Essential plugins for foobar2k user

Being an all-time foobar2k (foobar2000) fans, I had decided to list out some of the useful plugins for any newbie who had finally ditched . Many people often turned away from foobar just because it is 'ugly' when launching it for the first time. What they DIDN'T know is that it is simply the most advanced media player ever built. Period. Almost every audiophiles on the planet uses it. I didn't bluff you, go to the forum which hosted foobar2k (www.hydrogenaudio.org) and see for yourself. 

Among the features of foobar2k are:

• Tight integration with last.fm via plugin. Audio scrobbing supported via foo_audioscrobber plugin.
• Control your foobar instance via the internet, anywhere in the world.
• Endless customization at user part. Your imagination is the limit here. 
• Various user-made skins can be found on the Internet, e.g. DeviantArt.
• freedb tagger support. E.g. Tag your VGM music from vgmdb.net.
• and many more which are up to you to discover...

Anyway, here goes the list.



foo_preview
For someone like me who owns over 1500 albums in my library, it would be impossible to play through each and every single track on my library. This plugin definitely helps to preview some portion of the tracks. Think of this as the ~1 minute preview music you heard on iTunes.

Activate it under: File Menu > Playback > Preview Mode

Found under: Playback > Preview

foo_scheduler
I use this plugin to playback songs as my morning call. Yeah you could have your smartphone or traditional alarm clock that could achieve the same purpose, but could they:
1) fit all the music from your library?
2) playback at a specific time then stop at a specific time without your intervention?
3) and any other stuffs which you think a scheduler should do.

Customize it under: Playback > Scheduler

foo_customdb (lastest ver. 0.1.0beta-1)
Whenever a song is played, you could have information such as last_played, play_count, etc. stored as tag directly into the song. But it would consume a little bit of your CPU cycle. What is better than storing it inside a database?

Customize it under: Tools > Custom Database

foo_playback_custom (latest ver. 1.5.1)
Wiki
Can be used in conjunction with foo_customdb to store custom tags.

foo_audioscrobber (latest ver. 1.4.7)
Scrobe currently playing tracks to last.fm

Found under: Tools > Audioscrobber

foo_talktome
Ever wished your computer could tell you what song is currently playing? This plugin does the job. You could even customize your own sentence and TTS engine, e.g. 'Now playing %title% by %artist% from %album%'

Customize it under: Tools > TalkToMe

foo_vorbisstream
Host your own shoutcast station with this plugin.

foo_channel_mixer (latest ver. 0.9.6.5)
Wiki

As the name implies, can upmix stereo audio into 5.1 channel. Great if you would like to have a surround listening experience.

foo_uie_lyrics3
Search online for lyrics automatically by checking the tags.


More information and plugins can be found at HydrogenAudio.