The developer of AIMP has just released a first beta of AIMP3, and boy does it look good.

One of the biggest changes in AIMP3 is a completely revamped interface design wise. The controls have remained the same more or less though. New users find many controls in the upper left corner of the play window to configure the extensive settings of the music player.

Major changes that are mentioned on the (Russian) project site are:

• New style of program and project as a whole
• Full support for translucent texture covers
• Own audio engine (the system audio output)
• Completely reworked music library
• Full support for ReplayGain

All changes are visible on this page. It is best to use a translation service like Google Translate to navigate the website, unless Russian is one of the languages understood.

The audio library can be filled with music from local hard drives, remote drives, removable drives and playlists. It furthermore offers access to IceCast, ShoutCast and custom Internet radio stations straight from the interface.

The core features are all included in the beta, from recording Internet radio over the cover art downloader and LastFM Scrobbler to the tag editor and alarm clock. Users who spend some time using AIMP3 will find a lot of features that may be very useful for them.

AIMP3 is available for download at the developer site. The site links only to file hosting sites for the download. A scan at Virus Total reported a clean file except for one hit that is likely a false positive.

Users need to select English as the language during installation for an English software interface.

The developers of Google Chrome have added jumplist support recently and it was only a matter of time when other developers released versions of their software programs with jumplist support as well. The latest beta versions of the popular software music player AIMP 2 are also offering jumplist support.

Users who install the latest beta version of AIMP 2 in Windows 7 will notice the jumplist menu when right-clicking the icon in the taskbar. The jumplist provides quick access to recently opened songs in the music player.

There does not seem to be any other features yet but this might change in future releases. The changelogs suggest that the developers are still working on improving compatibility with Windows 7 which could mean additional feature support. Users who are interested in downloading the latest version of AIMP 2 can visit the developer’s website to do so.

AIMP is a music player that might not be mentioned that often. The main reason why that is the case is surely the Russian website that is keeping lots of users at bay. Some might spot the player on download portals like Softpedia and those are usually the ones who stick with it after installing and testing the player.

AIMP comes with an impressive design and functionality that leaves most music players behind. It is low on resource usage, provides an impressive sound, great design, an audio converter, CD ripper and Internet radio ripper among other things.

The official website contains a few plugins and skins that can be added to the player but one feature that the player excels in is the compatibility to many Winamp plugins.

One of the winners of a Ghacks t-shirt mentioned a few Winamp plugins that were keeping him from changing to AIMP. A quick research revealed that it was possible to add the plugins to AIMP as well. He mentioned the following three plugins: Minilyrics, DFX and Ozone.

The principle is basically the same for all plugins:

• Download the plugin to the computer.
• Try to extract it using a packer. If that is not working install it. All three plugins could be installed without having Winamp installed. Some might require Winamp though.
• Go to the directory where the files have been extracted / installed into.
• It is usually enough to copy the plugin dll files to the AIMP2/plugins directory. In the case of DFX it is the dsp_dfx.dll, for Ozone it is dsp_iZOzoneFree.dll while Minilyrics requires two: gen_MiniLyrics.dll and MiniLyrics.dll

A rule of thumb. If in doubt copy all files into the directory. AIMP will tell you if something is missing upon activation of the plugin. This is how you do that:

A click on the top left icon will display a menu. Choosing plugins from that menu will open the AIMP Plugin Manager which displays all loaded (meaning active) and unloaded plugins.

New plugins that have been placed in the plugins folder can be activated by selecting them with a left click and clicking on Load afterwards. You will see a message window if something is not right. If the wrong dll has been moved into the plugin directory no plugin will be shown under the Unloaded Plugins tab.

Some plugins, like the DSP ones, require activating in the options of AIMP. A click on the same icon that brought you into the Plugin Manager will also bring you in the DSP Manager. There you can select the Winamp DSP Plugin that has been previously loaded into AIMP.

Not all plugins will work but many will. It is just a matter of trying.

There might be a use for it though especially if you are among friends in a private channel. Y!Status Revolution brings that to Yahoo Messenger though. Users can select a custom status that includes information like song names and length among others. (A total of seven parameters are available to chose from)

Winamp and AIMP are currently supported to deliver those information and Y!Status Revolution acts as a proxy that changes the status message as soon as a new song begins to play.

There is no information available about supported operating systems or Yahoo Messenger versions. It runs fine on my English Windows XP Service Pack 3 system.