Foobar2000 and other things digital

[Bob Brines]

Bob, I loaded Foobar and had a cheap DAC that comes out of a USB and has a RCA input and output. Foobar saw my wife's iTunes list and I have been listening to the Fleetwood Mac The Dance she recorded off of my CD. Sounds nice. Playing with the equalizer and it works fine. Not a lot of volume even when turned up all the way. May be the DAC I'm using. Have the DAC going into the second input of the Topping TP-60.

Will do more playing with it. I'm using a ADS tech instant music 16-bit/48kHz unit.

Have any helpful hints? If this is way off topic of this tread. Let me know if I need to start another tread or take this off line.

Kenny

Let's start a new thread here.

Foobar2000 is a great player and frighteningly frustrating to get it to do what you want it to do. The single biggest reason that I use it is that it is the only player that will allow me to list classical music in a reasonable way. The standard artist>album>song paradigm just won't work. I need composer>work>movement. By using Foobar2000 and the Columns UI GUI,I can use either sort when I need it.

For a DAC, get this one. It's the cheapest 24/96 DAC I have run across. Sound Blaster has a USB sound card it this price range than I haven't tried, but remember to disable all of the Creative DSP.

Setting up Foobar2000:

Loading components is a bit tricky. Download the components you need. They should be zip folders. It not we'll fix that later. Copy the downloaded zip folder. Bore down (assuming Windows 7) AppData>Roaming>Foobar2000>user components. Paste the zip folder here. I the file is a bare dll, create a folder of the same name and put the dll in it. Once you have your components loaded, start Foobar2000 and open the properties menu and open Components. Click on Apply and you are done.

Now go to Playback. You stated that output was weak. Assuming that you set the volume to max in the Windows>Sound>Playback to max and >Advanced: Exclusive Mode both checked, set the preamp control up to what ever you need.

Components you will definitely need: Columns UI and Graphic Equalizer. Use the Graphic Equalizer instead of the default. You will see why.

Good luck,
Bob

 

[loninappleton]

Well I for one am glad to see a new and what's new in Foobar 2000 thread. I had one going ages ago where VST by George Yohng is described and it is quite lengthy. Will see if I can look that up or if this thread gets unceremoniously moved.

I use Fb2000 in raw (no skins) form for classical music listening at a site that uses OGG format. It is now my "radio."

 

[loninappleton]

From above.

Here is the 'from scratch' foobar thread made a couple years ago.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/154413-foobar-audio-player-how-thread.html


I'm still only using the Dayton DTA-1 (Sonic Impact) tri-path amp connected to the AMD Regor based computer build I recently completed.

 

[IG81]

Foobar2000 is pretty good, although I have yet to use components extra to what is in the original pack. Into the Behringer UCA-222, DTA-1 and my FF125K mini-reflex, it makes for some great sound for a very low investment. While I will listen to some ripped CD's on it once in a while, SomaFM sees the most use on this rig.

IG

 

[Kenny Brant]

Thank you for the help.

Does anybody have a recommendation on a ADC unit so I can go from my preamp to computer so I can rip off my records to my computer?

A couple of yeas ago I used the ADS tech instant music 16-bit/48kHz unit to play with but didn't have the time to do much with it. I am retired and have more time now. It doesn't seem like I do as I seem to be more busy now then when I worked. LOL

Thanks, Kenny

 

[Kenny Brant]

OK, Bob what format are you using wav. or FLAC. I can get wav. to work but not FLAC. It goes thru all the steps and when it asks for folder and file name and I select it it just sets there and does nothing.

I figured out what I am going to do with my phono setup.

Thanks, Kenny

 

[von Ah]

I don't recall if f2k comes default with flac.exe, so what you're seeing is probably foobar looking for the codec. If the folder you select does not have flac.exe in it, download it from sourceforge and place it in a folder you can easily get to.

Are you going with the behringer uca 202 or 222 as a line into your PC? For the money, that little DAC can't be beat...

Cheers!

 

[Kenny Brant]

I don't recall if f2k comes default with flac.exe, so what you're seeing is probably foobar looking for the codec. If the folder you select does not have flac.exe in it, download it from sourceforge and place it in a folder you can easily get to.

Are you going with the behringer uca 202 or 222 as a line into your PC? For the money, that little DAC can't be beat...

Cheers!

Thanks, I'll look into downloading flac.exe and also into the behringer uca 202 or 222. Haven't really decided what hardware just know what I need to do to get it to work. I'm not going to rip all of my 4500 albums just the ones I like and aren't on CD.

Kenny

 

[Bob Brines]

The FLAC decoder is HERE. Download it and install it, probably in Program Files. Then, when you try to use a FLAC file, Fb2000 should ask where it is. For ripping CD's, you will need EAC. Finally, for MP3 filles, you will need LAME. If you need ACC or MP4, there are converters for that also.

Bob

 

[RETFYL]

If you use VST plugins look for TesslaPRO

 

[BudP]

If you want to avoid the extraordinary amount of time EAC takes to rip a CD, the very same code heads have provided DC Power Amp ripper.

dBpoweramp: CD Ripper & Audio Converter. Secure ripping to mp3, FLAC, m4a, Apple Lossless & WMA

Provides the same exacting standards, though they use an online database as a comparison, rather than multiple passes of your CD. About the same possibility for error in either case, but the time to copy factor with DB makes it very possible to rip a huge CD collection to hard drive. And, YOU REALLY WANT TO DO THIS!!!!!!!!!

