WASAPI Output Plugin 'Maiko' (VISTA & later only) - Page 6

SilverBird775 · 13th October 2011, 17:10

hotfix

0.38

Aminifu · 14th October 2011, 10:40

Hi SilverBird775,

Thanx for the feedback. Forgot to welcome you back with v0.36.... WELCOME

The stereo of v0.38 shared mode does sound good. Tried using Creative's CMSS to
upmix channels after Maiko's processing. Works, but I do not like the distribution.

May get 2.0 to 5.1 mixing by the end of year holidays. Controllable mixing after that?
Ok, that would be great.

jesaja · 14th October 2011, 21:33

Hi SilverBird775.

I'm new on the Winamp Forum. I want to thank you for your excellent effort in creating this plugin! With this I have a much better sound quality in my system than ever before, with smooth yet detailed highs and a very spacious and deep sound stage. I have tried three other software players before converting to Winamp+Maiko (Foobar2000, J-River, HQPlayer).

I am using it in upsampling mode (24/96) together with the SuperEQ plugin (for room correction) and the Line-in plugin for connecting it with XBMC and Spotify via Virtual Audio Cable. It's really great to be able to use the benefits from the SuperEQ+Maiko combination also when listening to streaming music (Spotify) and watching movies and live concerts (XBMC). That has not been possible with any other software player I have tried. Since I only have a stereo setup all multi channel sources have to be downmixed to 2.0 in XBMC before sending to Winamp. I made an effort in sending 5.1 and letting Maiko do the downmix but couldn't get the Line-in plugin to accept this. Don't know if this is related to the Line-in plugin or Maiko, all parts of the chain are supposed to support multichannel so I was a bit puzzled. Not a big issue, though!

Since i am running Windows 7 and using a USB Dac (Hegel HD2) I cannot use the exclusive mode. It creates a lot of audible hick-ups for me. The only exlusive mode that has ever worked in a stable manner for me was J-Rivers "Wasapi Event Style". Though, as far as I was able to compare, I didn't notice an increased sound quality in exclusive mode - listening between the hick-ups. This was very surprising for me; audiophiles like myself are usually very anal about using exlusive mode; we think it's the only way to achieve good sound quality in Windows. But then again, my settings are so far from bit-perfect as it can possibly get since I am using both EQ and upsampling (DAC is upsampling type as well). Maybe I won't benefit from exclusive mode but others will.

One issue that seems to have been improved with the latest version (went from 0.35 -> 0.38) is the buffer control. When using the Line-in plugin the Maiko buffer fill was dangerously small with 0.35 but with 0.38 it stabilizes around ~25%. Don't know if that was an intended improvement from your part (?) but an improvement it is nonetheless. :-) When playing audio files I have never had an issue, buffer looks to be around 90% all the time. Seeing the buffer fill is by the way a great help when tweaking the clock correction in Virtual Audio Cable.

Again, thanks very much for your hard and inspired work in making this plugin; you have truly taken Winamp to a new audiophile level! Will return with any additional feedback I can think of.

Best regards

Aminifu · 15th October 2011, 02:59

Hi jesaja,

Welcome to the forum. Are you referring to the Shibatch equalizer plugin on the main
site? Is that the latest version? I do not consider myself an audiophile, but I do
appreciate good sound quality. As you have discovered, Winamp with the right plugins
is hard to beat. I'm also new to the forum, but have been using Winamp since the late
nineties. Have tried many other players, but keep coming back to Winamp.

I purchased the iZotope Ozone DSP plugin for room correction and other 'enhancements'.
It does a great job IMO, but has not been updated in years. Would like to compare it to
the Shibatch. Could you PM (private message) me some setup tips?

Thanx.

jesaja · 15th October 2011, 12:01

Hi Aminifu,

Yes, you are assuming correctly. I use the Shibatch EQ 0.03, which can be downloaded from http://shibatch.sourceforge.net/. The Line-in plugin I use is v1.80, by Jasper van de Gronde (http://home.hccnet.nl/th.v.d.gronde/).

Will PM you some EQ setup tips!

Best regards

michelcharles · 15th October 2011, 17:26

Hi all,

First of all, many thanks to SilverBird775. That plug-in works well (for me) and it is a real (sonic) improvement.

One thing I noticed:
version 0.35 / on any track
In shared mode / Last line of Status log read:
Peak output loudness detected: (a value) db

version 0.38 / same track as above
In shared mode / Last line of Status log read:
Peak output loudness detected: 0.000000 db (no value)

Is it just me?

Thanks again, anyway.

