Channel Mixer (foo_channel_mixer) for foobar2000 0.9

Latest version is: 0.9.6.3
Release date: 2007.11.21

Functionality:

* - (up|down)mix (to|from) 1-6 channels
* - redirect bass to subwoofer channel (6-channels output mode only)
* - delay rear channels by 1-40 ms (4 or 6-channels output mode only)
* - surround sound effect (2->4 or 2->6 mode only)
* - changing virtual width of a stereoimage
* - etc...

Plugin download:
http://www.skipyrich.com/store/foo_channel_mixer.7z

The new subwoofer options are most useful. A good amount of 5.1 material doesn't not have a proper LFE track. The option to mix the bass from all the channels was something I was hoping to see for 5.1 sources. So far there doesn't appear to be anything malfunctioning.

Version: 0.3 alpha

- changed: subwoofer volume and mode handling on 5.1 input
- added: delays
- changed: slightly changed filter constants

http://skipyrich.siteburg.com/store/foo_channel_mixer.zip

crashes at end of song when used with "gap killer", although, skip silence dsp works with it

fast solution: move foo_dsp_nogaps on top of foo_channel_mixer.
I will try to locate and fix this problem...

this plugin is awesome, thank you very much........

thx 4 the quickfix, forgot to thank you for this awesome plugin as well, great work, ive been searching for something like this ever since i started using foobar!

Nice plugin. I've been playing around with it. It works well after tweaking the settings.

A few minor things:
There seems to be a minor bug when playing back silence (division by zeros or rounding errors somewhere, perhaps). This might be related to the gap killer problem. The track I noticed this problem with is The Atari's song, "Eight of Nine": there is a long period of silence at the end of the track. Playing that back with the channel mixer enabled results in 100% CPU usage when I reach the silent part (the channel mixer is the only DSP enabled at that point).
Edit: this seems to only appear with "use subwoofer" and "bass redirection" both enabled.
I use these two options, because without it, the low frequencies are too powerful--while I'm not familiar enough with this sort of thing to be able to know exactly why, I'm guessing it's because the audio is getting copied to 5 channel instead of just 2, and since each channel still contains a bass component, the speaker's crossover is taking bass from each of the 5 channels--making it louder than it should be. If anyone can shed more info on this, I'd appreciate it though.

Interestingly enough though, playing back silence://10 (for example) doesn't result in this CPU usage spike. I can post a FLAC of the ending of the song if it would help.
Using noise dithering seems to increase CPU usage by a lot--but this could be because foobar has to dither several channels at once though.

Unfortunately, foo_dsp_nogaps crashes with any 6-channel source
Use another plugin or write bugreport to its author...

This problem appears on any track in which there is a silence. It is a major bug, I shall try to correct it as soon as possible.


"2 to 6" mode without bass redirection:

"2 to 6" with bass redirection:

Version: 0.3.1 alpha

- quickfix: high CPU usage on silence with bass redirect enabled

http://skipyrich.siteburg.com/store/foo_channel_mixer.zip

skipyrich, this plugin is getting better and better.

I have just a remark about the handling of 5.1 sources.
Could you make it possible that 5.1 sources could pass unchanged (for instance when Downmix is off)?

I hope I'm not asking too much The only way now is to switch to 6ch mode and switch on "Use subwoofer". But when I play a 2ch source with those settings I get the double amount of bass (like zetafunction).

Version: 0.3.2 alpha

- added: volume control for upmixed subwoofer channel

http://skipyrich.siteburg.com/store/foo_channel_mixer.zip

The new control ("Upmixed volume") change volume of upmixed subwoofer channel only. Old ("Volume") control change volume of the subwoofer channel in all cases.
I hope, that it will allow to receive desirable results.

Wow, thanks a lot for this great plugin.


Fixes for me what Creative screwed with their crappy drivers.

Finally my woofer is giving me nice kicks while listening to (stereo)music and the center is no more waste of space.

Good work!


One thing that would be cool though: if one could reset settings to default (after messing around with a settings and not remembering what the default was. )

Version: 0.3.3 alpha

- added: Reset button on each configuration tab

http://skipyrich.siteburg.com/store/foo_channel_mixer.zip

Version: 0.3.4 alpha

- added: option to invert rear channels

http://skipyrich.siteburg.com/store/foo_channel_mixer.zip

Thanks for your great work!

