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lpy, I’m aware of the problem — it’s a problem in virtual audio cable. I’ve been trying to get Eugene (the author) to fix it for a while.
It seems to work great on single and dual core systems, but not so well on quad core systems (which has been my development system for a while), and indeed Vac 3.x doesn’t have the problem.
If you have a vac 3.x, you could just set Breakaway FM to wave in/out and use vac 3.x instead. No need to settle for Volume Logic 🙂.
///Leif
You’re welcome, Camclone!
Thank you very much for your post 😉.
I probably will not make an RDS add-on, because Airomate exists, works perfectly with Breakaway FM, and is only $29.95, so it’s not really worth the time — I can’t make a better job creating an RDS signal than Arjen has already done 😉.
Maybe I should talk to Arjen about making a special Breakaway FM mode though, where the signal could enter Breakaway FM without having to go through sound card drivers. That would be even more stable 😉.
///Leif
lpy, try Breakaway FM! It works incredibly well for streaming, even supports loading Winamp DSP encoder plug-ins, and it’s positively the best, most powerful sound available for streaming.
You can download the beta from http://bredband.leif.cx/browse/bafm and it should be available for purchase within just a couple of weeks. A dedicated streaming version should be available a few weeks later, but Breakaway FM will actually sound even more powerful than the stream-specific version. Breakaway FM will be slightly more expensive, and use more CPU than the streaming version.
///Leif
Hi XFon!
It’s certainly possible, but you would have better sound quality (and/or more loudness) by using Breakaway FM directly — the clipper back-end in Breakaway FM is extremely advanced, there is truly no current hardware that comes even close.
If you want to chat, PM me your instant messenger ID or email address, I’ll get in touch 🙂.
///Leif
Hi Yatmandu!
Glad you found us!
Yes, I know all about crappy management. The whole thing was a disaster — Never again!
quote :– what’s the main diff between the Winamp plugin verion and general windows version?The difference would be that the winamp plugin version would work only for Winamp, whereas the general windows version works for all programs.
quote :– I use iTunes still, so would Breakawy for Windows kind of work like VL did?Yes! And, it will also work with any other program, including your web browser and dvd player. Invaluable when watching youtube videos, and movies!
quote :– Does Breakaway for windows work for any audio app; in that case, why bother with Winamp plugin?Yes it would. Why bother? I’m asking myself the same thing. There may never be one, it doesn’t seem to be worth it. We’ve have a few inquiries, but with the low sales projection, it would have to be an expensive product to make it worth the development effort, and sales would then be even lower or non-existent. For now, I’m focusing on the different standalone flavours of Breakaway.
quote :– Any chance us poor VL owners could get a discount? I guess I don’t mind paying again, as long as this one is supported longer than VL was.Breakaway is an enormous improvement in sound quality over VL — it’s worth every penny of the $29.95. Yes, this one will be supported properly. ClaessonEdwards isn’t run by morons 😉.
Best regards,
Leif ClaessonHi Arjen!
Great to hear from you.
My hat is off to you for Airomate — it’s an excellent RDS encoder indeed!
quote :About connecting Airomate to Breakaway, there is another solution if you don’t want to use any input device in Airomate. You can select the “RDS only” option and enable the synchronization channel. Set the synchronization frequency to 19000Hz.Does this output RDS and 19000hz Pilot into the same audio channel, or Left=RDS and Pilot=Right?
Breakaway FM can only read them from one channel (i separate them by internal phase linear filtering).
I will assume that the 19000Hz pilot becomes phase locked to the RDS, since it’s called synchronization mode 🙂.
quote :As Breakaway FM will process the best sound so will Airomate process the best RDS signalWe are in complete agreement 😉.
You CAN actually get Breakaway FM’s excellent sound through Airomate too. To do this, you would turn off ALL clipping and ALL filtering in Airomate – that’s the audio processors job — not the stereo encoders, and any filtering, unless phase linear and out of band, will cause overshoots. Then simply set the L/R output of BreakawayFM at 192000hz, and one of the pipelines. Set this pipeline as the Airomate source .