SilverBird775 · 15th October 2011, 19:34

The loundness monitor is disabled, it is okay. The change log explain it:

Loudness monitor feature disabled due to structural incompatibility.

It will be reenabled as soon as the new core would be ironed out. In fact the monitor needs to be rewritten as well. Sorry there is no ETA, everything has been changed dramatically.

Exclusive mode glitches (bit-copy mode stuttering) and core design finalization is atop of my concern now.

SilverBird775 · 15th October 2011, 20:06

jesaja
Shibatch EQ looking like a stereo tool. Try to exclude it from processing chain before playing 5.1

Could be wrong because i've just seen plugin screenshots. Anyway worth a try.

michelcharles · 15th October 2011, 21:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilverBird775

The loundness monitor is disabled, it is okay. The change log explain it:

Loudness monitor feature disabled due to structural incompatibility.

It will be reenabled as soon as the new core would be ironed out. In fact the monitor needs to be rewritten as well. Sorry there is no ETA, everything has been changed dramatically.

Exclusive mode glitches (bit-copy mode stuttering) and core design finalization is atop of my concern now.

My bad, sorry. I did not read the change log properly.

Thanks for the quick answer.

jesaja · 16th October 2011, 10:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilverBird775

jesaja
Shibatch EQ looking like a stereo tool. Try to exclude it from processing chain before playing 5.1

Could be wrong because i've just seen plugin screenshots. Anyway worth a try.

Yes, you're right, the EQ is only stereo, but removing it doesn't help. The Line-in plugin keeps reporting "the format you have chosen is not supported by the device you're using". I have surround sound enabled in Winamp's preferences and my virtual devices (Virtual Audio Cable) are set accordingly so I don't know where the Line-in plugin gets this information. It should only be talking to the virtual device in one end and Maiko in the other. Does Maiko "report" anything regarding the number of channels supported by the hardware?

Best regards

SilverBird775 · 17th October 2011, 10:13

Could be so, though that is the unnatural way to misspell the output plugin by output device. The output device is controlled by output plugin. The input plugin have a control over the functional black box which the output module is.
But the line-in plugin have the control over real devices, the input devices they are. Since the line-in plugin is opening the input device with a DirectSound API (most likely so) it is limited to the WASAPI's shared mode analogue. There may compatibility issues arise. I'd check the recording device settings in Windows mixer, each input device have the common default shared settings as well as the output devices.

Aminifu · 17th October 2011, 11:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilverBird775

I'd check the recording device settings in Windows mixer, each input device have the common default shared settings as well as the output devices.

Hi SilverBird775,

All my recording devices in the Windows sound control panel, even the Digital input,
only have 2 channel level adjusters. I thought I could input and record multi-channels
thru the Digital input. Now I'm confused.

How does a multi-channel digital signal come in?

SilverBird775 · 17th October 2011, 12:45

As expected. I've never recorded 5.1 on Vista/W7 before but given the DirectSound is stacked upon WASAPI shared mode the only sure way for input is Exclusive mode WASAPI recording. Because the Shared mode WASAPI adopt the settings from the mixer panel there is not much DirectSound can do except its own processing.

It seems you need another line-in plugin.

jesaja · 18th October 2011, 21:13

Hi Silverbird775,

When setting up a Virtual Audio Cable for multichannel the appropriate options arise in the shared mode settings for the recording device, so I have had both the virtual cable and the virtual recording device set to 6 channels. But the line-in plugin still doesn't accept it. Perhaps it is something to do vith the way it communicates with Windows 7. The Line-in plugin is, after all, very old. It could be that the two have communication problems...

Best regards

SilverBird775 · 19th October 2011, 11:28

jesaja

What the Maiko's Status log Input stream format saying when trying the multichannel line in? If there is no 5.1 (DVD) input indication it's not the problem within Maiko.

jesaja · 19th October 2011, 13:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilverBird775

jesaja

What the Maiko's Status log Input stream format saying when trying the multichannel line in? If there is no 5.1 (DVD) input indication it's not the problem within Maiko.

I don't even get that far. :-) The Line-in plugin won't start playing at all, just giving an error message. But I don't think the problem is in Maiko, either, more likely in the Line-in plugin, or perhaps its combination with Windows 7.

Best regards

audioamper · 25th October 2011, 19:38

Thanks a lot for the updates SilverBird775. It'd be nice if you could add an option to not show the tray icon. Maybe assign a (editable?) hotkey to bring up the properties?

SilverBird775 · 25th October 2011, 20:15

May be.

