Modern day Android phones come with great audio capabilities, there are devices with stereo speakers, Dolby Atmos support and what not. So, it is no surprise that most of our music consumption happens through our smartphones. While there a ton of music streaming apps like Pandora, Spotify, and Google Play Music, many of us hang on to our collection of media because streaming is not quite good enough yet and to reduce our mobile data consumption. With locally stored music you do not have to worry about Internet connections or exceeding mobile data limits, it is just that the phone memory should be a tad bigger to accommodate the songs.

So, if you have your own music collection, and you are looking for the best music player on Android, you are in luck because there are a number of great options to choose from in the Play Store. While apps like Google Play Music brings best of two worlds and allows you to play local music and also streams music, there are many third-party apps that offer greater customization, sound control, and variety.

Whether you are a casual listener or have thousands of songs to organize, here are our picks for the Best Free Music Players For Android, some which you may not have heard about.

1. BlackPlayer

BlackPlayer is a simple, but elegant music player that puts very little between you and your music. It is a slick, minimalist app with a clean, configurable interface that packs decent features under the hood. It operates on a tab structure and you can customize the tabs to use only the ones that you actually want.

Swipe controls let you easily navigate the library’s various views (track, album, artist, genre) as well as playback. Vertical swipes to bring you to next or previous tracks. On the audio end, BlackPlayer includes a 5 band equalizer, as well as a variety of audio effects such as a bass booster and virtualizer, and gapless playback and crossfade on devices that support it. BlackPlayer also comes with three widgets, an ID3 tag editor, themes, and support for FLAC and embedded lyrics.

It is delightfully simple and a fantastic option for fans of minimalism. The free version is a little bare bone with the paid version providing far more features. It is one of the music player apps worth trying.

2. Pulsar

If you are using an older device with outdated hardware, a lot of modern apps may frustrate you with lag and choppiness. Well, Pulsar strikes the perfect balance between a gorgeous appearance and lightweight performance.

This gorgeous Material Design music player lets you browse your music by folders, albums, genre or artists. Although it lacks big advanced features, it does not mean Pulsar is barebones. It is packed with all the essential features, as well as some more unusual ones, including built-in last.fm support, automatic artwork download, built-in tag editing, a variety of themes, fast search, gapless playback, and smart playlists.

The free version contains pretty much everything you need for basic use. You can also upgrade to Pulsar Pro for $3, which will give you access to the equalizer, additional themes and a bass and reverb booster.

3. Pi Music Player

An app that has been rated 4.8 in the Play Store must really have something special up its sleeves, right? Pi Music Player has been rightly described as stunning and feature-rich. The app offers a UI that will surely get you interested. It looks gorgeous and the transitions are pure eye candy. It also comes with most of the features you would want on a good Android music player, such as a five-band equalizer, with bass boost, 10 amazing presets, virtualizer, 3D reverb effects, library management, playlist controls, and configurable themes. Moreover, there are features like a sleep timer, enhanced folder view, gesture support, ability to edit metadata, and more. It also includes some nice extras.

Not only does it seamlessly play all the songs and albums, it can also double up as a cool ringtone maker. The built-in ringtone cutter feature lets you snip clips of your favorite tunes for use as your phone ringtone. All you need to do is tap on it, select the songs, make the adjustment and you are done.

It also has a sharing feature called Pi Powershare, which uses Send Anywhere to share music files with your friends across platforms by sending a six-digit code that they can enter within the app or through a browser page. The app is ad-supported, with in-app purchases available to remove advertising or provide new interface themes.

Pi is available in a free ad-supported version but you can make an in-app purchase to remove ads.

4. Phonograph Music Player

Phonograph is one of the newer music player apps. It is often considered to be the best-looking music player app, mainly because of the many built-in theme color sets and the fact that the interface colors dynamically change to match the content on the screen.

It bills itself as being simple. lightweight, and easy to use. In most cases, it succeeds. It features a Material Design interface that gives you a good look and feel. It provides users with a clean-looking user experience that hides features like tag editing and playlist management behind contextual menus. The result is a very clutter-free interface (complete with colors that can automatically change to match the album art), though you might need to make an extra tap or two to get to features like the sleep timer or equalizer.

You can also change the theme if you want. Along with that, you will get Last.fm integration, a tag editor, playlist features, a home screen widget, and some other navigation features.

It is pretty standard as far as features go, so do not expect a lot of bells and whistles. It is very simple and a great option for those who just want to listen to their music without anything getting in the way. It is a music player worth trying.

5. JetAudio

jetAudio is a long time favorite of Android users because it has enough features to be better than most, but still simple enough for everyone to use. It has a variety of audio enhancements that come as plugins so you can tweak your music experience a little more than usual. On top of that, it comes with an equalizer (complete with 32 presets), simple effects like bass boost, lossy and lossless support, effects like reverb and x-bass, playback speed control, automatic gain control, a tag editor, widgets, and even MIDI playback.

The free and paid versions are virtually identical. The only downside is that the free version is supported by ads, but they are not intrusive, so they are tolerable. However, you can upgrade to the JetAudio Plus, which costs $4 and you get a whole load of widgets, viewing options, pitch shifting and a few other convenience features, making this possibly the most tinkery music player out there.

6. Shuttle

Shuttle is perhaps one you have not heard of before, but one that is definitely worth your attention. Intuitive and lightweight. That is what separates Shuttle from most other music players. Where something like Poweramp is pretty heavy duty and has tons of settings and customizations, Shuffle offers a portion of that with a much more lightweight look and feel.

It is a Material Design laden music player with plenty of options. The app features a simple yet appealing interface, that obviously can be customized to the hilt with themes. It shows tabs such as artists, albums, etc on the app’s home screen and lets you swipe between these tabs. It also has a neat equalizer and a Suggested tab to help you pick a song quickly from your large library. The free version has features that include a 6-band equalizer with bass boost, gapless playback, several theme options, a sleep timer, and a few customizable widgets. The paid version is just $0.99, brings features like Chromecast support, ID3 tag editing, folder browsing, and extra themes.

Well, Shuttle music player offers a great balance between an intuitive and useful feature, which makes it worth a shot. Having said that, the developers have apparently stopped working on updates to Shuttle, which might not go down well with some, especially after you pay for Shuttle+.

Which Music Player App Do You Like?

So, these were some of the Music Player apps we think are the best, which not only lets you play awesome music but also lets you do so much more with their special features and tricks.

What about you? Which Android music app do you like best? If you think we missed any of the best music player apps for Android, tell us about them in the comments!

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