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for mobile devices, HE and PS profiles of AAC have a pretty broad support in hardware over the last 5 years. most J2ME/Brew included, and of course any of the newer "soft" models with decent CPUs basically all have support for most of MPEG4 that’s used right now.
for mono, HE profile AAC is decent, and depending on the sample rate & the content you can get down below 16kbps (not including transmission protocol overhead).
but with PS profile AAC you can get a pretty darn good sounding stereo 44.1kHz at rates of 24kbps area (without overhead) so… and combine that with the probability of people plugging headphones of some kind into their phones these days… that’s an option that would be silly to ignore – more and more as we progress along the current path.
not to mention 24kbps 44kHz stereo PS-AAC sounding pretty great in cars too. 8)
if you want low bitrate mono for mostly speech only… XIPH’s Speex codec is the way to rock.
http://www.speex.org/Yeah we’ll have to see. For starters, the interface components were designed for EASY use with touch screens from the ground up. It has a built in keyboard as well, in case whatever device you’re using doesn’t have one. Way too many changes to mention in a simple post. The now unified GUI design itself is going to need its own "quick start" question in the manual to explain a few usability things. That’s basically what’ll be about to go into testing now, is the usability of the GUI.
[quote author=”godzfire”]So any updates for us Mac users?[/quote]
For an easy "OCD" compatible checkup…
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=942
You’ll see something there, if there’s any update worth knowing about imho… something you can install & use of course. 😀Otherwise… no. Leif has thought about starting a blog on the site. No promises, but that would really be the best way to get any insider information. Nothing Leif tells me comes with a "this is public information" "tag" attached to it… so I have to be very careful with what I say. Leif can say whatever he decides to, which could get you guys way more excited than I feel comfortable doing. (which is perhaps why I know things I can’t repeat in public)
Please don’t take it as me being snotty, or uptight. I’m just as addicted to Breakaway info, as I am to providing ideas to Leif. Mostly he tells me why I’m half loony to think of such an idea, but sometimes I suggest a real winner too. 8) And he tells me things about Breakaway that less than a handful of people will ever know. Something I still enjoy doing, and it benefits me directly without a doubt too. I won’t pretend I’m some selfless Mother Teresa of audio processing… SCREW that! 😀 I’m out to "win" in any markets/applications I’m involved with, and I’m taking most of my good personal secrets to the grave. 😆
Peace.
At the same time, I do totally understand where Silverfox is coming from. A "normal" release schedule is ESSENTIAL for some methods of development and business models. This is especially true for OpenSource.
Sadly OSS presents two problems for Breakaway. 1st of course is that there simply is not an OSS business model out there that involves anywhere near enough profit to provide free support. In fact, most of the models working very well for companies right now is charging for the support. (see also: Ubuntu, OpenOffice, MySQL, PHP/Zend, etc, etc, etc)
The 2nd problem is obvious to some people, not so obvious to others… Trade secrets. The audio processing scene is very friendly within the group of insiders from the various companies. But at the same time, people are taking some serious measure to prevent the disclosure of secrets within the products, weather it was entrusted to them by someone else or found completely on their own.
I don’t doubt that eventually someone will come up with a solution for the 1st problem of OSS. And if they are able to patent/servicemark that business method, then they will probably be the next Microsoft. 🙂
The second problem will never be solved.
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The OSS scene is massively effecting the software scene as a whole, so in that regard… I totally understand. 🙂 And as far as updates, new features etc, I’ve done a great job to explain not only why things haven’t been done as often (time) and how that will improve (the new framework), and why new features haven’t been added constantly (self preservation). I’m sorry if I’ve come across as "worked up".
And I did mean it, when I suggested that Silverfox, or anyone else, tells Leif how to do what he’s doing better. Nobody ever has "the best" idea. There’s usually a way to combine in some way with someone else’s ideas, to come up with something better as a whole, and… it would be stupid and silly to ignore such ideas, no? 8) Even bad ideas can be constructive.
[quote author=”silverfox”]Consider Breakaway to be a "no official technical support, borderline giveaway"
I find this shocking and if that was stated at the outset I doubt anyone would consider buying any product. (I hope you don’t actually mean that and are not serious)..It certainly was NOT the impression I got when I jumped on board, I was expecting a DJ product with "Normal" support and a release schedule with some updates and documentation. (Even if it was a sub product of something else)
UNBELIEVABLE!!!!![/quote]
Optionally, you can chose one of Breakaway’s competition, which do come with full support, but even less updates that also are only to fix bugs. (in contrast to Breakaway which *has* been adding new features that were never promised)
You’re looking at spending $1,000 to $3,000 and it’ll still be way more basic than Breakaway DJ… oh and you’ll need to buy two of them of course. So 2-6 grand to get into low-end ballpark for this kind of processing, at latency low enough to be used for DJing.