The icon hiding option sounds fair. The hotkey is a bit unjustified to my taste, we'll see. If the is no clean, light solution for the hotkey there would be no hotkey then. Definately there would be no global hotkeys. Any bit of code bogging down the player's response and lightness is out of question.

I'm aiming to the most minimalistic solution, not simple but justified, nothing extra.

audioamper · 26th October 2011, 13:41

Thanks SilverBird775. Do you know if it's possible for Winamp to first decode the whole track into RAM and then start playback from memory? I've read somewhere this could improve quality and it'd be quite interesting. There's a software player that does just that, but its in beta with a very spartan gui (PurePlayer, an interesting project here in Greece, can be downloaded here). What's more, I am now moving lots of files between my hdd's, and Winamp playback suffers (small pauses/gaps). No such problem with the "ram" player.

SilverBird775 · 26th October 2011, 19:58

audioamper
I know it and tried it before, very nice player. It's the audiophile player. Although i'm not quite into the Ultimate RAM players. There could be better results with a more rational approach i believe. The player should be comfortable to use IMO.

You can see the audiophile player choice of mine on my homepage. It do officially support the Maiko plugin too. It have very spartan GUI too, but highly intuitive. I like it, the author have a very balanced design vision and good hearing sense. This make a cooperation fruitful.

The audiophile players are kind of overkill. Their acceptance is very individual, most see no quality difference at all but every one do always notice the striking usability trade offs. While supporting the mainstream winamp i'm keeping the audiophile auditory and audiophile player in mind.

Audiophile players are very niche and cannot possibly compete with a mainstream players. They are different. You dont want to mod winamp to be the RAM player, cause this will make it unbalanced solution.

Aminifu · 27th October 2011, 01:20

Hi audioamper,

The Winamp MPEG Audio Decoder (in_mp3.dll), listed in the input plugins, can be
configured to buffer the entire file from disk. By default it does this for files less
than 128 kilobytes. I assume the workable upper limit would depend on the amount
of RAM in your system.

audioamper · 27th October 2011, 10:49

Thanks a lot SilverBird for the info.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aminifu

Hi audioamper,

The Winamp MPEG Audio Decoder (in_mp3.dll), listed in the input plugins, can be
configured to buffer the entire file from disk. By default it does this for files less
than 128 kilobytes. I assume the workable upper limit would depend on the amount
of RAM in your system.

Thanks Aminifu! Yes, it seems to work just fine (I've set it to 40MB) - too bad it's not possible with the flac decoder.

bit-perfect_fan · 2nd November 2011, 13:56

thanks for the new updates. unfortunately, there are still problems with exclusive mode.

even when setting the latency to 1000ms, playback of 96kHz barely works when I dont do anything else. is there any chance to implement such an automatic latency adaptation mechanism as for example the adionsoft plugin has ("Automatically reconnects and increases buffer size if required")? that would imho be the best solution when working with windows at the same time.

ticking slave to input sample rate is even more problematic atm, it seems like I cant even enter value of 1000ms and playback is even worse then.

other than that, lots of error messages I am not supposed to see and winamp crashes

SilverBird775 · 2nd November 2011, 17:29

bit-perfect_fan

latency adaptation mechanism
Its too abstract to me. The chosen buffer size is either works or not. So no such a functionality is planned yet. The Adionsoft plugin is using the different rendering engine, so its behaviour may differ from Maiko. Even then i do barely understand what latency adaptation mechanism is actually meant for. Its some troubleshooting option, not a regular one. Anyone who understand how this feature works are welcome to explain it.

barely works
Check your PM.

bit-perfect_fan · 9th November 2011, 19:34

it simply ensures that you dont have to choose different latency values depending on how much load is on your system at a given time.

when doing nothing but listening to music, you can choose a really low latency. but already when opening some progs or sometimes even scrolling in your browser, there could be some dropout for few seconds. so depending on what you do while listening to music, you'd have to adjust the latency value manually all the time.

with an automatic latency adaption, you can even unrar and listening to 96kHz files without much trouble. with adionsoft there are some dropouts for 2-3 seconds after you start unraring, but they then disappear, because the plugin automatically adjusts to the new amount of load the system is working with and those dropouts then disappear without that you have to readjust anything yourself.

but maybe dont do anything yet, wrote this before I tested the beta. will come back to this if I should encounter latency problems.

SilverBird775 · 9th November 2011, 21:41

I see...

The Adionsoft plugin have a different kind of renderer, i simply cannot do the same tricks.

Oh wait... I can! Yet there is a possibility i can do *almost* the same feature thanks too very smart processor design but generally i'm not a fun of super loose behaviour. It's a computing anarchy LOL. Buffer autoadjusting is too wild concept. Hate memory fragmentation - it's a big no-no for audiophile grade plugins.

