Free MP3 WMA Converter is probably one of the best answers one could give to these questions. In spite of being quite plain both in aspect and functionalities, this little app does its job and does it well.
So don’t let yourself be fooled by its simplicity and spare us five minutes to take a deeper look.
The process of installing Free MP3 WMA Converter follows the standard steps and includes the possibility of also installing Pando, a free tool to share large files through e-mail.
But you can simply skip that point if you’re not interested in it.
Once installed on your system, the program allows you to choose the interface language, a nice feature for non-English speakers.
However, it wouldn’t be really necessary, as Free MP3 WMA Converter is incredibly simple to use: first, select the files you want to convert; then, choose the target format; finally, click on the “Convert” button.
Easy as pie! Plus, the conversion itself is surprisingly fast. The program even displays a neat progress bar so that you can control the whole process in detail.

If there is a drawback to Free MP3 WMA Converter, it’s the range of supported formats. Only six of them (AAC, APE, MP3, Ogg, WAV and WMA) but at least they’re the most used and popular ones.
Besides, the program features separate conversion options for each one of them, so you can always achieve the quality of sound you wanted. Another thing this program lacks is having a wider choice of options, such as volume normalization, a built-in tag editor or other similar extra functions that can be found in most conversion tools.

In short, if you’re looking for an audio file converter and don’t know where to begin, just give Free MP3 WMA Converter a chance. It may suit your needs, as long as they’re simple enough.

Download Free Mp3 Wma Converter 2.1 in Softonic

Installation is simple, all you have to do is specify your music library (you can add other later if you want). Mixxx will then import your collection, which may take a few minutes if you have lots of files, but it will only do this once.

Mixxx's interface might be a bit intimidating for beginners, but if you're eager to learn, it's not difficult to get the hang of it. There are two channels, and you load tracks into them with a right click. Each channel has its own controls, from play and pause to tone control. In the center are the global controls, with volume, balance and most importantly the cross-fader which allows you to mix between the two channels. The music waveforms are arranged one on top of the other, like Virtual DJ, which can make beat matching easier.

Mixxx is controlled either with the mouse or hot keys, which are specified in the included manual. In terms of help for beginners, each channel has a "sync" button, which will attempt to synchronize the BPM (beats per minute) of one track with another. The user still has to start the track in time with the other one, so Mixxx won't do the mixing for you!

Mixxx is a solid DJing application, with good BPM estimation, and controls that are easy to pick up for anyone who's seen a mixer before, and intuitive enough for a beginner to learn.

Download Mixxx 1.10.0 in Softonic

Songbird is an open-source music player and organizer with which you can manage, play and discover music. It's free, cross-platform, highly customizable thanks to a wide variety of plug-ins and can be improved and extended by the contribution of its user community.

The first thing you'll notice about Songbird is its resemblance to the iTunes interface, which means that if you've ever used iTunes you won't have any problem in learning how to use Songbird. Then, as you explore the program's menus and options, you'll start discovering all the goodies it has to offer.

Songbird automatically imports your music files from a selected folder, monitors that folder for future music additions, organizes your music in a handy, easily browsable catalog, is compatible with iTunes and Last.fm libraries, can be controlled from any other app thanks to global hotkeys and also supports Last.fm scrobbling. It also includes album art and a simple equalizer.

Songbird is such a complete tool that's hard to find negative sides to it. Plus there's an army of developers constantly working on improvements and new features. The only thing I missed so far, in fact, is support for podcasts – which I'm sure will probably be added some time soon.

Songbird is a complete, full-featured music player and organizer with support for plug-ins and an extensive user community.

Download Songbird 1.10.2 in Softonic

Most PC users are accustomed to massive media players that hog resources and take up large portions of your PC's hard drive. This is why finding a small, simple, and lightweight player such as Winyl is so great when it actually happens.

The program's interface is divided into two panels: a primary one with your current playlist and a smaller one that has a tree-like structure. The latter enables you to filter music according to different criteria. To add music in Winyl, simply right-click on the top toolbar and select the Library option. You can also add complete folders or individual files via a personalized Add menu. Winyl includes support for star rankings, much like iTunes, and can also display ID tags. Unfortunately, you can't edit ID tags, making its functionality a little limited.

There are also a few different skin options you can use for Winyl, including one that makes it actually look like iTunes. This is a definite plus for someone who prefers to personalize their audio player a little and make it more their own. Winyl is also fast and stable, so it doesn't overwhelm system resources. For someone who doesn't need a complete multimedia station on their PC, this is a fantastic option.

Winyl is a lightweight player that allows you to enjoy your favorite music in a simple, minimalist environment.

Download Winyl 2.8.5 in Softonic

Download FreeRIP MP3 3.65 in Softonic

The program includes thousands of stations, all conveniently organized by genre and region or country in a tree-like structure. You can also add your own stations or type the URL of any of them right into RarmaRadio.

Besides listening to radio and watching TV, RarmaRadio also lets you record up to 10 streaming radio stations at the same time. Recordings can be saved on your hard drive in different formats (MP3, WMA, AAC and Ogg), with the possibility to split songs automatically. Recording doesn’t work with TV stations though.

