Player controls
There is really not that much to tell about the player itself, it does what every player does. It allows to play from the playlist, from the library, or from the folder. When it is finished it tries to play the next song until no more songs are available. You can change the equalizer settings or volume, there is a history overview and there is a display in the form of a Spectrum, a VU or a Wave. And the latest added functionality is the option to use album or track replay gain.
The player comes in 4 flavours, there is the player on the right bottom, there is the banner player, all the way at the top, there is a toolbar player, and last but not least there is a full player view showing only the playing album or playlist. YOu can choose the display by selecting the correct button on the toolbar, menu or pressing the appropriate shortcut.
Directshow filters vs. BASS
Soundbase uses the Microsoft® DirectShow® architecture. DirectShow provides high-quality capture and playback of multimedia streams. It supports a wide variety of formats, including MPEG Audio Layer-3 (MP3), OGG Vorbis (OGG), Monkey Audio (APE), FLAC, AAC, ALAC, MP4, Musepack, and WavePack sound files. It automatically detects and uses audio acceleration hardware when available, but also supports systems without acceleration hardware. The bass drivers, if not installed already, can be installed from the main menu => file =>options => plugins tab screen. A button will show to download and install the drivers. The downside of BASS is of course the additional overhead of the drivers, and the fact that these are additional files on your harddisk, and the fact that we can, due to royalty issues can only provide you with the default DLLs. If you want MP4, AAC, ALAC, Musepack, or WavePack support you will need to manually copy the appropriate drivers into the drivers directory! If you deceide to go for the DirectShow filter then there are many filters on the internet that you can download and install. Here are some links to the most important filters. But there are many more, just have a look at http://www.free-codecs.com/ or do a search in google on "directshow filter".
Some interesting links:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/CoreAAC.htm
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/CoreVorbis.htm
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/DC_DSP_Filter.htm
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/DS_MP3_Source_Filter.htm
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/CoreFLAC_Decoder_Encoder.htm
http://www.free-codecs.com/MP3_Parser_DirectShow_Filter_download.htm
But please remember there are many many more to choose from!