I cannot expand the client buffer in dynamic but i could attach the secondary non fixed buffer over it. It's already exist but i may just loose the size restrictions.

Okay, thank you for explaining it. Will think about, sure.

bit-perfect_fan · 14th November 2011, 08:50

browsing normally and windows stuff works fine with the current buffer system, as well as unraring to another HDD does.

but when unraring stuff on the same HDD, then buffer begins to run empy, especially with the higher bitrate and sample rate filetypes. so in these situations a kind of dynamic buffering could be of help.

SilverBird775 · 14th November 2011, 09:45

But what the rules could be for a buffer size shrink? Saying dynamic means it expanding and shrinking by some rules. So expanding could be triggered by stuttering but what event could trigger the shrink?

bit-perfect_fan · 16th November 2011, 03:49

I guess there must be some kind of measurement of the current buffer size compared to the maximum buffer size, some relationship (either in absolute terms or %). that relationship would increase if the current buffer drops due to less affecting the system. and after a certain point of increase (like always 200ms below maximum or some kind of % of the maximum), the value for max buffer would be decreased as well.

or something like that I guess :P

could you please remove the "exclusive mode override" message at the beginning of playback?

its a bit annoying, I only use exclusive mode and am well aware that the exlusive mode is running and all other sounds are muted.

while you are at it, it would be nice to be able to remove the tray icon as well. once set up, I dont need to go into maiko options any more.

Aminifu · 12th December 2011, 01:22

Hi SilverBird775,

I've been testing Maiko version 0.43. There seems to be random buffer underruns or something else that is causing files to randomly skip during playback. I first noticed this in version 0.42 and it got worse in 0.43.

Aminifu · 12th December 2011, 11:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aminifu

Hi SilverBird775,

I've been testing Maiko version 0.43. There seems to be random buffer underruns or something else that is causing files to randomly skip during playback. I first noticed this in version 0.42 and it got worse in 0.43.

Please disregard this post. The skipping occurred while multitasking Winamp with other resource heavy apps. It does not occur when running Winamp alone.

SilverBird775 · 12th December 2011, 16:01

Adjusting the buffer size and boosting Winamp priority may help.

Decreasing the heavy apps priorities will help tremendously as well.

Aminifu · 13th December 2011, 05:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilverBird775

Adjusting the buffer size and boosting Winamp priority may help.

Decreasing the heavy apps priorities will help tremendously as well.

Hi,

Adjusting buffer size and Winamp priority did not help. Decreasing priorities of the other apps did. Thank you for the suggestions. Windows Vista and 7 are supposed to have adjusted the multitasking of audio apps with other apps to address this issue. I guess whatever was done needs more work.

SilverBird775 · 13th December 2011, 07:57

Not much can be improved i'm afraid. When the application asks for priority boost there is no way to automatically sort out the audio playback threads from encoders for example. Everyone wants to be atop, that is just so mean. The program itself should notify the scheduler that there is no strict timing required but not much programs do this actually.

Another problem that the Windows is boosting the foreground application priority. I can sure guess that would be not a player for a most time. Thus the audio player will get in disadvantage again. Likely it can be "fixed" by reconfiguring the Processor scheduling strategy this way:
System Properties dialog - Advanced tab - Processor scheduling panel - Adjust for best performance of radio button set on "Background services".

Aminifu · 13th December 2011, 08:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilverBird775

Another problem that the Windows is boosting the foreground application priority. I can sure guess that would be not a player for a most time. Thus the audio player will get in disadvantage again. Likely it can be "fixed" by reconfiguring the Processor scheduling strategy this way:
System Properties dialog - Advanced tab - Processor scheduling panel - Adjust for best performance of radio button set on "Background services".

Again, a good suggestion, but I had already set this option for 'Background services'.

I had used a utility in the past (can't remember its name at the moment) that would change selected apps priorities, up or down as desired. But, its not a big deal to use the Task Manger to change priorities when I'm multitasking apps that interfere with Winamp playback.

Aminifu · 7th January 2012, 12:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aminifu

I had used a utility in the past (can't remember its name at the moment) that would change selected apps priorities, up or down as desired. But, its not a big deal to use the Task Manger to change priorities when I'm multitasking apps that interfere with Winamp playback.

The utility is called "Process Lasso". It is supposed to improve a PC's responsiveness and stability via automatic process priority and affinity optimization. I have a fairly fast system and this utility did not help with the rare and random response issues I have experienced due to multitasking certain groups of apps. When a lag occurred, it did not last long enough for the utility to respond to it.

