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Or just stay using the old version until something that I found is wrong with these new Virtual Audio Cables is fixed.
That is… for some reason the VAC coder has added the ability for the cables to over-run and under-run (which injects silent blocks into the PCM stream) instead of just waiting/pausing for new packets to come in. Under extremely high CPU load (like 90% lol) this *could* cause under-runs or over-runs to happen even when there’s still CPU left.
I had this problem with the new Breakaway Pipelines, so had to go back to using the regular VAC when I’m using BBP here. If you check in your Breakaway Pipeline Configuration app, you should see (or not see) two columns to the far right that say over-runs and under-runs, or something to that effect (I think I remember it being abbreviated). Monitor those numbers while you’re getting the skipping, and if they are increasing then that’s not good.
That "feature" technically shouldn’t be needed of Breakaway Pipeline because all of the Breakaway products have adaptive multi-phase resampling to balance any time difference between audio devices. I’ve already brought this to Leif’s attention.
[quote author=”camclone”] !! Maiby a preset that has the 3 first bands proccesing focus on LOW BASS FREQUENCIES ?!?!?!
wow , can you imagine ?! a preset that has the 3 of the 6 bands focused on that low low deep wow wow bassy frequencies..
🙂can JessieG or Leif make such an Earthquake preset ?!??!!??[/quote]
It could be done if the core was altered, but I digress. For FM/AM the issue is more in the clipper design. Leif still does have a few tricks up his sleeve that will be revealed when the Breakaway "hardware" box comes out, and one of them involves the clipper and bass transients. I was talking about this with him about 3 weeks ago, and I ended up "drilling down" my idea into what turned out to be something he had already done before. Awesomeness. 😆 So if that ends up working out without causing anything else to become less awesome, you can expect it in the full hardware monte, at least.
Man, Leif is "maxin’ out chillin" y’all. Witness the rare Audicus Phreaticus species in its natural habitat:
[quote author=”Leif”]Winamp plug-ins use 16-bit integers. Thus, they clip at 0dB — there’s no headroom.[/quote]
While it hasn’t been true of the SDK for a few years, it still is true even for most plugins to be released/updated since the support came out. A very good point you make there. Like, Duh. 😉Cheers, hopefully your move went great.
[quote author=”knigget”]Where is the 15khz filter applied (providing of course that you have set it to 15khz)? If BBP is set to output @0db, how sure can we be that between BBP and the line output, noise and crap above 15khz isn’t being added?[/quote]
BBP doesn’t have a diagram on this topic, that being said… I’ll answer your question anyways.
BBP’s low-pass filter is before the L/R clipper. Nothing at all above the low-pass filter is getting added except for an extremely low level high frequency noise that’s part of the dithering algorithm. (we’re talking under -84dB, and up to half is only quantization noise under -90dB)
The BBP clipper is not followed by any protection clipper for digital sample loudness, so it’s possible that now and then you could get a slight clip if your output is exactly at 0.0db. If you go into "Calibration" and set the "L/R Ref Level" to -0.2dB, you should completely remove all chance of not only digital sample values clipping, but TruePeak (4x oversampled) clipping, and "overs" out of the analog output, assuming your output is to spec and has a flat frequency response. (but that’s not too horribly important, it should be darn close anyways)
This assumes that you have NO needed tilt or EQ correction. If you’re using those features too then you’ll have to compensate further as the peak control will get biased based on the inverse of your exciter/transmitter/etc bias.
Check out the output on a spectrograph like MPX Tool, or open a stereo recording of the L/R output in an audio editor that has a spectral view like Adobe Audition. There really isn’t anything up there but slight dither noise, despite the clipper being after the low-pass filter, where it needs to be.
So yeah, final answer, no. No "crap" is getting added at all. The clipper really is that pristine. 🙂
Or better yet, the ability to load the "before" winamp plugins after the Breakaway AGC. I can’t remember if I’ve directly suggested it to Leif before, but I still think it’s not a bad idea, even if it does add a slight delay.
I have a preset coming, called "Motor City", that I’m fairly sure of (already) will blow Leif’s socks off once he gets back online to hear it. (he’s in the middle of moving, and probably doesn’t have internets at home yet, so he’s hunched at a cafe somewhere the last week, i’m totally guessing)
And hopefully it blows some of your minds too… At least from what I’ve heard from it so far, compared to any of the other "loud" presets, it has the most of the original transient impact but at the same time is possibly only beat on spectral consistency by New York… and maybe Plutonium/Rusticity/Rustonium somewhere in the same ballpark but maybe a few runs behind. But I’m not going to say that without a doubt yet, but yeah…
6 months in development so far, at any rate, and I can’t wait for everyone to hear it, so… I’m hoping to get it into the Breakaways within the next 1-3 releases… Leif willing. 8)
Well Rusticity ’83 was kind of an afterthought, but ’73 is for sure coming back. It’s definitely a preset that focuses on keeping midrange super duper solid, and for music styles that don’t rely (or want) tons of bass or treble on, the preset can sound less processed but still louder than any other on air.
That argument was enough to have Leif reconsider ’73.