The major disadvantages of this approach is that Airomate does not have the adaptive asynchronous sample rate converter that Breakaway FM uses to maintain the buffer between the unsynchronized Input and Output devices, and also that now there are two programs in the audio path instead of one, so if either goes, station is off the air.
However, it is possible, and I made the 192000 Hz L/R output option for this very purpose. 😉
Best regards,
///LeifHi DJ Buik!
This is intentional – it happens when you have both BAP and BAFM installed — uninstall would get too complicated and error-prone if I tried to remove only half of it. If you really want to remove them, uninstall BAP as well, reboot, and then reinstall BAP.
///Leif
quote :My sound card is not capable of generating the composite signal (Echo Mia) so I need to stick with the David II. Plus I’m running SCA subcarriers and need the David II to add these into the composite.Alright. As long as you can disable filtering and crossovers as much as possible, it might be okay. Make sure, though! Look at the MPX output of the David II with an oscilloscope, and use the 60hz Square Wave and Quick Sweep tones from inside Breakaway FM. Make sure they’re both flat — not tilting / tapered. All it takes is a little bit of tilt and you’ve lost a full dB of loudness (and thus signal to noise ratio) for nothing. Peak control is *extremely* critical on FM, as you know 🙂.
Hey, depending on the frequency of those SCA’s, you MIGHT be able to pass them through Breakaway FM.
The RDS input is low-passed at 80 KHz. Thus, a 92 KHz SCA will not pass, but a 67 KHz will, and so will RDS / RDBS signals (57 KHz). If you used this, you’d also see them on the BaFM oscilloscope, when set to composite. 192 KHz capable cards are not expensive today, so it may be worthwhile.
If you feed Pilot to the RDS input as well, BaFM will lock onto it for its own stereo generator. Thus, if you feed phase-locked Pilot + RDS, it will stay phase locked through the whole chain.
You may also be interested in another project of mine — MpxTool.
It’s a modulation monitor + oscilloscope + spectrum analyzer + stereo encoder/decoder + RF spectrum analyzer + mpx recorder/player + a/b comparison tool, all in a single piece of software! 🙂
I’ll PM you the paypal account. Trying to avoid spambots 🙂.
You probably know the price from hearing that commercial one too many times. 😉The new version of BAP does need a new license key — we’re completely changing the authorization system, getting rid of the Hardware IDs. Email support – Keith will give you a new key.
Best,
///LeifHi Joe!
Glad you could stop by, call me santa any day 😉.
1) Yes they have. The reason for this is the extremely advanced clipper back-end in Breakaway FM.
On the FM medium, we have pre-emphasis to deal with — audio must be broadcast with a very sharp treble boost (subsequently EQ’ed out inside every tuner), and all this treble causes peaks. These peaks would cause overmodulation and would mean we’d have to turn down the volume by at least 10dB, leading to a very quiet and/or dull sounding station. So, BaFM does not hold back — it does the best darn job possible, but it does need some CPU. Not that much by todays standards though — it runs fine even on the cheapest dual core cpu (Celeron E1200, $49) and uses only 10% on the cheapest core 2 quad (Q6600, $189).BaFM absolutely takes advantage of dual core systems.
2) The cleaner the chain is after BaFM, the better. You’ll get the very best sound from completely removing the David II from the chain and using BaFM’s MPX output directly into your exciter (with a 192k sound card). You’ll need to use an oscilloscope to adjust TILT and MPX PEQ to compensate for your sound card, but once you’ve done that, you will probably have the cleanest and loudest station in town (at the same time).
If you must use the David II stereo gen, turn off its processing as much as possible. Any crossovers, filters, clippers or compressors must be completely disabled, as they will cause overshoots for no gain. BaFM’s output signal is already STRICTLY low pass filtered to 16 KHz, leaving 3 kHz of pilot protection. The David II would have to run as a straight stereo-gen with no other processing at all.