What "Process Lasso" does seems like a good idea, but (as previously stated) I have better luck on my system using the Task Manager to manually adjust priorities and/or cpu core affinities when needed.

baunegaard · 16th March 2012, 19:05

Fantastic plugin here! Just what i have been looking for!

One question though, what does the automate mixer does? I have enabled all exclusive settings for gaining bit perfect, but what to do with the mixer? I just want a completely untouched signal, du i turn of automate or what?

Thanks in behalf for a simply outstanding plugin

SilverBird775 · 16th March 2012, 20:06

Hi, glad you liked it.

The mixer automation do the channel fill on it's own. When disabled, it let the user to set his own channel matrix and matrix balance. But for a forced bit-copy this option is irrelevant.

To get the sure forced bit copy you need to check the boxes 1,2,8,9,10 (exclusive enable, all slaves, volume control disable)

But generally you don't exactly need to disable volume control or enforce the slave options because the plugin recognise when input and output match. Well, check out the Status Log explanation. The Processing Strategy segment of the log window will give you a hint does a streaming done via pristine bit-copy routine or the bit-copieness is not certain.
So, even for a top class converters i'd recommend 2 along with 4 and 6 exceptions i.e. to process when otherwise would be a certain failure.

12 to your taste. It controls should the plugin occupy the device even when not playing something or not. Well, reversed - not checked means greedy, it do not let anyone to play anything until winamp unload.

baunegaard · 17th March 2012, 17:30

Thank you for clearing that up SilverBird

I have run into some trouble with the plugin, im using a optical output on my onboard ALC889A, Music is sounding great, but after a couple of song changes, winamp stops playing and gives me an "E_DEVICE_IN_USE" then i have to restart winamp to make it work again, this has become quite annoying.

Hope this is a problem that can be done something too.

mark007 · 17th March 2012, 19:30

I've been using this plugin for many months now and its fantastic. I'm using it on analog HDAV Deluxe output in Windows 8 without a problem.

Just one question, should the mixer settings in its control panel save? I just want to have same output as input, ie each channel in goes to same channel out so filled in the matrix manually but can't seem to get it to save my settings. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

13th October 2011, 17:10	#201
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	hotfix 0.38 Maiko WASAPI output plugin ☆ Compatibility adapter for legacy winamp 2.9x (it's best to not use the old software!)

2nd November 2011, 13:56	#223
bit-perfect_fan Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 11	thanks for the new updates. unfortunately, there are still problems with exclusive mode. even when setting the latency to 1000ms, playback of 96kHz barely works when I dont do anything else. is there any chance to implement such an automatic latency adaptation mechanism as for example the adionsoft plugin has ("Automatically reconnects and increases buffer size if required")? that would imho be the best solution when working with windows at the same time. ticking slave to input sample rate is even more problematic atm, it seems like I cant even enter value of 1000ms and playback is even worse then. other than that, lots of error messages I am not supposed to see and winamp crashes Last edited by bit-perfect_fan; 2nd November 2011 at 14:59.

2nd November 2011, 17:29	#224
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	bit-perfect_fan latency adaptation mechanism Its too abstract to me. The chosen buffer size is either works or not. So no such a functionality is planned yet. The Adionsoft plugin is using the different rendering engine, so its behaviour may differ from Maiko. Even then i do barely understand what latency adaptation mechanism is actually meant for. Its some troubleshooting option, not a regular one. Anyone who understand how this feature works are welcome to explain it. barely works Check your PM. Maiko WASAPI output plugin ☆ Compatibility adapter for legacy winamp 2.9x (it's best to not use the old software!)

16th March 2012, 20:06	#238
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	Hi, glad you liked it. The mixer automation do the channel fill on it's own. When disabled, it let the user to set his own channel matrix and matrix balance. But for a forced bit-copy this option is irrelevant. To get the sure forced bit copy you need to check the boxes 1,2,8,9,10 (exclusive enable, all slaves, volume control disable) But generally you don't exactly need to disable volume control or enforce the slave options because the plugin recognise when input and output match. Well, check out the Status Log explanation. The Processing Strategy segment of the log window will give you a hint does a streaming done via pristine bit-copy routine or the bit-copieness is not certain. So, even for a top class converters i'd recommend 2 along with 4 and 6 exceptions i.e. to process when otherwise would be a certain failure. 12 to your taste. It controls should the plugin occupy the device even when not playing something or not. Well, reversed - not checked means greedy, it do not let anyone to play anything until winamp unload. Maiko WASAPI output plugin ☆ Compatibility adapter for legacy winamp 2.9x (it's best to not use the old software!)