RarmaRadio includes many other extra features, such as integration with Last.fm, support to find lyrics and album cover art, and “wish” and “ignore” lists for certain songs, which turn it into one of the most powerful streaming apps we’ve tested. Sadly, the interface doesn’t keep up with the program’s features, and would benefit a lot from a more stylish design.

With RarmaRadio you can enjoy thousands of free streaming radio and TV stations.

Download RarmaRadio 2.65 in Softonic

Uploading songs to your Google Music library on an individual basis can be a serious drag, as well as a complete time-waster. Much like the 8tracks Uploader for Macs, Music Manager lets users easily and quickly transfer songs to their Google Music Library in no time at all.

You can tweak the settings on Music Manager to automatically upload new music it detects from iTunes, Windows Media Player, or other storage media.

In addition to uploading songs, the program also provides a list of songs it was unable to upload, as well as a reason as to why the upload didn't work. Unfortunately, if you do encounter an error in uploading, Music Manager doesn't actually suggest a solution. You might just be out of luck, which could be frustrating.

If you want an easy-to-use method of uploading songs to your Google Music library, Music Manager is the way to go.

Download Music Manager by Google 1.0.23.1344 in Softonic

With iTunes 10, the library has been improved with an extra view that adds album artwork where there’s room, instead of the traditional album title next to each song. This smartens up library viewing a lot, and generally underlines the new, clean look of the interface. It's no revolution, but looks neater. Playlists and iTunes DJ are untouched, and managing your library is as easy as ever. Creating playlists is one of iTunes' strengths, and it's still simpler and more user-friendly than the competition.

Syncing iTunes with iPods and other Apple devices is really easy, and there are no longer problems using Mac-formatted devices in iTunes for Windows, or vice versa. Home Sharing is a great way to keep your library across multiple computers at home; it is really easy to set up and means all your computers will automatically have up-to-date libraries.

The biggest change with version 10 is to the iTunes Store. Ping, which is linked to your iTunes account, allows you to create a personal profile and share your purchases and reviews with friends, and artists you like. It looks very much like a basic Facebook News Feed or Twitter, but just about music. At the moment Ping feels underdeveloped. You can't share your listening habits, like Last.fm, and manual sharing is limited to the iTunes Store, not your own library. There's no option to share what you're listening to right now, which is pretty terrible! Ping will surely develop and improve very soon.

The basic library function of iTunes is unparalleled, and syncing with iPods, iPhones and iPads is excellent. iTunes 10’s new social features are interesting, but limited at the moment.

Download iTunes 10.5.3 in Softonic

Previously known as Fruity Loops, FL Studio has been transformed from a midi sequencer to a fully-fledged audio editing application. There are plenty of reasons why you should download FL Studio and start using it to make music on your computer.

How does it look?

Let's first take a look at the FL Studio interface. Users familiar with FL Studio will instantly recognize the dark green tone and rounded windows of past versions. However, the structure of the program can be difficult for a first-time user to grasp.

The browser window on the left is your resource for any file you will need, from presets to projects and scores. Clicking on an item will open up a drop down selection of specific elements. This library can be filled with more of your own loops and samples and carries an impressive amount of plug-ins like DirectWave, EQUO or Fruity Squeeze. FLStudio has a smart search function to quickly find any track, tool or effect.

How to use FL Studio

To edit your tracks with FL Studio you can use the original pattern window, which contains all the instruments you have selected. You will have to create the pattern desired for each instrument.

You can also use the playlist window, divided into patterns at the top and audio tracks at the bottom. The playlist view features a handy paintbrush tool to color in your pattern. You can also decide to edit your tracks with the piano roll view, quite handy if you have a midi keyboard plugged in.

FL Studio can be tricky to maneuver at first; however those of you familiar with sequencers should have no trouble with it. All instruments and samplers are stereo, so to have multiple outputs you will have to create the desired number of instances.

Anyone interested in connecting real instruments will appreciate that FL Studio also handles multiple midi-ins and features foot pedal sustain support. The FL Studio mixer features a good number of presets and you can fine tune your track with a high degree of precision.

FL Studio is a very good sequencer for anyone looking to create beats. The handy browser view and multiple editing windows like playlist, piano roll or pattern let you work how you feel best. A finely-tuned mixer and a large library of plug-ins also make this a very exciting audio editing application.

Download FL Studio 10.0.9 in Softonic

mp3Tag is one of the better tag editors around, allowing you to edit the metadata (the information about a track’s name, size, album name, artwork, etc.) with a good degree of autonomy. The app lets you rename files based on this tag information, replace characters or words from tags and filenames, import/export tag information, and create playlists. It carries out its dutiesdoes the job very well too. For instance, the program has a much cleaner interface than many of its rivals and is smaller to boot, making it very quick and responsive.

If you find that you have a lot of different audio formats on your machine that you want to keep in check then mp3Tag is perfect. It supports virtually every major audio file type, so you can edit tags for Ogg, Musepack, and AAC/MP4, besides just MP3s. tThe program isn't just a tagger, as it also includes cutting and joining functions that perform pretty well.

