ASIO for Winamp?

[The Absorbant]

Hey!

Is there a valid link for the ASIO Winamp plugin, the one in the locked thread about plugins and such isn't working anymore... Thanks!

Edit: Found it!

Second question: What should I all the settings be set to? Is there a need to have process or thread priority set higher than "Normal"?

[gaekwad2]

Ah yes, Otachan moved to his own domain.
(reminded me to update my bookmarks)

edit:
Did you get the exe version to run?
Otherwise try http://otachan.com/out_asio(dll).html.

I always left the settings at default, but I never used it much.
The high priority is probably necessary to be safe against drop-outs since it hardly uses any buffering, but maybe it also works at normal (depends a lot on what else is running at the same time I'd guess).

[The Absorbant]

The exe works fine...

What are the actual benefits of running through ASIO drivers anyway? It's not like you need to lower latency for mp3's, since they really don't need to sync up with anything else...

[gaekwad2]

Don't ask me, mostly placebo I'd say.

[tijuana]

ASIO is much better 'cause of 1 reason: you can bypass windows kmixer and send the stream directly to the soundcard (kmixer resamples everything to 16bit/44.1k, wich is fine for mp3s, since they sound like s$&%t anyway. But if you're listening to 24 bit / 48k samples, or even uncompressed 16bit 44,1k samplles, kmixer degrades the sound quality a lot).

Aside from kmixer, the sample passes through a lot of hassle, and gets degraded on each step: first it goes to directsound, then to kmixer, that resample's it and mixes in all other windows sounds, then to the kernel, then to the sound card mixer, and finally to the sound card itself. asio goes directly from the player to the sound card's mixer, then to the hardware

Another more extreme option (for 0db gain, 10Kohm sound output) is to disable the soundcard altogether in windows and use just ASIO. That way the sample goes directly to the soundcard, untouched.

[compubomb]

This plug-in fixed my problem with my audigy 4 sound card, before music sounded like total shit, especially since i have a lot of mp3's which are recorded in variable bit rate and were being resampled to what seemed lower quality and i could hear this horrible hissing noise. I absolutely fricken love this plugin! it's amazing as int fixed my music! thank you so much for posting this thread!

Just one problem, I can't use Treble/Bass anymore

[bluedakota]

I have downlloaded the .exe and the file name downloads as

out_asio(exe)_070.7z which is not an executable file (when clicked you get the pop-up indicating that this is an unknown file do you want to associate a program with this...)

When I rename the file with a .exe extension nothing happens

I am running XP Pro.

any thoughts on how to get this to install?

[gaekwad2]

Rename it back, then get 7-zip (or WinRAR, which isn't free though).

[bluedakota]

Thanks !

I ran the utility and extracted the files.

There are two exe one for normal and one for SSE2

Double clicking will not launch either.

??? Frustrating ???? Help !

[Sawg]

DLL files cannot be launched. Copy the normal on to your C:\Program Files\Winamp\plugins\ folder.

[bluedakota]

thanks ... I added the files to the plugins folder and all works

[W-Tiggeh]

Strange... I try it with Winamp 5.32 and the files don't play at all.

I have a SB Live! 5.1 Digital Studio, with kX Drivers installed (since the original drivers that came with the soundcard don't install ASIO support)
I know it isn't an ASIO related issue, since I use Reason 3.0.4 with ASIO and it works perfectly O.o

[gaekwad2]

Did you perhaps enable 24bit playback? ASIO is rather picky in terms of bit depth.

[W-Tiggeh]

AFAIK, my soundcard doesn't have 24-bit playback support.

[roytam1]

Originally posted by W-Tiggeh
Strange... I try it with Winamp 5.32 and the files don't play at all.

I have a SB Live! 5.1 Digital Studio, with kX Drivers installed (since the original drivers that came with the soundcard don't install ASIO support)
I know it isn't an ASIO related issue, since I use Reason 3.0.4 with ASIO and it works perfectly O.o

You may need resampling(upsampling) to 48KHz in order to work.

[brucemck2]

I too can not get output via this plug in.

I managed to get the EXE and dll files unzipped and installed in the Plugins folder.

In preferences for output I see the ASIO option, and have options to configure it. But, play never starts when I press "Play".

Suggestions?

(If I get this to work, then my next step will be to figure out how to get SRC [Secret Rabbit Code upsampling) to work under ASIO. I get it via a plug in for Direct Output only.)

AN UPDATE OF MY DIRECTX SEEMED TO FIX IT ...

