Preview looping audio files but...perfect! (no delay)

[admin]

I measured it at exactly 300ms. Hope that helps!

That much??? No, that's not normal. I thought we talk a handful of msecs.

This is the beta:
viewtopic.php?p=186319#p186319

[chumbo]

You made me doubt so I checked again and you're right it is less. I now came to +-85ms. I mean, it is quite audible so it can't be so minute either.
I recorded the audio from XYPlorer then lined it up in Reaper (a music DAW) against the original loop and measured the distance between the end of the loop and when XY starting playing again. I think it's pretty accurate now.

[chumbo]

I noticed another interesting thing...
In audio, when you invert the phase of one of two absolutely identical audio files, sound magically disappears, they cancel each other out.
So I did that with the XY audio and the original loop and the first of the two bars was total silence (as you'd expect) but exactly at the start of the 2nd bar, the audio shifted just slightly - and here we would be talking of only a few ms because that's all it takes for the phase cancellation to disappear - and made the audio audible again.
Of course, it could have something to do with the recording of the XY audio I did but still odd it happens precisely half way in the audio.

That's all, just thought that it might be interesting to you. Food for thought

[admin]

Did you test the beta? The delay is about 10 msecs here. And I'm working on improvement...

BTW, just compared XYplorer's looping with that of Windows Media Player and VLC Player, and XYplorer is much faster and much more steady.

[chumbo]

Sorry, I was away from the PC for a few days so didn't have a chance to reply.

I'm afraid the even if there is an improvement it's definitely not enough for what I had in mind.
I've recorded a video to show the problem: https://youtu.be/y2ipYriacV4

What you see is two audio tracks: the top one is XYPlorer's audio and the bottom one if the original loop, looped 7 times.

- It starts with a 3 count of the metronome (4th one got list in editing). Then the loop plays twice and as you'll here, there is no gap between the 1st and 2nd instance which creates the impression of drummer continuously playing...the whole point of drum loops!

- Then XYPlorer's audio starts playing and because I inverted the phase, the drumloop and XYPlorer cancel each other out and no audio is heard, despite the fact that you can clearly see from the green volume bars moving that both are playing - proof that the audio is 100% identical in content and timing.

- Then from from 4th loop and then on, you can hear how badly out of sync XYPlorer is and how it gets worse with every next loop.

Hope that helps and looking forward to any improvements!

[admin]

The preview interface cannot be made tighter than it is now, I think.

But XY can play tight loops using the sound scripting command. However, it only supports WAV I think. Select a WAV file and run this through the XY address bar:

Code: Select all

sound <curitem>, 1;

To stop it do this:

Code: Select all

sound;

[chumbo]

Tried the script, maybe a minor improvement but unfortunately in this use scenario, nothing less than perfect is really usable.
Nevertheless, it's still hugely useful as is to be able to quickly audtion a loop, even if it doesn't loop 100% correctly

Thanks so much for giving this the time and effort!

[admin]

"maybe a minor improvement"? It seems to loop perfectly to my ears, and according to the MS docs it should.

[chumbo]

Sorry, tried again and you're right. With the script it does work perfectly but it's such an impractical way of audition loops that it's more cumbersome than just launching a dedicated app for the task (Resonic Player is the one I currently use for quick auditioning)

Still, it shows that XY is capable of it, just not in a very usable way I'm afraid

[admin]

I could make this work in the Quick Audio Preview (Configuration | Preview | Mouse Down Blow Up | Mouse Down on Thumbnails and Icons | Loop). However, it would only work for WAV, not for MP3 etc. I guess that would not be good enough?

[chumbo]

That would be awesome!! Of course there exists loop libraries in .mp3, .aiff (.rex2, but that's a loop-specific format) and maybe other audio formats but the vast majority of loops are in wav format! (in my case, I'd say +-90%, meaning 10000s of loops)

I've used that mouse-down feature before but am I correct in assuming that it's necessary to keep your mouse down to audition and once you let go, it stops? (if so, that would be the only downside I guess).

[admin]

On right-click you can let it loose.

[chumbo]

Hum....actually it's the reverse of what I remembered: When I left-click it keeps playing and loops after I let go of the mouse, right-click just opens the context menu?

[klownboy]

For right click audio you need to have Configuration > Preview > Mouse Down Blow Up > "On Right Mouse Down" checked and also "Stay up" under it as well. If not, you'll get the context menu.

[admin]

Tick Configuration | Preview | Mouse Down Blow Up | Mouse Down on Thumbnails and Icons | Stay up