3) Got paypal? 🙂. It’s not officially for sale yet but I can sell you a copy now, and you will of course be able to use your license key with the full version when released.
4) The crossover cutoff points for the 6-band presets are: 36, 49-145, 171-507, 599-1775, 2097-6212, 8235. Note that the first one is low-pass, the last one is high-pass, and the remaining ones are band-pass.
I’ve already worked for Bob a long time ago, before Octiv got started (1999) — not happening again, but there’s always Frank 🙂.
///Leif
Relax, relax, I’m just joking 🙂.
I will release it some day — just have to work out codec licensing first. It’s not released yet, so it’s not available for download 🙁.
///Leif
Hydro, it was not supposed to look like the first screenshot you posted 🙂. It was clipping the bass excessively.
There is supposed to be a bass clipper though — without that, having as much bass as breakaway does would cause a lot of distortion when playing actual music. I guess the short answer is that it is designed for music, not test tones 🙂. It would be possible to write code especially to handle test tones, but it’s not really worth it — it would only add to CPU usage for no benefit when actually listening to music. I may still revisit it though, see if I there’s an efficient way to improve low frequency tone performance.
Rich, Helix is one of two 7-band presets in Breakaway Personal (Zenith being the other one), both designed by my very good friend Jesse Graffam (mastering engineer). I’m still waiting for a description from him, but it will be in before release. There will definitely be more presets in the future too. For version 1.3 I’m planning to have voice presets, both for listening to talk radio (such as podcasts) and for internet telephony. There will also be saveable mode selection so you can instantly recall settings. But, that’s the NEXT version, not this one. Gotta get 1.2 out at some point, it’s been so long already, I can’t add new features — it’s all about refinement and fixes at this point.
Regarding what preset to use, it’s all down to taste – almost. The main goal of Breakaway is consistency between different songs, so changing the preset for every song is definitely not recommended (or practical). 🙂
If your taste of music is *very* varied, the best preset is Reference Settings. It’s relatively neutral in frequency response, yet provides excellent consistency, while leaving plenty of dynamic punch, and can of course be sweetened with the controls, particularly bass.
For primarily dance and other popular music (including rock), try Reference Heavy and adjust bass boost to taste. It’s not a coincidence that this preset is the default — it really is the most versatile.
The biggest reason why there aren’t more presets in Breakaway, is that you can adjust so much with the (deceptively) simple front panel controls! Each control intelligently modifies several internal parameters, but in a way that anyone can adjust and hear the results, instead of having to learn 100 separate controls. 😉
///Leif
Hi Shane!
I found that bug 2 days ago. It eluded me for days!
The exact time of failure is 13.5 hours. After 13.5 hours, audio would mute, because a 32-bit counter wrapped around to a negative number, making Breakaway FM think it had just been started, and thus muting the output (to avoid clicks and pops).
I changed it to a 64-bit counter — it will now mute after 6 million years instead of 13.5 hours. (Yes, I calculated) 🙂.
It’s fixed since 0.90.38.
Good catch, and I apologize for any inconvenience. This is why it says "beta" after the version number 😉.
///Leif
Howdy!
The bass clipping is highly intentional. It is part of the secret (not a secret anymore, is it) that allows Breakaway to have such extreme bass without causing distortion in higher frequencies.
The bass clipper itself is filtered, so even though it looks clipped, you can also see that it’s rounded — no sharp edges. Therefore you can squeeze more bass in, without causing problems for high frequencies.
Normally, when you play music, there’s not just a single sine-wave bass tone, but there will be lots of other sounds at the same time. If bass is allowed to go all the way to the top, that means the bass will push these sounds into the limiter, causing very fatiguing IMD (intermodulation distortion).
However, the excessively low bass clipper setting in Helix was my mistake. It has been fixed in 1.20.08, which is available for download at http://bredband.leif.cx/browse/bafm .
I’m VERY happy that you guys noticed this! This means you’re listening, you’re paying attention. What more could an audiophile ask for 😉.
///Leif
