Playback settings

Full file buffering

Choose the length of the pre-buffering memory. It hasn't any impact on the audio quality but could solve some cracks dued to "accessing to the file" problems which can occure if your hard drive is a bit ousted. It could remain at 0kb unless you listen to short files like short videogames sounds.
Rq : It refers only to files with a smaller size than the chosen threshold

Playback thread prority

As it's said, leave it untouched unless you experience some problems with your CPU or system slowdowns .

Replaygain

The interest of replaygain is quite simple: as the level of audio files could depend on how it has been encoded, in which format etc.. This standard will impose an audio level and consequently smooth the audio level of your audio files without changing them. replaygain acts like an operator that would change the volume for each track very accurately.

For more information about Replaygain see here.

Replaygain and Playback

• Source mode :
  • Track: will use track values to process
  • Album: will use album values to process
  RQ:
  • Which mode should I use and why?
    If you usually listen to single tracks, use track mode.
    If you usually listen to complete albums (especially if you listen to classic music), prefer the album mode, as between two tracks, if you use the track gain, you could hear the change of volume during clappings, or in the middle of a long splitted opéra. Using the album mode will change the volume only between albums, which is less annoying.
• Processing
  • none: won't use Replaygain
  • apply gain: will apply the gain computed
  • apply gain and prevent clipping from peak value: will apply the gain but considers the peak value to avoid clipping problems
  • prevent clipping from peak value: will consider the peak value to avoid clipping
  RQ:
  • Which mode should I use and why?
    Use apply gain except if you listen to music with a moderate audio level and high peaks. (Classic music). As the gain is computed considering the average audio level, not the peaks. As a consequence clipping problems could occure for such tracks. But it is quite rare to have clipping problems because of replaygain.
  • If you hear no sound at all or if you have to turn up your hardware volume, it could be because you are applying gain according to the peak value. If so, just choose "apply gain".
  • Clipping problems could be solved with the advanced limiter.

Preamp
The Preamp allows you to change the target level. By default it is 89dB. If you find it to low or to high, use the preamp to correct it.

• Files with RG info : For files with RG info, Keep it to 89dB, prefer changing the global volume level or your hardware volume than the target level.
• Files without RG info : It will allow you to apply a "fake" replaygain value for files without replaygain info. If you listen to modern music -7dB/-10dB value should be correct. A little less if you listen to "older" music as nowadays the average level of tracks is increasing with mixing compression to get a louder audio level.

Volume control

Now, the volume control is directly applied to the track, you won't have to wait the buffer length to hear the change.
You now have access to the volume in the toolbar without any specific plugin.
The dB scale
dB gain=20log(I/I0)
where I=final value and I0 the reference
It's usually a negative value. -3db corresponds to dividing the output level by sqrt(2) this is a table for the correspondance between the percentage value and the dB value (after -60dB, it's nearly unhearable even if your hardware is put to max.)

in %	in dB	in %	in dB
100	0	30	-10.4
90	-0.9	20	-14
80	-1.9	10	-20
70	-3.1	1	-40
60	-4.4	0.1	-60
50	-6	0.01	-80
40	-8	0.001	-100

Total Time played

Will display .. The total time played, you can Reset it.

Resume playback after restart

This option is now in this panel.
Now, if you close foobar on pause, you will have to press play to restart playing even at restart.
If checked, will start to play the last file you were listening to, exactly where you were in the file. (Except if Reset stop-after-current when stopping is checked in "General", in that case, it will restart from the beginning of the file )

August 30 2007 02:10:00.