Or… If you want official 24/7 support for products based on some of the components of Breakaway, you’re welcomed to buy them in a form that is priced to consider this BUSINESS EXPENSE from the start.
http://www.linearacoustic.com/
prepare to write anywhere from $8,000 to $25,000 onto your check, depending on the features you want.—
"UNBELIEVABLE" or not, this is reality. I tried to tell you how this reality (which didn’t exist before Breakaway) is continuing to become better & better. Part of me says you don’t want to grasp what it means that Breakaway is created by just one guy who’s already super busy creating professional processors that are used on 80%+ of all digital TV right now, not to mention soon to be used on many more radio stations in its hardware version. And he still doesn’t have to deal with any of the support issues from those products, because support was built into the price to cover that business expense, and as such they can hire people to do it.
It would be nice to have documentation & 24/7 support for all of the products more fleshed out. Would you agree to pay 5-10 times more for Breakaway in order to have it?
As far as a "normal" release schedule, would you also agree to having to pay more & more for every single update as features are being added? Do you think that approach is better than free updates that simply fix bugs?
And what would constitute a "normal" release schedule, if updates were only being done to fix bugs, and there wasn’t even any known bugs? (i’m not saying Breakaway has zero bugs, or that no other bugged software effects Breakaway, i’m just proposing the question)
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Put yourself into Leif’s shoes, where he makes waaaay more money from non-Breakaway products that Breakaway is used within (which also btw happened long before Leif decided to make consumer/prosumer versions available).
You (as Leif) wanted to help out the community of hobbyist broadcasters, as well as average users that just watch videos and listen to mp3s. You also have zero time, and you’re already a work-a-haulic. So… what would you do? Would you make the price way higher to pay for the business expense of paying people to support the product 24/7? Would that then not defeat the whole idea of releasing something super cheap so that hobbyists and regular end users could afford it?
You couldn’t really cut many features (challenger, plugin loading, associated free apps, test tones, scope visuals, etc) because it’s already not too far from "what you need" bare minimums, and that wouldn’t cut the price at all anyways because they are features you already created. The reason you aren’t including a lot of other stuff is because you already make great money from your professional products, and WHY would you ever jeopardize those sales by giving away too many features?
Those are my questions to you Silverfox. You tell Leif how he could have done what he’s doing better than he is now, in a way that’ll make you happy. 🙂 And I’ll make sure he reads it.
I see your point. Maybe Leif shouldn’t have allowed people to buy the beta versions, to avoid this problem? 8) j/k
And you’re right, the product is a small part of something greater. Consider Breakaway to be a "no official technical support, borderline giveaway" of Leif, with the pricing just high enough to basically break even.
As far as "nothing to get excited about" please… don’t expect that. Breakaway, as a consumer/prosumer product, was around for 3+ years before the DJ product was made. It does what it does very well, and already has WAY more features than were ever originally considered at such a price range. There has never been any plans to add features to any Breakaway products, even though that’s what ended up happening, mostly before the DJ product was created.
If it just sits there, and does what it does very well, then WHY would there be updates at all? New presets, and changes to the core, are the only reason I can think of other than to fix any bugs of course. So far no updates have ever been done only to add presets. While there’s some amazing new presets… that’s slowed down a bunch too, for now.
Lastly… I’ll add that this complete recode (8+ months of hard work now) probably wouldn’t have ever happened if Breakaway wasn’t a "trickle down" of some things from Leif’s professional products… which have full 24/7 support on the phone (800#) and online… but also range to well over 10 grand in price. Breakaway users "lucked out" when Leif decided to do this at all. When Breakaway Broadcast came out especially, it was revolutionary within the industry!!! A HUUUUUGE paradigm shift for broadcasters, one that was expected for a while, but Breakaway did it first, and it still the only viable option available as software-only. I’m sorry you didn’t get to appreciate that too, as well as watching war hardened broadcasters getting blown away by how great it sounds. It was and still is something to get very excited about imho, if you consider that broadcast audio processing has been around since the 1930s.
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I’ll stop addressing these kinds of questions right now, cos I’m repeating myself.
