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Bon jour, Gillan!
The crossovers are 12 dB per octave.
The frequency ranges are (for 6-band presets):
0-36,
50-145,
170-500,
600-1800,
2100-6200,
8200-22000.You can see that there are gaps between the frequency bands, however, when downmixed, they sum to flat within 0.25dB.
30dB separation will never be in Breakaway, because it doesn’t sound good. Using too narrow crossovers means you have to start using inter-band coupling to control the strange frequency boost/cuts that would happen, and coupling causes other severe side effects that are impossible to tweak around.
The current version of Breakaway is not at all suited for FM, because it does neither pre-emphasis, nor absolute band / peak limiting. However, HDFM, which will be released this year, does all this, and it’s by far the cleanest sounding on the market – near CD quality on standard analog FM stereo.
If you want to just "sound" like FM radio, try the Radio Magic preset 😉. If this preset emulates FM *too* well for your taste (i.e. over-processed, just like most FM stations), try setting Speed lower – it really opens up the sound of that preset.
Stay tuned 🙂.
///Leif
Hi Jeff!
Easy. Winamp gets confused when the default audio device changes.. The solution for me has been to just restart Winamp.
If that doesn’t do it, press Ctrl-P and look in Output plug-ins, hit Configure, and check what sound card is actually selected.
///Leif
Hi Hydro!
The Bass Boost algorithm is a multi-stage Parametric EQ with intelligent protection limiting. The Boost/Cut sliders affect the amount of Boost / Cut for all the different stages.
The Shape slider affects the frequency region of the boost / cut. If Boost/Cut is set to 0, Shape has no effect.
If you turn shape UP (positive values), the bass boost will affect higher frequencies (mid bass) as well. If you turn it up even more, it will affect lower frequencies (sub bass) less, and higher frequencies more.
If you turn shape DOWN, the frequency center will lower (that is, affect sub-bass more). If you turn shape down even further, it will center around 50hz, and also start narrowing (lower Q-value) – for that extra-special thump suitable for booty-bass music among other genres 😉.
Hope this clears things up. 😉
///Leif
SupraMkIII, I’ve got a new answer for you, just received from Keith Edwards. I edited the post above – read it again 😉.
///Leif
Hi Olli!
Thank you very much for your comments! 🙂 I’m glad you like Breakaway – I’m more than a little proud of it.
Yes, you do need two licenses – this is why we offer a multi-purchase discount.
However, don’t worry about the work-pc not being yours – when you get a new work PC (or change jobs), just uninstall it from the old work pc (we trust you) and then request a new serial number for the hardware ID of your new work PC.
///Leif
Hi James!
Not true – 1.01a is the version that’s been up almost since launch.
The new version everybody is waiting for is 1.02. 🙂
///Leif
Hi Peter!
I too would love a copy of that MP3 file – I have no idea how volume control could work for one MP3 file when it’s disabled for all others.
How about you post it here as an attachment for everyone who wants to look at it? 🙂
///Leif
Hi SupraMkIII!
Incidentally, a 1989 Supra Mk III was my first car! I loved that car 🙂.
The answer to your question is, Yes – definitely! Several customers have purchased multiple copies but did not have all the hardware IDs at the time of purchase. When we send the authorization key, we ask the customer to send us the new HW ID whenever they get it.
It helps if they use the same email address used during the purchase.///Leif
[This post edited after receiving clarification from Keith Edwards)
Actually that wasn’t me, but the answer MercSilver2004 gave is absolutely correct – thank you 🙂.
///Leif
Hi Jim!
That is in fact precisely what the volume control in Breakaway does.
It attenuates the signal using a high quality hf-shaped dithering algorithm, without modifying any sound card parameters.
So, to accomplish what you’re asking for, just turn down the volume in Breakaway. 🙂
///Leif
Hi efalck!
By any chance, are you using Windows Vista?
If so, it’s a known issue, and will be fixed in the next release. 🙂
///Leif
Hi Frank!
By "Preventing sleep mode" do you mean that when you try to make the computer sleep (by for example pressing the Sleep button), it doesn’t work?
Or, do you mean that it doesn’t sleep automatically anymore, because the computer thinks it’s active when Breakaway is running?
///Leif
Hi Johnny!
Strange problem. I really don’t know what’s going on (because there’s nothing in Breakaway that would delay the sound for that long), but here’s how I would narrow the problem down further.
The first thing I would find out was whether it’s a matter of Breakaway receiving audio and not passing it for a couple of seconds, OR if it’s a matter of OtsAV not sending audio for a couple of seconds.
This is a critical question, because if it’s a matter of OtsAV not sending the audio, there’s no way for me to fix the problem, even if it doesn’t happen without Breakaway, because it wouldn’t inherently be something Breakaway is doing.
To find this out, the first thing I would do is to play audio with Winamp for 24 hours, all other things being equal.
Still drops out? Okay, it’s Breakaway. No dropout? We’ll need to dig deeper.
Next thing I would do, I would make Winamp play a continuous test tone.. Let’s say a quiet (-24dB should do it) tone at 18000hz. Something I would be able to put up with listening to for 24 hours, but that could be detected on the sound card output.
With Winamp’s test tone playing (you could use the in_tone input plug-in), I’d start up OtsAV and play music the way you normally do.
Then, I would use a second computer to *record* the output of primary computer. When I heard a skip, I’d go look at the recording. During the period where the OtsAV music dropped out — i would see if the 18khz test tone is still there. If it is, OtsAV dropped out, Winamp didn’t – would have to be fixed by OtsAV developers.
If they BOTH dropped out, the next thing I would do keep the current computer (Winamp + OtsAV + Breakaway), but set up an audio recording app to record from Breakaway Pipeline. Next time I heard the dropout, I’d check the recorded file. Did they both drop out? I have a bug to report to Eugene Muzychenko. Did neither drop out in the recorded file? Leif has a bug to find and fix 😉.
I agree that this is a tremendous amount of work (kind of like thinking through and writing this email was). Unfortunately, troubleshooting always IS a lot of work – there’s no real way around it.
Let me know how it works out, or if you decide to just live with it for now 😉
///Leif
Hi Tino!
Indeed – although Aeromax will actually have a "breakaway-only" output, so you won’t have to run the current Breakaway at all – it’s included.
Aeromax will support HDFM, and yes – for latency that low, it’s a necessity.
The reason latency is a problem is that the hardware isn’t designed for low latency audio processing. The way the PCI bus is designed, it’s possible for one device to lock up the bus for undefined periods of time, and while the bus is locked, no other data can go through – including audio. The only way around this is buffering, and buffering = latency.
I once heard someone say something to the effect of, "with CPUs as fast as they are today, why does audio processing have any latency at all?". My jaw dropped, but I shut it again, not wanting to get into it at the time 😉. The thing is that algorithms can use the delay they (intentionally) introduce to their advantage. For example a look-ahead limiter, such as the ones in Breakaway, uses a very very tiny delay to know when a peak is coming.
In aeromax-hdfm, the delay comes from phase linear filters, advanced psychoacoustics, and a few other delay-based decision making algorithms I can’t reveal yet, and it adds up quickly.
Yes – Aeromax is multithreaded to use two cores in a dual-core cpu. A quad core CPU means you’ll have two cores free to do other things with 🙂.
OSX version, yes! It’s coming.
Linux version, no plans yet – it would be a major undertaking for me (especially since I have no Linux development experience) and closed source software is not what most users of this platform want, so I’m not sure the market is there.
///Leif
