Vox 0.2.8 beta 1

[alenofx]

Vox 0.2.8 beta 1 is released with the following changes and new features:

• Output sample rate synchronization option
• Disable resample option
• Pan option
• New effects system using Audio Units
• New Audio Scrobbling support using Last.fm web services
• Improved Apple Remote support
• Basic media info on main window option
• Improved preferences layout
• Updated libs & frameworks
• Bug fixes
  

Use this thread for any related issue or question.

Note: I've rescheduled the "Decoding File formats third-party plugins" feature for the next 0.2.9 version; Audio Units presets load/save feature has higher priority.

[ahihi]

Gapless playback seems to have stopped working, even though the preferences window says it's available. :o I'm playing FLAC files, for the record.

Everything else seems peachy so far. Really liking the new method of Last.fm authentication! :)

[misiekkb]

Do not read files from a directory , but is good app.
Quality songs is very good and Last.fm, good work.

I have one question. How are named as an aritst, name and album, because i want make a script to geekTool, which show info on screen?

[mulholland]

Not having much luck with getting any AudioUnits to load. I've tried about 20+ AUs from about 10 different companies (including the basic Apple AUs). Each time I select a plugin from the list I get the following error:

"Can't add the selected Audio unit"
"Channel layout not compatible."

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[kamil]

Any news you can give us on your progress with a playlist being built into vox, or piggybacking off of iTunes?

[lllevelll]

@alenofx

Thanx, great App!

But Vox still doesn't allow computer to sleep when launched
(and stopped) or finished playing track(s).

Any chance to fix the problem?

[yoshinatsu]

I have to say, I'm really excited about the release of Vox 0.2.8b1, and I was trying out the new stuff. Turns out that with the new audio scrobbling, the app doesn't "send" the album name to Last.fm.
With the old system, it would send the artist, the song name AND the album name. Now it only sends the artist and the song name, thus the scrobbling appears "blank" on Last.fm, like you never filled in an album title.
Regular Last.fm users will probably know what I mean.

It's not a big deal, but for the hardcore Last.fm user (like me), it renders the feature useless, so I won't be using it until this issue is fixed. On another note, I'm really happy that some serious 0.2.7 bugs are now fixed. The AU's worked just fine too. Keep it up, Alessio!

[alenofx]

Quote:Gapless playback seems to have stopped working

I'm checking it right now; do you have the same problem with Vox 0.2.7.1?

Quote:Do not read files from a directory

All audio files in folder (not subfolders) will be loaded if the option is enabled in the preferences.

Quote:How are named as an aritst, name and album, because i want make a script to geekTool, which show info on screen?

I don't know how geekTool works, do you need the track information written in a log file?

Quote:Not having much luck with getting any AudioUnits to load. I've tried about 20+ AUs from about 10 different companies (including the basic Apple AUs). Each time I select a plugin from the list I get the following error:

"Can't add the selected Audio unit"
"Channel layout not compatible."

I've tried a lot of different Audio Units, and this error should only appear when you load an effect with different channels layout, for example that support mono only.
Anyway, the default Apple Audio Units works with stereo channel layout, so this behavior is not expected: what are your system specs? Are you using Leopard?

Quote:Any news you can give us on your progress with a playlist being built into vox, or piggybacking off of iTunes?

Playlist editor is scheduled for Vox 0.3. The iTunes library is supported through the open file media browser.

Quote:But Vox still doesn't allow computer to sleep when launched
(and stopped) or finished playing track(s).

Probably because there is always a loaded file from the playlist; I'll look for a solution to unload it manually and/or automatically.

Quote:Turns out that with the new audio scrobbling, the app doesn't "send" the album name to Last.fm.

Fixed for the next 0.2.8 beta 2, thank you for the report.

[mulholland]

(2010-11-25 15:04:06)alenofx Wrote:  I've tried a lot of different Audio Units, and this error should only appear when you load an effect with different channels layout, for example that support mono only.
Anyway, the default Apple Audio Units works with stereo channel layout, so this behavior is not expected: what are your system specs? Are you using Leopard?.

When I got this error, I was using a Macbook 2,1 (2ghz C2D/3gb RAM) with an up to date install of 10.5.8.

I just retried all the Apple AUs, with each yielding the aforementioned error. I also specifically tried a few third-party AUs that I know are strictly 2-channel stereo in/out, all which of failed to load.