[quote author=”hostmax”]well… I mean the shortcut keys like Word, Excel, Mail, ….. 🙂[/quote]
Yep, me too. Those all show up across the regular APIs used for getting the key press statuses of all of the other keys. It’s nothing special for Windows to deal with at all. That’s how I knew right off that it was a 95% chance some other software on your computer was hijacking the key presses. 8)
been busy… so uh, then what the problem is… is that something is already using your soundcard. that error only comes up with Kernel Streaming which is the preferred method to use if you want low latency.
so see if you can figure out what might be open that’s using your soundcard, even stuff that doesn’t seem like it might… such as a system tray icon or something. close it and figure out which thing it could be on your computer. 😉 you know what i mean.
[quote author=”hostmax”]though all other functional keys became just for "show"[/quote]
you might check to see if your particular media player has something that you can map other multimedia hotkeys with. i’m using one for winamp that allows any hotkeys including multimedia keys. 🙂 they are just keys really, they show up in windows as key presses. 8) never heard of the keyboard’s software itself hijacking them tho BY DEFAULT, that’s a new one. 😀 stupid crap. 😆
A lot of stuff is going on that you guys aren’t privy to, for internal reasons, and also because Breakaway is only one of many things Leif is working on. The new stuff is looking to be fantastic, and brings usability to another level in a way that’ll make processing engineer’s lives way way WAY easier. You have no idea how awesome and revolutionary to the way you use your processor… that the framework can allow. Not to mention quite a few completely new types of product classes.
Breakaway was in progress for way over a year before any version was made public, so considering that a nearly complete re-write of everything other than the processing core, with WAY more features, which will also allow Leif to church out new products WAY more quickly… will only take about 9 months total (about 7-8 months of work already)… is pretty great.
And of course the bonus really is that Leif will be able to release many more products, not just within the Breakaway product line too. Hopefully that balances out to more free time for Leif. 8) This guy needs a break, for real. 😈
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btw… DJ will be getting full TCV support with the new versions too, including a custom ASIO driver to interface directly with Breakaway so that the latency is the lowest that will ever be possible with ASIO processing. AKA… very very low. 🙂 It should be low enough to do intense (dmc level) scratching through Breakaway if your software (MixVibes DVS) and hardware (RME) and computer is good & stable enough. 😉
Breakaway DJ has a much better support team than you might guess, with experienced working DJs actively helping out.
you guys/gals will have to use something that can record and/or listen to the output of any soundcard… and then figure out where the audio stops happening at, to figure out where the problem is before.
If you remove the audio device then reboot, your plug & play OS will re-detect them and will probably automatically re-install the drivers. You only should disable them. They will remain disabled between reboots as well.
What I do is I have two soundcards out from several machines, into a digital switcher & speaker/headphone selection built into two boxes, one of them the converter. So in Winamp I’m setting the output to be VAC#2… I am using Virtual Audio Cable because there was an addition to the even newer VAC code that’s in BAP (Breakaway Pipeline) that wouldn’t be a good option for using with software like Breakaway. The reason is Breakaway has advanced resampling to keep different soundcards in sync with a virtually inaudible (in most cases it is completely inaudible all the time) adaptive sample rate correction.
The new code used in BAP has some weird extra stage that detects if a block of samples has been dropped and instead sends silence down the pipeline instead. Breakaway’s audio engine has been more than robust enough to handle that no problems, and no skipping. The new BAP however hasn’t always been perfect about always detecting when an audio block has been dropped or not, perhaps timed too fast or something.
Consider it a known rare bug for a while, and that the new versions will correct it. In the mean time, you might try a Virtual Audio Cable trial… and see if using a VAC fixes the problem.
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p.s. Volume Logic didn’t include linear-phase filtering. when used for streaming, do not end with particularly great results. I think I remember hearing from Leif that he thought Octamax filters were a tad better for streaming, but still nothing compared to something like Breakaway Live in linear mode. 🙂 The unfortunate side effect is delay, but I’m thinking I convinced Leif to include a new filter mode that may have some appeal in between the two opposing goals. And in some ways, me and a bunch of other people think… it may sound more musical on some presets. 🙂
Just the core has over 150 controls exposed within just the preset files so… Leif continued to perfect his method of allowing for relatively powerful meta controls to alter presets. Between the presets (there’s more coming too) and those meta-controls, you can get a surprisingly wide range of texture and level control.
I can’t wait for the next versions to come out. You guys will seriously freak. 8)