I'm going to try it out tonite with my Abit NF7-S v2.0 motherboard.

Just wanted to say "Thanks!!"

People who use Audigys to AV receivers will really appreciate this, since you create a true 6 channel output, you don't suffer the normal LFE attenuation loss.

Version: 0.4 alpha

- added: changing virtual width of a stereoimage
- changed: moved some controls

http://skipyrich.siteburg.com/store/foo_channel_mixer.zip

Why do you wanna do that? Soundstorm converts all sound sources to AC3 in realtime.
I'ts just a matter of pluging in the cable and you'll have sound in all 6 speakers.

Thanks again,
I just want to make a note that there is a relation between
- upmix->subwoofer (volume of content send to subwoofer) and
- subwoofer-> Bass redirection

As an example: In my case upmix->subwoofer is 0, because my speakerset handles the crossover between satelites and (sub)woofer itself. When I now try Bass redirection, which is on another tab, I lose the bass (which is OK!). So maybe these settings should be kept on the same tab.

or just forget about upmix->subwoofer (level) and only have a "bass redirection level" grouped with the other Bass redirection settings, which I think makes more sense?

Happy 2005.

negative, I am using the newest drivers, with z-680's with the soundstorm, (Abit-NF7-s V2.0) with the optical cable and with DD live setting you only hear sound on the channels foobar is using, so with channel mixer you can play with 2 to 5.1 sound, without it and with no hardware acceleration its 2 channels, with hardware its 4.

The plugin lets me (turning hardware acceleration off) up mix to 5.1, turn set the center channel to 0, play with the front and reat channels settings, and play with the bass, my music has never sounded better.

And the only difference between the 5.1 setting snd 5.1 DD live setting is that 5.1 all the channel mixing is done by my 680's and with 5.1 DD live its foobar doing the channel mixing since hardware acceleration is off.

Hmm.. Soundstorm does AC3 encoding realtime. (No other soundcard does that.)
I'm not sure thats what you're doing.

Well, I also have an optical cable between my computer and my Home Cinema Receiver (Yamaha RX-V596RDS).
Works like a charm.

My brother have the same setup, he recently bought a Yamaha RX-V650 Reciever (and some new speakers), and voilá..
No matter what sound is playing, windows, Winamp, Foobar, MPC, WMP, PVR-250 (TV-Card) whatever.. Sound in all 5.1 (7.1+2 in his case) speakers.
All sound is digital in AC3.

Maybe its something funky with your speakers?

Edit: I have the exact same mobo as you aswell.

I only get full 5.1 with everything on when I have my output set to 5.1 in NV Mixer and have my z-680's set to PL Movie or PL Music.

If you look at the NV mixer you'll see what channels are being output by Soundstorm, you and your brothers recievers are mixing and decoding, because, with creative desktop 5.1 with digital coax out and with Logitech Z680's optical I have gotten the same results.......sound storm will not up mix stereo sound to 5.1 unless you tell it to with hardware acceleration, and if you reghack NV mixer to all add a center channel (if none exists in the source)

Yes it may do AC3 encoding in realtime however that doesnt mean that the out put is in 5.1 sound. Secondly SS only does 5.1 sound so the fact that your brothers get 7.1 +2 sound means that his reciever is take the source audio and upmixing.......

Well, if I set nvmixer to "5.1 Speakers (Dolby Digital)" my reciever reacts and shows "Dolby Digital".. If I set it to anything else my reciever displays "Pro Logic".
(The reciever is set to "Auto" so it detects what comes in.)

So the reciever detects AC3.

Same with DVD's (from my standalone player).
In the movies menu's the reciever shows "Pro Logic".
When the movie starts it either shows "Dolby Digital" or "DTS".

So there is no upmixing going on. (In my case)

Oh, and I have sound in my center.

Right........My Logitech z 680's do the same, It shows the DD logo if its a 5.1 DD Live, and if its just 5.1, I can choose how the reciever outputs the source, ie stereo, stereo 2x, PL Movie, PL music..........

Prologic means the receiver upmixes the input to create 5.1 sourround sound audio.

Try this experiment, open NV Mixer, set it to 5.1 DD Live, then open foobar, play a song an mp3, depending on your settings you should the VU meters plays outputing the appropriate channels,

left rear, left, center, sub, right, right rear.

If hw acceleration is off, and you play an mp3 you should only see the VU meters for left and right, if DD live setting is on, then you should only hear your front left and right channels...........

