Ventis Media announced the release today of its new and improved MediaMonkey 2.1. Available free online, MediaMonkey makes it easy for music lovers to manage the growing numbers of files they are downloading from online music services such as MusicMatch and Rhapsody.

“Most consumers obtain their digital music files from multiple sources: their own CD collections, online music services, and their friends. All of these files will be encoded and formatted differently, and most serious collectors will want a single application to organize them, level the volume, add lyrics, export them to other devices, and play them–no matter where they come from. Our mission is to build the best music manager possible and let other companies worry about building online music stores,” said Jiri Hajek, Vice President Engineering at Ventis Media.

“To date, each of the online music services has required its users to install a custom client: MusicMatch Jukebox for the MusicMatch service; Real Player for the Rhapsody service, and so on. That’s like Amazon forcing you to use an ‘Amazon browser’ in order to shop at Amazon, even if you prefer the Mozilla browser” said Russell Samuels, Vice President Marketing at Ventis Media. “We believe most consumers want choice: choice of software, choice of format, choice of purchase venue. We’re building a product that aims to satisfy users regardless of formats and services used.”

MediaMonkey supports CD, MP3, OGG, and WMA formats along with many others via plug-ins. It catalogs, plays, rips, converts, tags, creates mixes, and organizes large music collections. MediaMonkey is available now at http://www.mediamonkey.com.

Ventis Media announces the release of MediaMonkey 2.0. Available freely via the internet, MediaMonkey raises the bar for ease-of-use and power for managing collections of thousands of music files.

“If you’re tired of using one program to organize your music, another to level the volume, and yet another to play it; if you’re sick of the adware and the bloatware then MediaMonkey is what you’re looking for,” said Jiri Hajek, Vice President Engineering at Ventis Media.

“What makes MediaMonkey different from most other players is that we don’t have any vested interest in a particular music service or format,” said Russell Samuels, Vice President Marketing at Ventis Media. “Real Player works with the Rhapsody service; Microsoft Media Player is geared primarily for WMA files; Apple’s iTunes only supports the iTunes store. That’s like having a web browser that can used to purchase books only from Barnes & Noble–that’s where Players are at today. MediaMonkey will be format and service agnostic.”

MediaMonkey supports CD, MP3, OGG, and WMA formats along with many others via plug-ins. It catalogs, plays, rips, converts, tags, creates mixes, and organizes large music collections. MediaMonkey is available now via http://www.mediamonkey.com.

Songs-DB 1.4 beta is one of the most significant releases of the product to-date, including over 200 bugfixes and improvements. Some of the most significant changes are an improved UI, automated file monitoring, OGG encoding, an equalizer, support for DSP audio effect plug-ins, plus a variety of new & improved features and scores of bug fixes. A comprehensive list of changes can be viewed in the What’s New file.

If you’re interested in testing the beta, please check out the beta forum.