NOW, DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO GET SRC UPSAMPLING TO WORK WITH ASIO? I'VE GOT IT WORKING IN FOOBAR AND IT'S TERRIFIC. THE SRC PLUG IN FOR WINAMP DEFAULTS TO DIRECTSOUND. PERHAPS THERE'S A DSP PLUG IN OR A DIRECTX PLUG IN?

[outerspace_utah]

Great thread.

Like for others above, this is a huge improvement. Kicks butt with the Izotope EQ.

Now for a dumb question:

Is all ASIO output 24 bit? My m-audio 5.1 card shows the sample rate its being fed, which mirrors my changes in this ASIO plugin, not the bit depth. It is a 24/192 card for all outputs. I'd like to know what's going on since the whole thru windows audio thing is such a maze to me(thanks tijuana for your explanation of what is going on. I had a feeling stuff was happening, but had no idea of what or how to find out).

And has anyone had issues with playing older CD's thru this plugin? I just had one that had so much skipping/erratic playback speed problems I was forced to use to wave output to get it to play properly.

Edit:
Now seems to be a program error of some sort. After several discs worth of play, I get choppy/fast play and need to bail to another output plugin. Any ideas? Win 2k, 1.5 gig ram, sp 4. Directx was updated a year or so ago.

Thanks

S

[outerspace_utah]

I updated Directx to version 6.0.2600.0 from last week(!).

Still no joy. I get either out_asio or winamp has generated errors and needs to close.

I'm open to any suggestions.

Sounds great when it works.

S

[outerspace_utah]

Well..

I didn't know ASIOforall was needed. Found this tidbit googling.

I searched for "ASIO" in these forums and found only one mention of this (out of 109 threads) here:

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....ighlight=asio.


So for anyone as lost as I was, you need plugin linked at the top of this post AND ASIOforall (free) from http://www.asio4all.com/ . Solved all problems.

What a time hole. As I said above, sounds killer with the iZotope ozone MP EQ. http://www.izotope.com/


S

[xsparky]

Hello,
Another question on the ASIO driver.
Will it work with my setup going from my Winamp PC via USB out to my UD-10 USB Audio, .Converter,http://www.trendsaudio.com/EN/Produc...io_feature.htm
then from the audio converter I come out via SPDIF to my dac which only has SPDIF or Toslink inputs.
In other words will the ASIO help in this USB type of connection or is it for Internal sound cards only?
I am running version 5.3.1.
Thanks for your help!

[sonnysavage]

On a page that has an excellent review of the Trends Audio UD-10, the author specifically moved to ASIO drivers and Winamp to achieve significantly better sound quality. The review is here: http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/tr...io_ud10_e.html

He provides a link on that page to download the ASIO drivers too.

Originally posted by xsparky
Hello,
Another question on the ASIO driver.
Will it work with my setup going from my Winamp PC via USB out to my UD-10 USB Audio, .Converter,http://www.trendsaudio.com/EN/Produc...io_feature.htm
then from the audio converter I come out via SPDIF to my dac which only has SPDIF or Toslink inputs.
In other words will the ASIO help in this USB type of connection or is it for Internal sound cards only?
I am running version 5.3.1.
Thanks for your help!

[Rachid.nl]

Works like a charm and indeed sounds much better on my M-Audio Delta 44.

Please note the following:

1. In general, ASIO drivers are not capable of handling two applications at the same time. So if there's some application already playing audio, chances are WinAMP cannot play anything through the ASIO plugin, since the sound card's already in use. This downside really never appears with professional use, as you'd basically only use one application for all your needs.

2. You must make sure that the output sample rate as set in the WinAMP ASIO plugin matches the Codec sample rate of your sound card. Most cards by default do not lock the sample rate, which is good news, as the sound card will adapt to whatever sample rate is offered. However, if for whatever reason you chose to lock your sound card to a specific sample rate, you must make sure the ASIO plugin resamples to that sample rate. In my case, I've locked my sound card to 96 KHz, thus I had to set the plugin to resample to that rate.

[hariskar]

Is ASIO better than the MAD plugin?

[flocksoft]

Originally posted by hariskar
Is ASIO better than the MAD plugin?

very different things

- MAD (Mpeg Audio Decoder) -> only for mp3 audio files -> input plugin
- ASIO (Audio Streaming Input/Output) is an output driver with low latency -> for all audio files -> output plugin (but requires ASIO drivers for your motherboard)

[gaekwad2]

requires ASIO drivers for your soundcard (I don't think any onboard sound supports ASIO)

[flocksoft]

Originally posted by gaekwad2
requires ASIO drivers for your soundcard (I don't think any onboard sound supports ASIO)

oh yes, a typo

[genewitch]

uh, i am using onboard sound with ASIO via asio4all. That's the whole point of ASIO4ALL, so you have ASIO with any WDM compatible soundcard. i just installed this plugin (out_asio) and it works good. As for the person who asked if SRC would work with this, i doubt it unless the auther of the winamp SRC filter updated to allow it to hook into any output plugin.