But yeah I agree with you, it’s a great preset when it’s the kind of sound you want (and the bass boost can be used too of course). Imho unmatched for oldies that should still sound like oldies, just consistent. 😉 Actually for the ABBA vs ABBA at the beginning of Leif’s torture test, I have not heard a better consistency between the two.
I think it would be a bad thing if all presets ended up having the same spectral balance with loud input. True, that each preset really has most of its personality between the loud parts, but there should be a few presets with good personality even when "cranked", and Rusticity is one of them.
Moon & Spoon I don’t have a problem with seeing gone, but… for Disco, which it was made for, it is actually bloody fantastic. For every other format I’ve tried it with it’s totally whack. I won’t deny that. 🙂
[quote author=”Leif”]Also, all Breakaway versions (even the $29 one) uses an advanced ultrasonic noise dithering algorithm for the output, which to me sounds perfectly clean even turning the volume down to -40dB.[/quote]
Actually… the testing and comparisons we did were gained up nearly 80db. Breakaway’s dithering compared VERY favorably to all of the other top high-end dithering & noise-shaping algorithms. There was only 1 or 2 others that I would consider had as low a dithering noise level as Breakaway’s, and the design of Breakaway’s is 100% sound (pun intended), so it’s absolutely doing its job.If you wonder what the 1-2 others were that I thought came out the best… it was Izotope’s MBit+, and the shaped TPDF from Voxengo Elephant 3. Consolation prize on noise level going to Apogee UV22 HR, but overall consolation prize going to POW-r 2 simply because it sounds more transparent and has way less potential to create a "whine" sound if there’s aliasing after it.
[quote author=”powerjam”]I just thought it would work with the kernel streaming driver mode also.[/quote]
A few soundcards/converters don’t support kernel streaming actually. It’s rare, but happens. My Apogees for instance… no kernel streaming with the default or Apogee-supplied drivers.It could, but it’s best setup on its own audio card, probably on its own computer, since you’ll wanna use ASIO for ~no delay, and making sure that it’s glitch free. Not to mention it should have its own screen at the FOH position so FOH engineer can tweak it if needed, or at least monitor it. Not to mention Breakaway RTA & a reference RTA mic is pretty sweet even if you’re using Breakaway’s multiband processing as well to make it set & forget. 😉
Live/BBP might see the return of Rusticity. Did you try this preset before it was removed? Did you like it?
[quote author=”Dr.J”]This may or may not be related, but when I use an M-Audio Fastrack Pro USB soundcard with my laptop, I will have serious sound issues if I don’t use the EXACT same USB port that I originally installed it on. This might offer an explanation as to why the sound is perfect some days but not others, if not, I guess I’ve only wasted a minute or two of your time.
Good luck with your trouble shooting.[/quote]
What you could try, while it’s plugged in, is going to your device manager, right click on the device, and "Update Drivers…" using the automaticaly find option (not the internet), and it’ll make sure that all of the components of the driver are loaded from the newest version in your driver cache.
Sometimes installing a device on USB and then moving to another device it won’t use all of the driver’s components for some reason, on some windows machines. I have an XP system that does it right here.
France has about the cheapest, partly because it’s subsidized by their government. 🙂 Imagine that, from maybe the only country with an absolutely vigilant voting process.
Anyways, the current prices to expect for a french dedi is roughly…
30 EU/m for atom on 100 Mbit unmetered
50 EU/m for core2 on 100 Mbit unmetered
100 EU/m for Xeon quad on 2 Gbit unmeteredNot shabby boxes from what I’ve seen from various places too, with 500GB upwards 2TB of storage, on good chipsets, on good networking to big exchanges. And the bandwidth… 😯
I still vote no for it. It’s a potentially dangerous "feature" because there are people uneducated enough to use it when it really does make the sound worse.
Think of it this way. If you’re not experienced enough to figure out how to do this with your cabling, or on your mixer/s, then you have no business making the decision in the first place. 😉
[quote author=”George”]And the name of this software that you can adjust the output level ??? 😯
Nice also the selection of bandwidth but, for 128K mp3 with LAME there is a "wall"
at 17500Hz. I’ve change the configuration file of edcast to have 19000Hz at 128K
but the results are not so good.
Tracks with freq. close to 19-20Khz sounds better if you lock the encoder bandwith
at 16000Hz.
That was also Leif’s suggestion and has absolutely right.[/quote]
It depends on the version of lame, the encoder settings, and what the original content is. Obviously if your speakers don’t play accurately above 16kHz that could also sound better because you’re not giving them a chance to screw up your audio. LOTS of reasons that one or the other could sound better or worse. ;P[quote author=”Dj Buik”]He’s got a point. Also in (large) disco’s you do not need stereo sound.
In certain places mono is better than stereo.[/quote]
Tell that to Ministry of Sound, or any other club DSL has handled. Better yet, audition one of his systems and compare stereo to mono.You’ll find it is needed and makes a huge difference if the system design doesn’t suck. The problem is the system design, not the source or the room/place. But I do agree with you, some systems are designed so badly that mono actually sounds better. Sad but true, but still not a constant.