Perhaps the biggest boon though is the inclusion of a link-up with the online FreeDB database to import tags from the appropriate album, spelling a swift end to those MP3 albums you get with track names like ‘track01’, ‘track02’, ‘track03’, etc.) While the data returned from the FreeDB is sometimes erroneous, it’s generally pretty good (though probably not quite as quick as the import tool in Tag&Rename).

It’s fair to say that mp3Tag is one of the clear leaders in its field, and considering it’s a freeware app, it’s well worth downloading if you want to clean- up your music collection. Tag editing is very quick and once you’ve given your audio the mp3Tag treatment, you should find it so much easier to organize your tracks.

Download mp3Tag 2.49b in Softonic

With Sharepod you can easily copy music from the computer to your iPod and viceversa. The program works like a charm: simply plug the iPod in, launch Sharepod and you’re good to go. It doesn’t even require installation! Besides adding or removing music, you can also copy videos from your iPod to the PC, back up photos, and edit tags. Sharepod also imports and exports album art, ratings and playlists.

The interface in Sharepod features a simple, clean design that makes the program a pleasure to use. It supports drag-and-drop, includes a search tool and also has a built-in player to listen to the music on your iPod.

On the downside, and though the developer claims Sharepod works with iPhone and iPod Touch, we couldn’t use all of the program’s features when testing with an iPhone 4.

Sharepod is a great iPod manager that lets you transfer content between Apple’s star device and your computer.

Download Sharepod 3.9.8 in Softonic

Interface

With a clear, light grey interface, CrossDJ Free looks good. There are two decks, with waveforms displayed for each. Above the decks both waveforms are shown together, so you can easily see how beats match up. There are quite a lot of controls squeezed into CrossDJ Free's interface, but they are all useful. Each deck has cue and play controls, and you can save up to six play locators for each track.

Beats per minute are automatically calculated, and can be changed if incorrect. We found the beat detection to be as good as most mixing apps - when CrossDJ Free sets the wrong first beat of a bar, it's really easy to correct too. Controls are mapped to your keyboard, although in this version you cannot edit them yourself. This version doesn't allow recording or the use of midi controllers.

Great for beginners

Download CrossDJ Free 1.7.1 in Softonic

Download N-track Studio 6.1.2 in Softonic

With Anvil Studio you can record and compose music as well as edit MIDI files in a standard, multi-track interface. The program also includes a wide library with samples, loops and audio effects, and even a piano roll to practice notes.

Anvil Studio may not seem easy to use at first sight, especially if you’re a newcomer to audio editors. Fortunately, the program is very well documented and the extensive, built-in help section will surely have the answer to all your questions.

On the downside, Anvil Studio’s interface looks quite outdated and would benefit a lot from a complete redesign.

With Anvil Studio you easily can compose, record and edit multi-track MIDI music.

Download Anvil Studio 2011.12.06 in Softonic

If your tags are not labelled properly, it's almost impossible to organise them well. TagScanner is a powerful tag editor with batch functions and special features that allows you to export playlists to HTML or Excel worksheets. What's most useful about TagScanner though is the fact that it can edit huge numbers of tags at the same time and not just that, but it can import tag information from Amazon or Freedb.

The information retrieved by TagScanner can sometimes be hit or miss in accuracy but it saves a hell of a lot of time. You can generate tag information from file and folder names and it can edit a wide range of music formats including MP3, OGG, Musepack, Monkey's Audio, FLAC, AAC, OptimFROG, SPEEX, WavePack, TrueAudio, WMA, MP4 files.

In terms of tagging, TagScanner is also pretty impressive supporting ID3 1.0/1.1/2.2/2.3/2.4 tags, APE v1 and v2 tags, Vorbis Comments, WMA tags and MP4(iTunes) metadata. The player function in TagScanner is basic but it does allow you to create playlists and export them for reference which is useful for showing others your collection.

TagScanner is a very powerful tag editor that will surely save you time although you may find that automatically retrieved tags are not 100% accurate.

Download TagScanner 5.1.607 in Softonic

If you only use MP3 files and iTunes, the tag editor in that program is absolutely fine. However, if you use lossless formats, or any not supported by iTunes, TagScanner Portable will be really useful.

There are a few ways to edit your tags. You can choose the type of tag for a start, and retrieve data from four online sources. There are Amazon, Discogs, Tracktype.org and FreeDB, meaning TagScanner Portable will find info for pretty much any musical release you want. You can use these to auto tag your files, or you can group edit files, adding album titles, year of release, album covers and even lyrics.

TagScanner Portable can also export your files lists in many formats, from suitable for Excel to m3u playlist files you can use in audio players. It really is a very comprehensive application, and it suffers a bit from complication. TagScanner Portable has an intimidatingly complex interface!

TagScanner Portable will satisfy all your tag-related needs as it's packed full of useful feature, but it's not the most intuitive application you'll find

Download TagScanner Portable 5.1.607 in Softonic