[alenofx]

(2010-11-25 16:38:45)mulholland Wrote:  When I got this error, I was using a Macbook 2,1 (2ghz C2D/3gb RAM) with an up to date install of 10.5.8.

Probably the issue is related to Leopard; I'm currently looking for some other Leopard users to catch the cause of this problem. Thank you for the report.

[ahihi]

(2010-11-25 15:04:06)alenofx Wrote:  

Quote:Gapless playback seems to have stopped working

I'm checking it right now; do you have the same problem with Vox 0.2.7.1?

Nope, 0.2.7.1 appears to work fine! This is on OS X 10.6.5, by the way.

[misiekkb]

Quote:

Quote:Do not read files from a directory

All audio files in folder (not subfolders) will be loaded if the option is enabled in the preferences.

I h've enabled in the preferences, but i still not open directory

Quote:

Quote:How are named as an aritst, name and album, because i want make a script to geekTool, which show info on screen?

I don't know how geekTool works, do you need the track information written in a log file?

This a script from iTunesScript:
tell application "System Events"
set powerCheck to ((application processes whose (name is equal to "iTunes")) count)
if powerCheck = 0 then
return ""
end if
end tell
tell application "iTunes"
try
set playerstate to (get player state)
end try
if playerstate = paused then
set trackPaused to " (paused)"
else
set trackPaused to ""
end if
if playerstate = stopped then
return "Stopped"
end if
set trackID to the current track
set trackName to the name of trackID
set artistName to the artist of trackID
set albumName to the album of trackID
set totalData to "Track : " & trackName & trackPaused & "
Artist : " & artistName & "
Album : " & albumName
return totalData
end tell

that is, to refer to app, but i change app to Vox, but i need name, artist and album, and i stil need to what calls the app, i try with %name, %artist.

[straycat]

(2010-11-25 18:57:35)ahihi Wrote:  

(2010-11-25 15:04:06)alenofx Wrote:  

Quote:Gapless playback seems to have stopped working

I'm checking it right now; do you have the same problem with Vox 0.2.7.1?

Nope, 0.2.7.1 appears to work fine! This is on OS X 10.6.5, by the way.

yes, i can confirm. gapless doesn't work on 0.2.8 beta whatever the size of the buffer.
both 0.2.7 and 0.2.7.1 work well and you can see the difference on the playback behavior: on the working versions, the song progress knob and song track changes to the beginning of the next song a moment before the playing track is finished.
on the beta, it changes exactly on time, playing a small gap output.

sorry, i'm also gapless dependent.
btw, alessio, why is gapless only possible with rate resampling?

[alenofx]

Fixed the gapless problem for the beta 2.
The resampling is needed for this feature because Vox creates an internal stream filled with the data from audio files. This stream is unique and use the resample and anti-aliasing settings from the preferences; in this way, the playlist can be played as one giant gapless audio file (the audio files are loaded x seconds before the end of the previous, depending on the buffer size). Without resampling, all audio files are read and played directly, so the time spent to read the first bytes of the next file creates a little gap, as files can't be loaded before the end of the previous in this case.

About the script for GeekTool, Vox needs support for AppleScript; this feature is not available in 0.2.8, but it's scheduled for a future version.

[ahihi]

(2010-11-26 16:24:26)alenofx Wrote:  Fixed the gapless problem for the beta 2. ;)

Great! :) Thank you for your hard work.

(2010-11-26 16:24:26)alenofx Wrote:  The resampling is needed for this feature because Vox creates an internal stream filled with the data from audio files. This stream is unique and use the resample and anti-aliasing settings from the preferences; in this way, the playlist can be played as one giant gapless audio file (the audio files are loaded x seconds before the end of the previous, depending on the buffer size). Without resampling, all audio files are read and played directly, so the time spent to read the first bytes of the next file creates a little gap, as files can't be loaded before the end of the previous in this case.

There's no actual resampling being done on audio that already has the output sample rate though, right? Apart from bit depth conversion to 32-bit, but as far as I understand that should be lossless anyway...

Oh, and a minor feature request: It would be nice if ⌘W closed the preferences window!

[ffx]

Hello,

Vox 0.28 beta 1 still does not resolve aliases on mp3s... Maybe there is a system function that will resolve the real file automatically?