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14th October 2011, 10:40	#202
Aminifu Forum King Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 2,012	Hi SilverBird775, Thanx for the feedback. Forgot to welcome you back with v0.36.... WELCOME The stereo of v0.38 shared mode does sound good. Tried using Creative's CMSS to upmix channels after Maiko's processing. Works, but I do not like the distribution. May get 2.0 to 5.1 mixing by the end of year holidays. Controllable mixing after that? Ok, that would be great.

14th October 2011, 21:33	#203
jesaja Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2011 Posts: 5	Hi SilverBird775. I'm new on the Winamp Forum. I want to thank you for your excellent effort in creating this plugin! With this I have a much better sound quality in my system than ever before, with smooth yet detailed highs and a very spacious and deep sound stage. I have tried three other software players before converting to Winamp+Maiko (Foobar2000, J-River, HQPlayer). I am using it in upsampling mode (24/96) together with the SuperEQ plugin (for room correction) and the Line-in plugin for connecting it with XBMC and Spotify via Virtual Audio Cable. It's really great to be able to use the benefits from the SuperEQ+Maiko combination also when listening to streaming music (Spotify) and watching movies and live concerts (XBMC). That has not been possible with any other software player I have tried. Since I only have a stereo setup all multi channel sources have to be downmixed to 2.0 in XBMC before sending to Winamp. I made an effort in sending 5.1 and letting Maiko do the downmix but couldn't get the Line-in plugin to accept this. Don't know if this is related to the Line-in plugin or Maiko, all parts of the chain are supposed to support multichannel so I was a bit puzzled. Not a big issue, though! Since i am running Windows 7 and using a USB Dac (Hegel HD2) I cannot use the exclusive mode. It creates a lot of audible hick-ups for me. The only exlusive mode that has ever worked in a stable manner for me was J-Rivers "Wasapi Event Style". Though, as far as I was able to compare, I didn't notice an increased sound quality in exclusive mode - listening between the hick-ups. This was very surprising for me; audiophiles like myself are usually very anal about using exlusive mode; we think it's the only way to achieve good sound quality in Windows. But then again, my settings are so far from bit-perfect as it can possibly get since I am using both EQ and upsampling (DAC is upsampling type as well). Maybe I won't benefit from exclusive mode but others will. One issue that seems to have been improved with the latest version (went from 0.35 -> 0.38) is the buffer control. When using the Line-in plugin the Maiko buffer fill was dangerously small with 0.35 but with 0.38 it stabilizes around ~25%. Don't know if that was an intended improvement from your part (?) but an improvement it is nonetheless. :-) When playing audio files I have never had an issue, buffer looks to be around 90% all the time. Seeing the buffer fill is by the way a great help when tweaking the clock correction in Virtual Audio Cable. Again, thanks very much for your hard and inspired work in making this plugin; you have truly taken Winamp to a new audiophile level! Will return with any additional feedback I can think of. Best regards

15th October 2011, 02:59	#204
Aminifu Forum King Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 2,012	Hi jesaja, Welcome to the forum. Are you referring to the Shibatch equalizer plugin on the main site? Is that the latest version? I do not consider myself an audiophile, but I do appreciate good sound quality. As you have discovered, Winamp with the right plugins is hard to beat. I'm also new to the forum, but have been using Winamp since the late nineties. Have tried many other players, but keep coming back to Winamp. I purchased the iZotope Ozone DSP plugin for room correction and other 'enhancements'. It does a great job IMO, but has not been updated in years. Would like to compare it to the Shibatch. Could you PM (private message) me some setup tips? Thanx.

15th October 2011, 12:01	#205
jesaja Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2011 Posts: 5	Hi Aminifu, Yes, you are assuming correctly. I use the Shibatch EQ 0.03, which can be downloaded from http://shibatch.sourceforge.net/. The Line-in plugin I use is v1.80, by Jasper van de Gronde (http://home.hccnet.nl/th.v.d.gronde/). Will PM you some EQ setup tips! Best regards

15th October 2011, 17:26	#206
michelcharles Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2011 Posts: 2	Hi all, First of all, many thanks to SilverBird775. That plug-in works well (for me) and it is a real (sonic) improvement. One thing I noticed: version 0.35 / on any track In shared mode / Last line of Status log read: Peak output loudness detected: (a value) db version 0.38 / same track as above In shared mode / Last line of Status log read: Peak output loudness detected: 0.000000 db (no value) Is it just me? Thanks again, anyway.

