Foobar 2000 setting up

Soldato
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Hello all.

Grabbing foobar and gona try it. I would really hope someone can give me any newbie tips on getting it setup for best sound quality and what plugins to go for.

Will be mainly listening to my hd555s with it. Someone mentioned a resampler to get because of how creative does bad resampling or somit with my audigy2zs card and maybe thats why my flac music and such is sounding harsh sometimes. So need advice on what to get and how to set that up if possible.

I am hoping i can get a nice interface either like wmp 11 or songbird as i like simplicity and white themes with a good way to have searching with artist, album, genre at the least.

Need config for best headphone setup based on my audigy2zs and hd555s.

Ta.
 
Soldato
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yes you'll need to resample to 96khz with the built in resampler for the audigy 2 as i recall. no other plugins are required.

Couldnt advise you in the interface. I've tried loads of complex UI replacements and i always end up back with the stock UI as it's the simplest and quickest as far as im concerned.
 
Associate
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yes you'll need to resample to 96khz with the built in resampler for the audigy 2 as i recall. no other plugins are required.
I could be wrong, but IIRC the Audigy 2 ZS initially resamples *everything* internally to 48KHz, regardless of what you set as the output in the driver control panel, so most people just use the foobar2000 PPHS resampler set to 48000Hz and call it good. I doubt if going to 96KHz would improve anything and may even have a negative effect (subject to blind testing of course).

Couldnt advise you in the interface. I've tried loads of complex UI replacements and i always end up back with the stock UI as it's the simplest and quickest as far as im concerned.
Completely agree. foobar2000 is all about functionality, and every time I see a new post here along the lines of: "I've just downloaded foobar, does anyone know where I can get some kewl skinz for it?", I die a little inside. :(

edit: having said that, Frank Bicking's Facets and SimPlaylist plugins are must-haves IMO, they genuinely add to the program's capabilities and the developer's credentials are impeccable. :)
 
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Soldato
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Hmm one person said 96k set in pphs and another 48k so which is it?

I have ultra tick box ticked i duno if thats good or not.

Anything else in settings to get the best quality out of this for my hd555s?

Bs2B plugin, worth using as apparently its good for headphones but i duno if it messes with the true way to hear the music or not?

The quick set up for layout is atm album list + properties + visualizations. Which looks nice with black background and orange titles "olive setting". Which i know i said i wanted white theme but this looks quite nice.
 
Soldato
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I could be wrong, but IIRC the Audigy 2 ZS initially resamples *everything* internally to 48KHz, regardless of what you set as the output in the driver control panel, so most people just use the foobar2000 PPHS resampler set to 48000Hz and call it good. I doubt if going to 96KHz would improve anything and may even have a negative effect (subject to blind testing of course).

not everything, no, anything below 48khz is resampled to 48khz by the A2. 48khz and above isnt resampled. tbh 48khz or 96khz would do the same job, but if 96khz is available then why not?

Hmm one person said 96k set in pphs and another 48k so which is it?

Try them both. I doubt you'll hear a difference.

The quick set up for layout is atm album list + properties + visualizations. Which looks nice with black background and orange titles "olive setting". Which i know i said i wanted white theme but this looks quite nice.
File >> preferences >> Display >> Default User Interface >> Colors and Fonts. Click to change.
 
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Soldato
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Set it up now with that facets plugin which is quite nice.

Btw how do i get album cover to display i.e import all jpegs and what not from my massive music folder?

Got the album art pane there just nothing is displaying.

Edit - Hmm some album art shows but im sure i have a lot more. Is their any download album art service for foobar which grabs a image for the song/album playing? Hmm doesnt look like i can get my album art for angel beats to show maybe images too large? 19XXx19XX which is large i know. But there jpgs and numbered 1 to 4.

Edit 2 - Resized the front cover from 2000x2000 ish to 250x250 ish and it displays. :( No way im gona resize all the album art i have would take weeks if not months. Must be a easier way to do it or have foobar redownload it all in a proper size and assign it correctly.
 
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Associate
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Btw how do i get album cover to display i.e import all jpegs and what not from my massive music folder?

Got the album art pane there just nothing is displaying.

Edit - Hmm some album art shows but im sure i have a lot more.
Right-click on the panel, make sure "front" is selected, and also make sure you have a jpg with the right filename in each album folder. By default it will look (in order) for a front cover with the following names:

front.jpg
cover.jpg
%filename%.jpg (where %filename% is the filename of the currently selected or playing track)
%album%.jpg (where %album% is the album tag of the currently selected or playing album)
folder.jpg

You can alter the search patterns under Preferences > Display > Album art, and it will also use embedded art when it finds it.

Edit 2 - Resized the front cover from 2000x2000 ish to 250x250 ish and it displays. :( No way im gona resize all the album art i have would take weeks if not months. Must be a easier way to do it or have foobar redownload it all in a proper size and assign it correctly.
Not sure what's going on there - most of my album art is 600x600px, and it has no trouble with 3000x3000px or more images... :confused:

Did you rename the files when you resized them?
 
Soldato
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Is this internal resampling issue unique to the Audigy 2? What about the Asus Xonar cards?

I use foobar2000 at stock settings, only change output bit-depth to 24bit since I have some 24bit audio.
 
Soldato
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No, Xonars don't do it. It was a limitation of the Audigy 2's DSP whereby it had to resample everything to 48khz in order to work with the audio as the DSP itself only worked at 48khz.... give the card anything above that and the DSP is bypassed.
 
Soldato
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thats because, in windows 7 (and vista? really cant remember what happens in vista) the output format is automatically set based on the sound card drivers, as it says there. You dont choose the bit depth in foobar - you choose it in the soundcard drivers.
 
Soldato
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Ah k. Well for soundcard settings its 24bit 48hz as some say no point 96hz.

what, and you're just going to listen to them rather than bother to find out for yourself? I know you are looking for help but there's help and there's hand holding. You have the software, you have the headphones. There's no right or wrong so you do the listening and use whatever works for you, that includes plugin and sampling rates and everything else. Audio is quite a personal thing, unlike the UI stuff.
 
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Soldato
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Found a album art downloader (biography view plugin) it isnt perfect as sometimes it doesn't display the art sometimes like it is fetching it again tho i think i configured it to cache it all on hdd. If not then hmm duno how to improve it.

Tweaked the layout a bit and colours.

Added a repeat track and repeat playlist buttons at the top as there important for quickly using.

Tried to use the best of the layout i can. Duno if anything can be done to improve streamlined choosing a track etc but if anyone has ideas please post i might consider it.

Some pics of my layout.


 
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Soldato
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Found a album art downloader (biography view plugin) it isnt perfect as sometimes it doesn't display the art sometimes like it is fetching it again tho i think i configured it to cache it all on hdd. If not then hmm duno how to improve it.

the problem with that is that it uses last.fm. it's good for artist images but pretty useless for album covers. i manually download all my album art. but then i only have a tiny collection.

you might want to try either of these instead.

album art downloader xui - http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=57392

auto folder pic (created by the foobar2000 author) http://www.perkele.cc/software/AutoFolderPic

instead of those buttons to change playback order, you could just right click the toolbar and add a "playback order" toolbar. this gives a drop down menu so you can also see the current selection as well as change it.
 
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