Stereo Tool

Hello,

Firstly, I must say this Stereo Tool is quite amazing, I currently use it with WinAmp and I enjoy it a lot. I can really hear the improvement this plugin provides. Even though I am no good on setting up all those settings (I use a pre-configured template).

Then secondly, I am having a problem playing FLAC files in WinAmp while the Stereo tool is the active DSP.
-If this problem has already been discussed, I am sorry for re-posting it, I could not find a thread that had a solution to my problem.-

Continuing on the problem, WinAmp will only play the first 2-3 seconds of any FLAC file before going completely mute. The strange thing though, is that the visualization in the Stereo Tool window continues.
The bar visualization my current WinAmp theme provides also continues, the stereo left-right visual (from my WinAmp Theme) is not indicating any sound being the only one that stopped doing it's thing. See image below.

I've already tried various things, and I am certain this problem is related to this specific plug-in. If anyone has a solution, I would gladly hear it from you.

Thanks a lot,
Nycrea

Image: --No sound is being outputted at the moment displayed in this image.--

As you can see, the "left-right" visual is not giving anything (normally a lighter colour indicating the stereo action would overlap the colourblocks you see in the image), while the "bar" visual is continuing as normal.

(Important) edit:
The left right stereo visual I thought stopped was merely disabled. So, all the visualizations continue 'moving' when the sound stops at the 3s mark.

This issue is new to me. Just to rule out anything else: if you play a different file type and set the Stereo Tool post amp spider (main window) to 0, do the animations in Winamp still move? If not, the fact that they keep moving when you play a FLAC file through Stereo Tool would mean that the output comes out of Stereo Tool correctly and the problem must be elsewhere.

I do most of my testing with FLAC files in Winamp, and as I said I've never seen this issue...

I did some tests with this. I played a regular .mp3 file and slid the post amp to x0.00 (-99.999DB). This resulted in no WinAmp nor Stereo Tool animation.

After that, I tried the same thing playing a FLAC file. I slid the post amp down to x0.00 and the animations in WinAmp continued, the Stereo Tool animation did stop.

I am getting more and more confused with this.

Kind regards,
Nycrea

Do you happen to have a debugger installed on your system? I have seen somewhat - but not exactly - similar behavior when there was an exception in Stereo Tool: the ST output is ignored and Winamp plays the processed audio instead. But never silence...

I don't currently have a debugger (at least, not one I consciously downloaded and installed), if you could tell me where to download etc, I'd gladly do that.

I might add, just to give some more info that might help, I have this exact same problem happening on my laptop.

Kind regards,
Nycrea

This issue is still unresolved.
I'd appreciate any suggestion as to what I can do to fix said problem.

Kind regards,
Nycrea

Sorry!

Could you try the following things? (If none of these helps we'll get back to the debugger, but without a debug version of everything it might be difficult to get a clear result from it).

1. What happens if you select "Bypass all" in Stereo Tool? This reduces the CPU load to near-0, which might affect the behavior. And it might skip code that causes issues.
2. Select a different Winamp output plugin. For example, if you're using DirectSound Output now, then try WaveOut.
3. What happens if you switch back to the default Winamp skin?
4. If that doesn't help, could you try some other DSP plugin? Doesn't matter what it does.

All right, well.
Without me doing anything, it suddenly started playing FLAC files properly again. I have seen this behavior before, but the issue of not playing keeps returning over time. For now I will just not touch it and hope it lasts, and I'll try the options you gave me in your previous post if the issue pops up again.
Thanks again for your help, I appreciate it.

Kind Regards,
Nycrea

I have not had this happen either, FLAC files have always worked with Stereo Tool in Winamp for me. However, as far as the animations go. I can attest to the fact that Winamp's internal visualizations (waveform, spectrum, vu, whatever your skin has) is in no way influenced by StereoTool with FLAC. But, this behavior is not limited to FLAC. I've also seen it in the MP4/M4A demuxer/plugin included with Winamp, the Vorbis (OGG) plugin included with Winamp, the MAD MPEG decoder, and the official MusePack plugin. I didn't actually test an ALAC file, but since it uses the same mp4/m4a demuxer, I suspect it too, behaves the same way. The MAD plugin is an entirely different story; it's never behaved with winamp's visuals.

The behavior that is apparently to be expected, where StereoTool influences Winamp's visualizer, I've only noticed in Nullsoft's MPEG plugin, the default WMA plugin, the default wav plugin, and Monkey's Audio.

But, honestly, I have zero clue on your problem. Is it every FLAC file, or just specific ones? Could it be related to 24-bit playback and either having or not having it enabled in Winamp's Playback preferences causing it? Everything has always just worked for me, despite my configuration; I've just learned to ignore Winamp's vis.