Winamp: Free Software to Mix Music for Parties, PA Systems or Internet Radio Stations

Working at radio stations for many years, I've experienced many music automation systems. Every one of these systems requires some amount of forethought for each song to help them determine when the song is ending so the system can start the next one. Usually this involves "marking" a point in the recording toward the end that tells the system to start the next song or event. When the .mp3 craze got hot, I was determined to find software for home that would mix my music for me like a radio station would do, but automatically without any preparation or manual intervention other than just listing the songs I wanted mixed. The software I finally found after about six months of trying is wonderful and free. Using this setup on a laptop at parties has gotten rave reviews and questions like "how do you do that?" Since it is not a well known solution, I thought I would share it.

First, if you've experimented at all with music on your PC you've probably heard of Winamp. Winamp is a free .mp3 player that goes back to the beginning of the .mp3 era and is thought to be one of the best .mp3 players out there. The problem is that when you load up your songs in the Winamp playlist there are gaps between songs. This is the solution to the problem. The first thing you will have to do is get Winamp if you don't already have it. You can download it here... http://www.winamp.com/player/ All you'll need is the basic free version for this project. After you choose "basic" you can then pick from any of the free versions presented but the "lite" version will work just fine.