Thank you. I will think about it...

Version: 0.5 alpha

- added: adding low frequencies to the rear channels (2->4 or 2->6 mode)

http://skipyrich.siteburg.com/store/foo_channel_mixer.zip

This improvement is only for "BIG" systems w/o subwoofer.

Ohwell.. so the conclusion is:
If you have Soundstorm and a "real" home cinema reciever, digitally connected, and are using Dolby Digital 5.1 in the nvMixer, there's no need for any extra steps (or foobar plugins).
If you are using desktop speakers (like creative or logitech) that usually are a pos with their own strange cables/connectors then I guess there's a need for plugins like this.

rrrriiiiggghhhtttt..........again look at my posts and you'll see I am using logitech z-680's(not any ordinary set of computer speakers, it can do Dolby Digital/Prologic II, DTS and is THX certified).......and no strange cables or connections.......and I am using an over the counter optical cable.........go to http://www.nforcershq.com/ and the people there will tell you soundstorm doesn't not upmix your sound......your reciever is upmixing not to mention soundstorm only does 5.1 sound according to the specs, the fact that your brother can get 7.1 + 2 extra speakers means its his home theater reciever is upmixing.....please there is no need to resort to childish behaviour........

Secondly AC3 doesnt mean 6 channels, examine a dvd and you know that often there is 2 channel ac3 steam as well..........

Skipyrich this is a great plugin btw........I love the how you can control what how much of the front, is heard in the rear, and vice versa.........excellent work..........

Yes, I know in my brothers case that his reciever upmixes to 7.1+2.
That was just an example.

Soundstorm converts ALL sound to AC3 (5.1) and THEN sends it to the reciever.
The job is ALREADY done. NOTHING further to do for the reciever.
The same thing as watching a DVD in AC3 5.1.

I know that there is 2 channel AC3 in DVD's aswell.
But soundstorm outputs 5.1 channels AC3 to the reciever.
There's no upmixing needed on the reciever as the sound is already in 5.1.

I'm sure the plugin is amazing for those with desktop speakers, or funky Creative cards that have special cables/connectors, I'm just saying that if you have a Soundstorm, there's no need for this.

Edit:
Alright, just tried it.
The first thing I got was no sound.
Found out that Kernel Streaming was a no-no.
Now, I got sound (with directsound), but a lag on the mouse.
The mouse "skips" when I move it.
(foobar uses around 22% - 25% CPU on my Barton 2500+)

But as far as the music go, it sounds the same.

wow been waiting for something like this for ages.... nice work indeed..


i love it

@WiLLiE and AsILayDying

First
You two are very lucky.. Like myself.. to have a Nforce 2 with SoundStorm and a set of Ligtech z-680s...

Second.. Yes.. the soundstorm can sorta upmix and it can encode to digital.. They are seperate setting.. Center channel has to be enabled the hard way (registry edit), but rear channels can be done in nvmixer and you can create a LFE channel too (when using DirectSound). Plus, the z-680s support prologic so they can up mix if you dont do it in SoundStorm. Or, they can decode AC3 if Soundstorm has already encoded to AC3 (in hardware) and you upmixed to 5.1 in Soundstorm it self. I hope I just made sense...

My last 3 machines have all benn nforce2 with soundstorm because I love they way it works with a nice set of speakers like the z-680s. I even had a audigy 2 platinum (with optical connection to z-680s), but went back to soundstorm anyway.


Finally
@skipyrich

Thank you thank you thank you

This is what converted me from using winamp for so long even though I knew about and tried foobar so long ago. Being spoiled (as mentioned above) with the abilities of soundstorm made me picky about upmixing plugins for winamp and foobar.. I wanted a little more control. Your plugin for foobar is the best I have seen thus far.

Thank you blemke, yes as I mentioned earlier soundstorm will only upmix to if you clone the rear channels(in NV mixer), and you do a reg edit for the center channel..........and turn on hardware acceleration in your output settings in foobar.........

yes I love this plugin, as well, please do share you settings I would like to see what you use as well..........this is mine..........PS there are never drivers since dec 22 of 2004 for soundstorm, I just updated mine.......

