Is there a bass management add-on or plugin?
My 5.1 set up is a firewire interface feeding powered monitors. I've been using a DAW for a media player and do my bass management with that. I'd really like to start useing XBMC but I need bass management.
I'm pretty sure there is an audio mixer available in programs, but it might not do everything you want. I'll check later and see.
zepfan Wrote:I'm pretty sure there is an audio mixer available in programs, but it might not do everything you want. I'll check later and see.
Thanks for the reply. A basic audio mixer that supports professional plugins for a quality eq or crossover would work.
I just installed it. It seems to be nothing more than a redundant output volume control. I don't see any way to access any mixer controls of any kind.
jimfisheye Wrote:Thanks for the reply. A basic audio mixer that supports professional plugins for a quality eq or crossover would work.
I just installed it. It seems to be nothing more than a redundant output volume control. I don't see any way to access any mixer controls of any kind.
Yea, sorry. Most of this stuff should be handled by the receiver itself, no?
zepfan Wrote:Yea, sorry. Most of this stuff should be handled by the receiver itself, no?
My setup is a firewire interface and powered speakers. No receiver. I need to do the bass management myself. Any surround media player needs this feature to cover all the bases (sorry). They came really close here but this is the deal breaker.
jimfisheye Wrote:My setup is a firewire interface and powered speakers. No receiver. I need to do the bass management myself. Any surround media player needs this feature to cover all the bases (sorry). They came really close here but this is the deal breaker.
You're the first one that's said anything about it. How about making it yourself? There is no external tool that does this?
zepfan Wrote:You're the first one that's said anything about it. How about making it yourself? There is no external tool that does this?
Well, rather than just blowing off XBMC and giving up I thought the app seemed like a real enough effort to ask questions and comment. Most people just moan and give up. Make it myself? I don't keep up with programming enough. I'm hoping I can maybe find a way to do it through Audio MIDI Setup. I'm looking for answers on the Apple forum right now.
I also think many don't understand the system well enough to ask for features or complain. It isn't obvious at 1st glance that the Lf channel is NOT just the subwoofer channel. People listen to stuff with wrong settings all the time.
Afaik the current audio engine doesn't allow DSP plugins or the like. This might change in the future when AudioEngine gets merged to master (a new audio engine, as one might assume
). I am pretty sure that DSP plugins and the like is at least a future goal for the new engine. This would then make equalizer stuff doable.
Clumsy Wrote:Afaik the current audio engine doesn't allow DSP plugins or the like. This might change in the future when AudioEngine gets merged to master (a new audio engine, as one might assume ). I am pretty sure that DSP plugins and the like is at least a future goal for the new engine. This would then make equalizer stuff doable.
Yeah I would assume its on the roadmap too. Most don't need it so it would most likely be addon driven (the audiophile inside me screams don't touch my audio). And the new engine will get merged in without any support for it first.
Anyways, mostly this is considered out of application but some stuff is indeed nice to have, but it would be extensions and not core most likely.
EDIT: Oh and you can use alsa's dsp stuff if you wish on linux, not from within xbmc but you can set most of the stuff you want there but it would be terminal driven configuration
topfs2 Wrote:Yeah I would assume its on the roadmap too. Most don't need it so it would most likely be addon driven (the audiophile inside me screams don't touch my audio). And the new engine will get merged in without any support for it first.
Anyways, mostly this is considered out of application but some stuff is indeed nice to have, but it would be extensions and not core most likely.
EDIT: Oh and you can use alsa's dsp stuff if you wish on linux, not from within xbmc but you can set most of the stuff you want there but it would be terminal driven configuration
I suspect there's a way to set this up in OSX as well I just need to learn to use some of the tools. It isn't just out of the box. Audio MIDI Setup doesn't appear to just have the feature which surprises me a bit.
I understand that many/most people use a surround receiver for 5.1 but there are a great many powered monitor users (surround receivers are quite overpriced for the amplifier and preamp quality you get).
Audiophile comment:
Sure I'd love to have 5 full range speakers along with a sub. However (very much like most people for this one) I have smaller satellite speakers and a sub. 5.1 format is 5 FULL RANGE channels + an extra bass effects channel. The only way to listen to this without omitting all the bass information from the 5 main channels is by doing bass management. Sure, a nice analog processor would probably be best but a plug like the Waves linear phase eq does a very good job as a crossover.
I'm going to suggest that this isn't some niche feature I'm after. I'm willing to bet there are many people just listening to 5.1 missing all kinds of stuff because no one told them all the set up details.
Anyway, thanks for the replies. If anyone has a clue how to do this with OSX tools do tell.
For now I'm still going to need to use ProTools or Reaper for my surround "media player". So close...
Well the question is mostly if this is application or OS soundsystem which should be in charge off. AFAIK on windows most of this is provided within directsound and we would be able to take advantage of it. The addon system and AE in the future will most likely provide some crossplatform DSP which makes lots of sense on embedded or pure xbmc machines (I'm hoping on dynamic range and per channel latency configuration myself).
Anyways, I wouldn't be surprised if coreaudio doesn't make the DSP stuff somewhat transperant, atleast I would suggest looking into it. If you get it to do the DSP stuff you want in iTunes via added applications it sounds likely that xbmc would use them by magic when outputting audio.
I'll just answer my own question then.
Found an app called Soundflower
http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower/ that creates a 16 channel bus in core audio. I can now send the outputs from the media player to a DAW and do whatever I need. I dialed up a bass management session in Reaper and it just works.