Well, it’s been a while.
Our last update was back in July, when we announced that BakBeat 1.3.0 was available for macOS.
As I write this, we’ve just released BakBeat 1.12.0.
So, yeah. We’ve been busy.
One of the challenges of building software in your spare time is that sometimes you get so caught up in actually building the thing that you forget to tell people what you’ve been doing.
Let’s fix that.
BakBeat Has Grown Up
When we launched BakBeat publicly in July, it was already capable of managing music libraries, working with several generations of iPods, and transferring music to MiniDisc players.
Since then, we’ve released update after update, expanding device support, improving the library, fixing bugs, and gradually turning BakBeat into something much larger than the application we originally released.
Some of that work has been visible.
A lot of it hasn’t.
We’ve spent considerable time rebuilding pieces underneath the interface so that BakBeat has a solid foundation for everything we want to do next.
Because the goal isn’t just to make another music player.
It’s to build the kind of application that used to exist when owning a music collection actually meant something.
More Devices, More Possibilities
One of our original goals was to bring something resembling the classic iTunes experience back to devices that modern software has largely forgotten.
We’ve continued expanding our supported hardware, including additional generations of iPods.
The iPod Classic 7th generation and iPod Nano 3rd generation are among the devices we’ve added since our last update, alongside continued research and testing of Sony Walkman players and other dedicated music hardware.
And that’s something we’ve learned repeatedly throughout development:
Old hardware is weird.
Two devices from the same manufacturer might handle music libraries completely differently. One might rebuild its library automatically after you disconnect it. Another might depend on a particular directory structure or playlist format.
Rather than guessing, we’re testing actual hardware and documenting what it really does.
That’s slower than simply declaring that everything works.
But we’d rather tell you what we know than promise something we haven’t proven.
Your Library, Your Music
The BakBeat library itself has also changed considerably.
We’ve continued improving playlists, imports, metadata, lyrics, device integration, and the relationship between the files you own and the library you see in BakBeat.
The BakBeat library database is now the authoritative record of your collection.
That distinction matters.
We don’t want your library changing unexpectedly because some background process decided it knew better. We want BakBeat to be predictable, understandable, and respectful of a collection you may have spent decades building.
That philosophy extends to device synchronization, too.
The goal isn’t simply copying files onto an MP3 player.
It’s knowing what’s already there, what needs to change, and what the device can actually support.
And Now… Guitar Tabs
BakBeat 1.12.0 introduced something a little different: Guitar Tabs.
You can now keep tablature alongside your music and pull it up while you’re listening.
This might seem a little outside the original mission of managing a music library and syncing old hardware, but to us, it actually fits perfectly.
BakBeat has always been about your relationship with the music you own.
Sometimes that means ripping a CD.
Sometimes it means putting an album onto an iPod you’ve owned for twenty years.
And sometimes it means plugging in a guitar, pulling up the tab for a song in your library, and playing along.
We’re interested in making BakBeat a home for a music collection, not just a place where files happen to live.
Guitar Tabs are one of the first steps in exploring what that can mean.
A Lot of Work You Can’t See
Some of our biggest improvements over the last few months have involved things most users will never notice.
And that’s kind of the point.
We’ve spent a lot of time improving BakBeat underneath the interface: breaking apart overly complicated components, making operations more reliable, improving responsiveness, and building a foundation that can continue to grow as the application does.
It’s not the kind of work that makes for exciting screenshots.
But it means fewer surprises, fewer bugs, and a much healthier foundation for everything we want to build next.
What About Windows and Linux?
They’re still part of the plan, and development has continued.
One of the reasons we’ve invested so heavily in BakBeat’s underlying architecture is to make supporting multiple operating systems practical.
We’re not interested in building three unrelated applications that happen to share a name.
The goal is consistent behavior regardless of which platform you’re using.
There’s still work to do, and we’re not announcing release dates until we’re confident we can deliver.
Free Means Free
One other major thing has changed since our last update:
BakBeat is free.
Not “free until you want the useful features.”
Not “free with a subscription.”
Free.
The core BakBeat application is free, and that’s how we intend to keep it.
No subscription required to manage your music. No cloud account required to access your collection. No artificial restrictions designed to make you pay to use hardware you already own.
If you enjoy BakBeat and want to support development, voluntary contributions are always appreciated.
But paying us isn’t a requirement to use it.
We believe people should be able to enjoy the music they’ve purchased without another company standing between them and their collection.
What’s Next?
More devices.
More improvements to the library.
More work on Windows and Linux.
More ways to actually use and enjoy the music you own, like Guitar Tabs.
And, inevitably, more bug fixes.
There are decades of perfectly good music players sitting in drawers and on shelves.
There are people with enormous collections of CDs, digital purchases, carefully curated playlists, lyrics, artwork, and now maybe a few guitar tabs.
Those collections deserve software built for them.
That’s why we’re building BakBeat.
One Last Thing
If you’ve downloaded BakBeat, tried it, or even just followed along with development, thank you.
This is still a small, independent project built around a pretty simple idea:
If you like your music, you can keep it.
And now, apparently, you can play along with it too.
Hopefully it won’t take another three months to write the next update.
— Mike
BakBeat Labs
Here we have a iPod Nano 2G. One of many devices from bundles of random devices purchased from Ebay for our testing. We see. We can read it. We can see the artists, the albums, and the songs.