[straycat]

(2010-11-26 16:24:26)alenofx Wrote:  Fixed the gapless problem for the beta 2.
The resampling is needed for this feature because Vox creates an internal stream filled with the data from audio files. This stream is unique and use the resample and anti-aliasing settings from the preferences; in this way, the playlist can be played as one giant gapless audio file (the audio files are loaded x seconds before the end of the previous, depending on the buffer size). Without resampling, all audio files are read and played directly, so the time spent to read the first bytes of the next file creates a little gap, as files can't be loaded before the end of the previous in this case.

thanks for the info, alessio. can't wait to try the beta 2.

[marcox65]

Sorry one problem with a new 0.2.8
When add one of all effect, compare a window with “Channel layout not compatible.”
The problem is the setting of preference ?
Or other problem ?
I have a OSX 10.5.8 Intel Core Duo

Very thanks
Marco

[afre]

In time for Christmas! I am not much of a beta tester, but I will give it a go.

~afre

[Didgeroo]

Alessio, happy xmas!

Hey, I was just trying out 0.2.8 beta 1 and found that the export function was broken. I'm trying to export a FLAC to Apple Lossless. The error I get is "Unable to write file "Export Error: Can't write file(s)."

I'm OSX 10.5.6.

Chris.

[alenofx]

Quote:There's no actual resampling being done on audio that already has the output sample rate though, right? Apart from bit depth conversion to 32-bit, but as far as I understand that should be lossless anyway...

Oh, and a minor feature request: It would be nice if ⌘W closed the preferences window!

There is no resampling when it's not needed
Internally Vox always works with 32 bit floating point data (as CoreAudio), and its output is bitperfect; changes in the audio data can be done by the device driver (like antinoise in some usb headset, etc...). Anyway, I'm working on some improvements to directly pass audio data to the device achieving pure audio data on the device output; I'm also working to get gapless output even without resampling enabled. I don't know when these features will be available, surely not in beta 2 that's almost ready.
Command+W to close the preferences window is already in beta 2.

Quote:Vox 0.28 beta 1 still does not resolve aliases on mp3s... Maybe there is a system function that will resolve the real file automatically?

Already included in beta 2.

Quote:Sorry one problem with a new 0.2.8
When add one of all effect, compare a window with “Channel layout not compatible.”
The problem is the setting of preference ?
Or other problem ?
I have a OSX 10.5.8 Intel Core Duo

Leopard compatibility issue fixed in beta 2.

Quote:Hey, I was just trying out 0.2.8 beta 1 and found that the export function was broken. I'm trying to export a FLAC to Apple Lossless. The error I get is "Unable to write file "Export Error: Can't write file(s)."

I've found that with some special characters in the export filename (like braces) the export can't start; fixed in the beta 2. Try to change the export filename to check if it's the same cause of this problem.

[phapsody]

When I drag a folder to the player, if the folder contains xxx.flac + xxx.cue, the player will load the xxx.cue, and the single xxx.flac will be ignored. It's fine. If the folder contains xxx.ape + xxx.cue, the single xxx.ape will be loaded, and xxx.cue will be ignored. I think it's better to always load the cue file if the folder I dragged contains one, and ignore other files since cue file has loaded.

[alenofx]

(2010-12-19 18:37:26)phapsody Wrote:  When I drag a folder to the player, if the folder contains xxx.flac + xxx.cue, the player will load the xxx.cue, and the single xxx.flac will be ignored. It's fine. If the folder contains xxx.ape + xxx.cue, the single xxx.ape will be loaded, and xxx.cue will be ignored. I think it's better to always load the cue file if the folder I dragged contains one, and ignore other files since cue file has loaded.

Fixed in Vox 0.2.8 beta 2; it will give priority to playlist files when drag & dropping a folder.

[phapsody]

I have two sound cards, and "System default" is selected as output device in vox preference. When vox is opened, I switch sound cards in the system preference panel, vox will not change output device. Even I stop/replay or reopen/switch songs, vox still can not refresh output device as system default until relaunch it or reselect "System default" in vox preference.

[alenofx]

(2010-12-30 17:15:22)phapsody Wrote:  I have two sound cards, and "System default" is selected as output device in vox preference. When vox is opened, I switch sound cards in the system preference panel, vox will not change output device. Even I stop/replay or reopen/switch songs, vox still can not refresh output device as system default until relaunch it or reselect "System default" in vox preference.

Do you have the same problem with the beta 2?