Computer Audio Asylum Music servers and other computer based digital audio technologies.

---

[ Follow Ups ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Computer Audio Asylum ]

---

[ Alert Moderator ]

---

Re: DirectX plug in in Foobar or Winamp

Posted by Jim F. (A) on December 25, 2006 at 15:27:20

In Reply to: DirectX plug in in Foobar or Winamp posted by Brucemck2 on December 23, 2006 at 10:40:11:

Foobar and Winamp can (supposely) use DirectX plugins
via adapters. But this is not territory for
the faint-hearted. See, e.g., my post
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/16770.html

You might also be able, if your PC has enough horsepower,
to use two soundcards to do this. I have an X-Fi and
and E-MU 1212M in a single PC, and I've been able to do
interesting things. Make sure the cards have ASIO drivers.
You may also want to invest in a "serious" piece of Digital
Audio Workstation software, such as Steinberg WaveLab 5. I suspect
you'll get more sympathy from Burwen if you're trying to
get his product to work in WaveLab than you would if you
were trying to use a Foobar DirectX adapter. Oh, and you realize
that for Bobcat with DirectX you'll need the $500 Bobcat DX?

With the above, you might be able to do something like
the following -- Configure WaveLab to use sound card A
(say, the X-Fi). Install Bobcat DX and load it in WaveLab
as a DirectX effect (Bobcat in this case is 32-bit, so you
could also dither to 24 or 16 bits in real time with
Apogee UV 22 or UV 22 HR). WaveLab isn't exactly the ideal
media player, but you can also use its Live Input mode to
play audio (with effect applied) through the sound card's
digital input (from where? A CD player? Another PC?
I'll leave that up to you. ;-> )

Then plug the X-Fi's digital out into the E-MU 1212M's digital
in. Foobar (or at least Foobar 0.8.3; the 0.9.x version doesn't)
has an interesting capability built into the Diskwriter
component. It can take its input from a sound card's digital
input (Playlist->Add Location-> "record://"). In this case
Foobar takes its input from the sound card chosen as the Windows
default, so the E-MU would have to be that. Install SRC in
Foobar and pick your output sampling rate; use the Playlist
"record://" to get the E-MU's digital input. Use the E-MU's PatchMix DSP
application to set the E-MU's sampling rate to match the rate chosen
in Foobar/SRC. For 24/96, you can use S/PDIF output from the E-MU. For 24/192,
you have to use ADAT/S-MUX4 on Toslink optical (which the
E-MU also supports).

I did something similar just the other day (with two cards at two
different sampling rates, but just one application -- Foobar/SRC). I had Foobar taking
24/44.1 input via an X-Fi's S/PDIF optical in (you have to
edit code in the source of foo_diskwriter.dll to get 24/44.1 or
24/96 with the record:// facility, and recompile foo_diskwriter.dll via Visual C++ 6;
otherwise, you're stuck with 16/44.1). In Foobar, I was upsampling to 24/192
and outputting via foo_output_asio(dll).dll (the SSE3 version),
with "E-DSP ASIO [9C00]" chosen in Foobar as my ASIO output device
(that's the E-MU's ASIO driver). I had the "192 kHz ADAT tranfer"
session loaded in the E-MU's PatchMix DSP, and I was taking the 192 kHz-upsampled
audio via ADAT from the E-MU to. . . elsewhere. In my case, the connection between
the two sound cards (running at two different sample rates) was
**internal**, via ASIO, rather than external, via a Toslink cable,
as it was in the hypothetical example I described above.

Anyway, like I said -- not for the fainthearted. You see what
you're getting into? (BTW, I was tearing my hair out for a few
hours wondering why **my** experiment wasn't working until I
discovered, almost by chance, that the X-Fi's "Audio Creation Mode"
console had to have "S/PDIF" chosen as **it's** "recorder" input --
**not** S/PDIF in the input patch panel or anywhere else, before
Foobar's "record://" playlist (or PatchMix's "ASIO OUT 1/2") would
see any sound. Everybody had a **clock**, but no sound.
**Lot's** of settings to screw around with!!

Jim F.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Parts Connexion

---

[ Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]

---

[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]

---