I have DolbyDigital Live set on my NVMixer, so my my Z680s dont do any mixing.....

and on channel mixer I have it set to 6 channels with a steroimage width of 1, then in upmix I have the center channel @ 0 subwoofer @1 rear in front @ 0.7, rear volume @ 1 and front in rear @ 0.3 and then the sub volume @ 1 with a frequency of 100 with no rear delay.......I havent played too much with it..........oh and my output is direct sound v2.5 with hardware mixing off...........

I really do love this plugin...........

Version: 0.5.1 alpha

- changed: rear channels processing order
- fixed: adding low frequencies to the rear channels does not work as expected in 2->6 mode

http://skipyrich.siteburg.com/store/foo_channel_mixer.zip

Nice, quite a lot updates!

I was still using your build 0.1.3, but 0.51 is really lovely!

Go on dude!

i was serching for a way to have have music with bass while playing eve online in 5.1.

now ive found it.

thankyou thankyou thankyouuuuuuu!

*bows*



JT

i cant seem to download from the site, i really really need this plugin.

little help please?
thanks
Myren

Have you tried going through the main page?
http://skipyrich.siteburg.com/

EDIT: spelling

I'm not able to download anything from that site.... Using Firefox, but now I tried with IE too, just to make sure....

Works fine for me using Firefox. I just go to the download page and click on the link to the .zip file. Works from IE also.
EDIT: btw, are you using the most recent version of firefox? I am using 1.0.

Firefox is brand new, and I don't have other problems with downloads (as I'm currently in the process of installing a new system I download this and that from all over the place). But here I just get transferred to a site saying

And then: nothing.... No dice. No matter what I do. Hm.

EDIT: Typo.

If the link in a word "here" does not work, may be your firewall cuts header "Referrer". My hoster does not allow direct downloading files from other sites...

OK. Figured it out. Should have thought 'bout it before: Zone Alarm. Had to shut it down.

Cool, I have got some rubbish 5.1 speakers here, and they have no bass management in them, so if I hook it to a DVD players 5.1 out, I get nothing out the woofer except for crackles during explosions (cant handle the lows that the LFE track has in it) - playing music on them was a joke as the woofer just sits there idle and the sat's are trying to go down to 20Hz and just clipping something chronic...

When it was on the nforce based machine it was ok, because the nvidia control panel let me do a crossover on the card, but now im on onboard on a P4, I dont have that luxary, at least this makes my MP3s have some bass again.

I just love how these makers of complete crap speakers dont seem to know the difference between a 5.1 signal from DD/DTS and the 5.1 that needs to go into there rubbish.... The box even has a picture indicating it can be connected straight to a DVD player with 5.1 out.... riiiiiiiight....

Version: 0.6 alpha

- added: bass redirection modes
- changed: rear channels processing controls logic

http://skipyrich.siteburg.com/store/foo_channel_mixer.zip

Thanks for the update, skipyrich.

I don't know if there's any easy way for component devs to access the keyboard shortcut interface, but if there's an API for that, I'd love to be able to control some of the settings at the press of a button, specifically to switch between 6 channel and 2 channel (aka headphone) mix. I don't know whether anybody else is interested in it, maybe I'm the only one. Anyway, thanks for the plugin, it's awesome.

First off id like to thank you for letting foobar do something with all my speakers, but i think ive found a problem with channel mixer.

About a week ago i installed the .Net framework, and upgraded channel mixer to 0.6 and now every so often (about every 5 minutes) audio playback either stops completly or slows down and is filled with buzzes and cracks. The foobar console shows nothing, when the track pauses playing, moving the slider restarts playback. Tracks can freeze or start buzzing at any point in the track, seemingly at random.

Ive removed everything from my dsp chain except channel mixer, have tried using different output methods (directsound, waveout) and found that kernel streaming is even worse (constant buzzing and hissing)

Im running XP pro on a nforce2 w/ soundstorm motherboard, latest drivers and updates, have reinstalled foobar from scratch and the problem is still there.

It effects mp3, wave and ogg files (i dont have any other formats) and does not effect media player classic, windows media player or other media players ive tried.

Based on what ive tried it seems to be a problem with channel mixer, after i installed the latest .Net framwork.

Hope you can help

Nick

Considering that I use the same plugin, on XP SP2 with latest .Net Framework on a nforce2 mobo w/ soundstorm, and I don't have any issues, I'll have to say it's probably not the plugin, but the spoony nvidia drivers.

What version of driver are you installing, and don't just say "latest", because there are several floating around. Is it from a Remix package?