15th October 2011, 19:34	#207
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	The loundness monitor is disabled, it is okay. The change log explain it: Loudness monitor feature disabled due to structural incompatibility. It will be reenabled as soon as the new core would be ironed out. In fact the monitor needs to be rewritten as well. Sorry there is no ETA, everything has been changed dramatically. Exclusive mode glitches (bit-copy mode stuttering) and core design finalization is atop of my concern now.

15th October 2011, 20:06	#208
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	jesaja Shibatch EQ looking like a stereo tool. Try to exclude it from processing chain before playing 5.1 Could be wrong because i've just seen plugin screenshots. Anyway worth a try.

17th October 2011, 10:13	#211
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	Could be so, though that is the unnatural way to misspell the output plugin by output device. The output device is controlled by output plugin. The input plugin have a control over the functional black box which the output module is. But the line-in plugin have the control over real devices, the input devices they are. Since the line-in plugin is opening the input device with a DirectSound API (most likely so) it is limited to the WASAPI's shared mode analogue. There may compatibility issues arise. I'd check the recording device settings in Windows mixer, each input device have the common default shared settings as well as the output devices.

17th October 2011, 12:45	#213
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	As expected. I've never recorded 5.1 on Vista/W7 before but given the DirectSound is stacked upon WASAPI shared mode the only sure way for input is Exclusive mode WASAPI recording. Because the Shared mode WASAPI adopt the settings from the mixer panel there is not much DirectSound can do except its own processing. It seems you need another line-in plugin.

18th October 2011, 21:13	#214
jesaja Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2011 Posts: 5	Hi Silverbird775, When setting up a Virtual Audio Cable for multichannel the appropriate options arise in the shared mode settings for the recording device, so I have had both the virtual cable and the virtual recording device set to 6 channels. But the line-in plugin still doesn't accept it. Perhaps it is something to do vith the way it communicates with Windows 7. The Line-in plugin is, after all, very old. It could be that the two have communication problems... Best regards

19th October 2011, 11:28	#215
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	jesaja What the Maiko's Status log Input stream format saying when trying the multichannel line in? If there is no 5.1 (DVD) input indication it's not the problem within Maiko.

25th October 2011, 19:38	#217
audioamper Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Posts: 25	Thanks a lot for the updates SilverBird775. It'd be nice if you could add an option to not show the tray icon. Maybe assign a (editable?) hotkey to bring up the properties?

25th October 2011, 20:15	#218
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	May be. The icon hiding option sounds fair. The hotkey is a bit unjustified to my taste, we'll see. If the is no clean, light solution for the hotkey there would be no hotkey then. Definately there would be no global hotkeys. Any bit of code bogging down the player's response and lightness is out of question. I'm aiming to the most minimalistic solution, not simple but justified, nothing extra.

26th October 2011, 13:41	#219
audioamper Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Posts: 25	Thanks SilverBird775. Do you know if it's possible for Winamp to first decode the whole track into RAM and then start playback from memory? I've read somewhere this could improve quality and it'd be quite interesting. There's a software player that does just that, but its in beta with a very spartan gui (PurePlayer, an interesting project here in Greece, can be downloaded here). What's more, I am now moving lots of files between my hdd's, and Winamp playback suffers (small pauses/gaps). No such problem with the "ram" player.

26th October 2011, 19:58	#220
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	audioamper I know it and tried it before, very nice player. It's the audiophile player. Although i'm not quite into the Ultimate RAM players. There could be better results with a more rational approach i believe. The player should be comfortable to use IMO. You can see the audiophile player choice of mine on my homepage. It do officially support the Maiko plugin too. It have very spartan GUI too, but highly intuitive. I like it, the author have a very balanced design vision and good hearing sense. This make a cooperation fruitful. The audiophile players are kind of overkill. Their acceptance is very individual, most see no quality difference at all but every one do always notice the striking usability trade offs. While supporting the mainstream winamp i'm keeping the audiophile auditory and audiophile player in mind. Audiophile players are very niche and cannot possibly compete with a mainstream players. They are different. You dont want to mod winamp to be the RAM player, cause this will make it unbalanced solution.

27th October 2011, 01:20	#221
Aminifu Forum King Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 2,012	Hi audioamper, The Winamp MPEG Audio Decoder (in_mp3.dll), listed in the input plugins, can be configured to buffer the entire file from disk. By default it does this for files less than 128 kilobytes. I assume the workable upper limit would depend on the amount of RAM in your system.

