree(Music player) in its entirety. I've shared my personal opinions and suggestions as well. I also made it a little bit fun by comparing it to my other music player(Retro Music Player) which Canaree might replace. Music players are not apps that are highly sought after. But if you ever decide to hunt for one, you'd find the best music player in Canaree.

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Phew!!! What a long review. Earlier on, I promised not to make this review as long as my previous one. And I've kept my promise. This review is only a little above 2,500 words. I promise the next review will be slightly shorter than this one.

Thanks for reading!!!

Links

• Project repository: https://github.com/ologe/canaree-music-player

• App download link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dev.olog.msc

Resources:

• The content of this post was created based on my knowledge of the project, and mostly from my experience. The images used in this article are screenshots from my mobile phone or PC. Other images used, have their source links provided just below them.

Series Backlinks.

You can check out my review of other music players;

• Are open-source music players good enough to replace stock music players and non-open source music players?
• My review of AB music player. (Why it is great open source music player)
• Jockey music player. (The simple open source music player)

Github profile:

• https://github.com/HarryHeights