Once you dedicate a lap top to music, have your files in FLAC or Wave 32 or 64 and also have a suitably large amount of solid state hard drive available as an E-SATA outboard and have applied fidelizer.

Windows X's Live | Fidelizer

to win 7 to turn off all of the errant windows interrupts.... well.... sell your CD player now, before the glut hits the market, you will never look back.

Bud

 

[Bob Brines]

I agree with Bud on CD players.I don't own one. When I do a show and someone gives me a CD to play, it goes into my laptop. I get some interesting looks on occasion.

But is probably right about dBpoweramp, but I don't do mass rippings andthe speed on EAC isn't a problem.

Bob

 

[loninappleton]

If you want to avoid the extraordinary amount of time EAC takes to rip a CD, the very same code heads have provided DC Power Amp ripper.

dBpoweramp: CD Ripper & Audio Converter. Secure ripping to mp3, FLAC, m4a, Apple Lossless & WMA

Provides the same exacting standards, though they use an online database as a comparison, rather than multiple passes of your CD. About the same possibility for error in either case, but the time to copy factor with DB makes it very possible to rip a huge CD collection to hard drive. And, YOU REALLY WANT TO DO THIS!!!!!!!!!

Once you dedicate a lap top to music, have your files in FLAC or Wave 32 or 64 and also have a suitably large amount of solid state hard drive available as an E-SATA outboard and have applied fidelizer.

Windows X's Live | Fidelizer

to win 7 to turn off all of the errant windows interrupts.... well.... sell your CD player now, before the glut hits the market, you will never look back.

Bud

Does Fidelizer work with Win XP and, if it reduces interrupts or timing elements (even on my new 3 core AMD,) does it eliminate dropouts when playing audio or even video streams? I usually have a background program going all the time.

 

[BudP]

It's supposed to work on everything from whatever was just before XP to 7. They actually have a very clear set of steps to go through and you can choose the level of turn off and do so step by step. Quite a friendly process but not easily reversible at the maximum level of off, which they themselves do not condone.

Fidelizer has eliminated USB interrupts in synchronous mode into my EMU 0204 D to A / A to D convertor. It had absolutely no effect with a borrowed Berkley Alpha DAC which has a USB to spdif dongle that enforces asynchronous USB behavior.

This is all above my pay grade by the way. The folks here on DIY who really seem to know this stuff in detail are over here,

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-source/185761-open-source-usb-interface-audio-widget.html

expect a LOT of acronyms to wade through.

 

[Kenny Brant]

OK, I got FLAC to work using Foobar. For right now I used flac-1.2.1b.exe. Now I'll upgrade to a better DAC.

Thanks everybody for your help.

Kenny

 

[loninappleton]

Re: Audio Widget above.

Thanks BudP for the details. I looked at the widget link and it sounded like they are trying to build a rocket ship. Many acronyms indeed.

But if there were a free software tool to get dropouts of audio on low dsl bandwidth such a timing thing would be helpful. It sounds like too many things have to be arm wrestled into place to do it. The simple answer is: if it were possible, somebody would have done it by now in operating system code.

Alternatively maybe a leaner OS like LiInux has solved the problem of dropouts. I can hear that it seems to be a buffering and catch up problem of the transmitted streaming audio.

These days I no longer know how increase the memory buffer size in the WinXp OS to take advantage of the increased memory on this new AMD Regor computer. But it's a next step to try. Frankly I do not know how to make a correct search engine phrase to even pose the question.

 

[GM]

Does this help?

increase memory buffer size in win xp - Google Search

Or in one of these links?

increase memory buffer size in win xp - Google Search

 

[loninappleton]

Does this help?

increase memory buffer size in win xp - Google Search

Or in one of these links?

increase memory buffer size in win xp - Google Search

Greg,

The magic word in google searches (or the newer search engine I've put on the computer called Ixquick) is 'solved.'

[Solved] HOW TO INCREASE BUFFER SIZE ON A PC - Configuration-Customize - Windows-XP

The other suggestions are what I call needle in the haystack searches-- something immensely popular with the Linux crowd.

But trying your syntax I found a "solved" a few items down. My problem is that going back to the days of building autoexec.bat files (files = 20 buffers = 50 or whatever) I did not know how the Microsoft gang might have masked user participation in recent years.

Now I have to see if it does any good.

Thanks for answering.

 

[loninappleton]

Off topic possibly but here is what the 'solved' link gave and what I did:

The exact keystroke sequence is:

Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced > Performance > Settings > Advanced

... then under 'Virtual Memory" hit the change button. Two numbers will be showing and minimum as maximum plus a number that shows "recommended" (mine was 4990.) I put that in the minimum slot and the maximum slot and a reboot showed that the increase was implemented.

Now we'll see if it eliminates dropouts.


[Word: yes, 'Advanced' is used twice in two different subheadings. Jeez.]

;-)

 

[BudP]

For those who haven't yet found it, and care, here is the technical companion to the previous thread I pointed to.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digi...ifo-project-ultimate-weapon-fight-jitter.html

Bud