[gaekwad2]

asio4all is designed particularly for devices that don't support ASIO. Iirc it doesn't work exactly like real ASIO drivers either (more like kernel streaming). And any difference you "hear" is placebo anyway.

[rope]

Just heard the difference between my flacs and my mp3's this is awesome, really amazing through my interface, dunno why I didnt think of it before

[outerspace_utah]

As for the "placebo effect", I hear a substantial improvement through my NHT Moo-Soo setup. I A-B'd ASIO and wave output for my wife, a classically trained soprano, and she hears the same difference.


Perhaps some of this is system dependant. The differences are there and real on my system however.

ymmv

Stephen

[sullysnet]

Originally posted by tijuana
ASIO is much better 'cause of 1 reason: you can bypass windows kmixer and send the stream directly to the soundcard (kmixer resamples everything to 16bit/44.1k, wich is fine for mp3s, since they sound like s$&%t anyway. But if you're listening to 24 bit / 48k samples, or even uncompressed 16bit 44,1k samplles, kmixer degrades the sound quality a lot).

Aside from kmixer, the sample passes through a lot of hassle, and gets degraded on each step: first it goes to directsound, then to kmixer, that resample's it and mixes in all other windows sounds, then to the kernel, then to the sound card mixer, and finally to the sound card itself. asio goes directly from the player to the sound card's mixer, then to the hardware

Another more extreme option (for 0db gain, 10Kohm sound output) is to disable the soundcard altogether in windows and use just ASIO. That way the sample goes directly to the soundcard, untouched.

He is 100% right if you load up Process Monitor from Sysinternals you can see ASIO in use and kmixer NOT

Sound IS better with the right speakers


can someone tell me what is the main difference from the exe version over the dll? I am using the DLL but not sure why you would use the exe one

thanks

[sicarp]

I just switched to the kernal streaming plug in and it sounds sooo sweet using my Grado headphones... pure bliss. Is there a difference in sound quality between ASIO and kernal streaming?

thanks

[sullysnet]

where or what is kernal streaming plug ???? I haven't see that

thank

[J_Darnley]

Did you try searching? Did you spell kernel correctly? The Most requested features/plug-ins sticky in this forum has it listed:
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....=155680#kernel

[sullysnet]

Originally posted by J_Darnley
Did you try searching? Did you spell kernel correctly? The Most requested features/plug-ins sticky in this forum has it listed:
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....=155680#kernel

that would explain why I found nothing instead of typing in kernel I did copy and paste :P my goof..sorry

[carbonara72]

Just installed the ASIO plugin, using it with my M-Audio Audiophile 2496. The sound improvement is amazing, so much so that I don't want to go back to the directsound plugin.

I have a problem though, when output is routed through the ASIO plugin the volume slider on Winamp no longer has any effect at all and every time I minimise or maximise a window I get a slight pause in output sound.

Any ideas how to fix this as otherwise i'll have to go back to direct sound which would be a killer after hearing how good the ASIO sound is?

[devil259]

guys i can't seem to get asio working with my audigy 2 zs.. winamp just won't play the file..

i try the libmmd.dll method, uncheck 24bit in winamp, using SSE2 and normal... all no use..

can someone help pls?

[gaekwad2]

Does the Audigy even show up as a device in the plug-in's config?

If it doesn't you'll probably need ASIO4all.

Another problem could be that the Audigy doesn't support 44.1khz sampling rate. It has a (shitty) internal resampler, but that one might be disabled using ASIO.

In terms of sound quality using out_ds_SSRC (to get at least proper resampling to 48khz) might be a better choice here anyway.

[Sapien2]

When I select out_asio(dll) as output plugin I can't control volume level with winamp volume slider. Is this correct behavior?

What is the differnce betweeen out_asio(dll) and out_asio(exe)?

Sorry for bad English.

[gaekwad2]

Originally posted by Sapien2
When I select out_asio(dll) as output plugin I can't control volume level with winamp volume slider. Is this correct behavior?

Yes, or at least it does that for me as well (may depend on asio driver). Some input plugins, such as in_!mpg123, offer an alternate volume setting that works with out_asio.
No idea how well in_!mpg123 works with Winamp 5.5x though, haven't used it since the default one got replaygain and gapless playback.

Originally posted by Sapien2
What is the differnce betweeen out_asio(dll) and out_asio(exe)?

Sorry for bad English.

Not sure, I think out_asio(exe) calls an external .exe.
Back when I tried it I only could get the dll version to work.