LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Sonique
built 629 days ago
Sonique is a discontinued Windows freeware audio player capable of handling MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Microsoft Windows Media, audio CDs, and more. It fuses a highly stylized aesthetic with a fluid, windowless interface and fully animated menu systems. Additional functionality includes a basic playlist editor, a variety of unique output visualization modes via plug-ins, and a robust control set featuring pitch, balance and amplification adjustment, as well as a 20-band equalizer with spline-based level adjustment. It supports many audio formats, including MP3, MP2, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, MOD, XM, IT, S3M, Audio CD and Windows Media Audio. Further audio and visual formats are playable through various plugins, for example AVI video files. Sonique can ... be used to listen to audio streams.
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Sonique is an audio player in competition with Winamp. It has recently been acquired by Lycos, and the new version boasts a new mp3 decoder (Audio Enlightenment V4.0). To decode mp3 files to .wavs, you change the audio output device to a WAV writer plug-in. As an mp3 decoder, it's unusable because there is a jump in the decoded file just after the start, as shown in the following image.
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At the age of 17, a youth-worker told Sonique she had a beautiful voice, it was natural to apply her characteristic determination to making music instead. She has joined a reggae band called Fari which did more than hone her singing skills. "I thought they'd already have some tunes for me to sing", Sonique laughs at the memory, "but, when I turned up the first day, the rest of the band were like, 'So - brought some songs?' They hadn't written a note between them!" Cue a crash course for Sonique in song-writing.
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Sonique sets a new precedent in application design, fusing a highly stylized aesthetic with a fluid, windowless interface. The result is a program that is not only extremely full featured, but intuitive and stylish as well. Sonique's complete range of audio features are complemented by a variety of feedback visualizations. Sonique supports many audio formats and ... boasts one of the best decoding systems in the industry. The latest Sonique version features all new ultra high fidelity MP3 decoder, AE4. Other nifty new features include multi-language support, DSP plugin support, improved navigation menu, completely rewritten audio and visual system, a brand new installer and numerous performance improvements.
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Slick, if not always smart, Sonique does what it should with some compromises. It supports the essential formats, along with skins and plug-ins, integrated Internet music searching via Lycos (decent) and Hotbot (useless), and links to music resources (parent company Lycos' music channel and the anemic Sonique site). Features are spread through a variety of screens making for a lot of extra clicking; and other little speed bumps tend to crop up. You can't, for example, add directories to your playlist (you must select all songs in the directory). Also vexing are basic usability violations, such as a small and slippery volume knob instead of a slider and an equalizer toggle that isn't sticky between screens. It is freeware, a plus, but with its elaborate download process requiring a membership (including your street address), Sonique could and should deliver a more competitive and compelling product.
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Sonique's career as a recording artist began when she was signed to Cooltempo Records while still a teenager, resulting in an immediate club hit with «LetMeHoldYou». The record entered the top 25 in the UK dance charts without any promotion. It was Ernie McKone, an old school-friend with connections to the music industry, who offered to write with her this song. Later, on Bass-O-Matic's debut album Sonique earned a credit for the track «Zombie Mantra». She began writing more songs and was put in touch with Tim Simenon (Bomb The Bass). They recorded some tracks together but, before they could even be released, his mate, a certain Mark Moore, poached her for his own project. However, it was both as the singer and a songwriter for Mark Moore's S'Express that Sonique first entered the limelight, featuring on the minor hits «Nothing to lose» and «Find 'em, Fool 'em, Forget 'em» in 1990 and 1992, respectively.
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Sonique