9th November 2011, 19:34	#225
bit-perfect_fan Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 11	it simply ensures that you dont have to choose different latency values depending on how much load is on your system at a given time. when doing nothing but listening to music, you can choose a really low latency. but already when opening some progs or sometimes even scrolling in your browser, there could be some dropout for few seconds. so depending on what you do while listening to music, you'd have to adjust the latency value manually all the time. with an automatic latency adaption, you can even unrar and listening to 96kHz files without much trouble. with adionsoft there are some dropouts for 2-3 seconds after you start unraring, but they then disappear, because the plugin automatically adjusts to the new amount of load the system is working with and those dropouts then disappear without that you have to readjust anything yourself. but maybe dont do anything yet, wrote this before I tested the beta. will come back to this if I should encounter latency problems.

9th November 2011, 21:41	#226
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	I see... The Adionsoft plugin have a different kind of renderer, i simply cannot do the same tricks. Oh wait... I can! Yet there is a possibility i can do almost the same feature thanks too very smart processor design but generally i'm not a fun of super loose behaviour. It's a computing anarchy LOL. Buffer autoadjusting is too wild concept. Hate memory fragmentation - it's a big no-no for audiophile grade plugins. I cannot expand the client buffer in dynamic but i could attach the secondary non fixed buffer over it. It's already exist but i may just loose the size restrictions. Okay, thank you for explaining it. Will think about, sure.

14th November 2011, 08:50	#227
bit-perfect_fan Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 11	browsing normally and windows stuff works fine with the current buffer system, as well as unraring to another HDD does. but when unraring stuff on the same HDD, then buffer begins to run empy, especially with the higher bitrate and sample rate filetypes. so in these situations a kind of dynamic buffering could be of help.

14th November 2011, 09:45	#228
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	But what the rules could be for a buffer size shrink? Saying dynamic means it expanding and shrinking by some rules. So expanding could be triggered by stuttering but what event could trigger the shrink?

16th November 2011, 03:49	#229
bit-perfect_fan Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 11	I guess there must be some kind of measurement of the current buffer size compared to the maximum buffer size, some relationship (either in absolute terms or %). that relationship would increase if the current buffer drops due to less affecting the system. and after a certain point of increase (like always 200ms below maximum or some kind of % of the maximum), the value for max buffer would be decreased as well. or something like that I guess :P could you please remove the "exclusive mode override" message at the beginning of playback? its a bit annoying, I only use exclusive mode and am well aware that the exlusive mode is running and all other sounds are muted. while you are at it, it would be nice to be able to remove the tray icon as well. once set up, I dont need to go into maiko options any more.

12th December 2011, 01:22	#230
Aminifu Forum King Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 2,012	Hi SilverBird775, I've been testing Maiko version 0.43. There seems to be random buffer underruns or something else that is causing files to randomly skip during playback. I first noticed this in version 0.42 and it got worse in 0.43.

12th December 2011, 16:01	#232
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	Adjusting the buffer size and boosting Winamp priority may help. Decreasing the heavy apps priorities will help tremendously as well.

13th December 2011, 07:57	#234
SilverBird775 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Russia Posts: 237	Not much can be improved i'm afraid. When the application asks for priority boost there is no way to automatically sort out the audio playback threads from encoders for example. Everyone wants to be atop, that is just so mean. The program itself should notify the scheduler that there is no strict timing required but not much programs do this actually. Another problem that the Windows is boosting the foreground application priority. I can sure guess that would be not a player for a most time. Thus the audio player will get in disadvantage again. Likely it can be "fixed" by reconfiguring the Processor scheduling strategy this way: System Properties dialog - Advanced tab - Processor scheduling panel - Adjust for best performance of radio button set on "Background services".

16th March 2012, 19:05	#237
baunegaard Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 11	Fantastic plugin here! Just what i have been looking for! One question though, what does the automate mixer does? I have enabled all exclusive settings for gaining bit perfect, but what to do with the mixer? I just want a completely untouched signal, du i turn of automate or what? Thanks in behalf for a simply outstanding plugin

17th March 2012, 17:30	#239
baunegaard Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 11	Thank you for clearing that up SilverBird I have run into some trouble with the plugin, im using a optical output on my onboard ALC889A, Music is sounding great, but after a couple of song changes, winamp stops playing and gives me an "E_DEVICE_IN_USE" then i have to restart winamp to make it work again, this has become quite annoying. Hope this is a problem that can be done something too.

17th March 2012, 19:30	#240
mark007 Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 23	I've been using this plugin for many months now and its fantastic. I'm using it on analog HDAV Deluxe output in Windows 8 without a problem. Just one question, should the mixer settings in its control panel save? I just want to have same output as input, ie each channel in goes to same channel out so filled in the matrix manually but can't seem to get it to save my settings. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.