Output sound processing

The output sound processing is done after the stream has left the pMusic play-engine. So, it will only affect the Linux sound driver (Alsa). This is a smooth processing, and most often the recommended choice. The downside is that it will affect the sound output of all other apps using the Alsa driver, and does not have all the capabilities of the input processing.

pMusic offers a basic Volume and Balance controller. The Volume slider will work for mono as well as stereo, but the Balance does of course require a stereo channel. The default channel is Master, and this is most often a mono channel, and does not support different level for left and right speaker. You must specify correct channel for your system to get mixer volume to work as a balance controller. This is done in the preferences. Menu->File->Preferences. (See image below). There is also a mute-button in this basic sound processing module.

In addition, the output sound processing includes the equalizer embedded from pEqualizer. This is a frontend to alsaequal made by 01micko. This gives easy access to tuning the sound fitting your speakers and ears. Be aware that you can save your equalizer settings to a preset for later use. Check out the pEqualizer manual

When the equalizer is installed on your system, all sound is ported through it. Even if choosing the Flat preset the sound is filtered. It does not have a true bypass. If you are one of those wanting the raw output, the solution is to avoid using auto as your defined soundcard. This is the default setting, and to be changed in the preferences. Note that by setting the soundcard you also bound the Alsa driver to pMusic. This means other programs will not play audio as long as pMusic is active. On the other hand, pMusic will not play if sound driver is in use by other program.

Input sound processing

The input processing is tweaking the sound stream going into pMusic, so this gives more options to manipulate the streams structure (ie. tempo and fading). The downside of input processing is that it has to reload the stream setup, and it will give a tick/pause when changing the values.

Technical:
The input processing is put inside the generated playing command to the exec-file: $HOME/.pmusic/tmp/exec (check out the backend monitor plugin).

ffmpeg -i "/mnt/sdb1/musikk/mp3/Yngwie Malmsteen - Mistreated.mp3" -ss 134 -af "volume=2,treble=gain=3,bass=gain=-7" -f rtp rtp://127.0.0.1:1234 -ss 134 -af "volume=2,treble=gain=3,bass=gain=-7" -f au - 2>> /root/.pmusic/tmp/ffmpeg_output | aplay 2> /root/.pmusic/tmp/aplay_error

Manipulate Export files

The gui-module for input processing is also used when exporting files in the playqueue. This gives the abilities to convert the stream more radically than just changing the format. Since this is the same gui-module, all values stays active also when exporting the tracks. To avoid your exported files to be changed, keep the Bypass switch on.

Input volume / Normalize

Increasing the input volume should be used by caution, as it could give distortion to the sound. To optimize the input volume level, use the Normalizer. The normalizer will unify volume of all tracks, but never increase volume more than to a level without distortion. This is handy when your tracks comes from different sources, since the recording level was probably not the same. The normalizer uses resources on the volume calculation, and depending on your system, it will give a small gap before playing.

The output volume will not distort.

The internal sourcelist

In the default frontend, this is the big field to the left, and it shows output of

The Smartadd dock

Show the Smartadd dock by pressing the button beside the search field - see image below. This is a tool adding tracks depending on your requests. You define how many tracks to be added (by sort order or randomly), and where the smartadd should look. Either in the sourcelist (image above) or the internal database (all audio files on system). This is all good, but it is the filters that make it 'smart'. From version 5.1.0, there are 3 filters:
Rating
Each time you have played a song it is stored in the database, so pMusic 'knows' how many times you have played each song. I use this filter when I want some random music - but still, I want music I like. So, setting the rating filter to 3 - I only get songs I have heard 3 times earlier. I get different kind of music (I set it to random), but since I have played these songs 3 times before, I most likely enjoy them.
Genre
The genre info is based on the meta-info stored in the database. If this info isn't present, this filter is useless and will lead to an error message. An interesting feature is the free search. - The string in the genre-field can be ie. 'eta' and will accept Metal/metal/Heavy metal/Black metal/...
Tempo
If info exist, this filter allows us to specify beats per minute of the songs we like to hear.

The filter buttons shows quick info of the filter status. Here we see the rating filter is set to 3 while the tempo-button shows the minimum beats per minute - 120. Genre filter is not set, so button doesn't show any info.

Technical (tempo)
The pMusic indexer stores the tempo of the song to the database. It requires a full scan (Menu->Music Sources->My Music) or that you've listen the song. (See Witing to the DB for more info). The tempo detection is done in funcC via the trackinfo function (func_trackinfo --> stream_info) and the result is seen in the Stream tab in the Track info window. Tempo detection requires soundtouch to be installed on your system. There is a dependency checker in the Help menu. Tempo features is introduced in pMusic 5.1.0

The commandline

The basic command is pmusic /path/file, and it will start pmusic with an empty playqueue and play the requested song. If pMusic is already running, it will add the file to the existing playqueue. To override this dynamic behavior, use the switches:
-a to ensure the file is added to the existing queue
-P to ensure the file will start playing

See pmusic --help for a full set of switches.

External file browser

The dynamic behavior of the commandline described above will all file browsers benefit of. As long as audio MIME types are associated with pMusic, you can click on an audio file in your file browser and pMusic will show up and start playing. The next files you click on, will nicely be added to the playqueue.

If using the Rox file browser (used in most Puppy linux), there is an option to add all audio files in the selected directory. This is available from the right-click menu.

Track info - Album tab

There is also an option to add tracks from the Track info window - Album tab. Right-click in the list, and you get the option to add track(s) to the playqueue.

The search field

The search field gives of course input to the search-engine. You can also activate the internal file browser by enter a path here. But in addition, it lets us add music to the playqueue by entering the address - either a file path or an internet URL. Mostly, other solutions are preferable, but when you ie. want to add an internet URL to the playqueue, this is the most handy way to do it. Copy the address in a browser - paste it into the search field - press enter.

No comments posted yet.

This might be called a bugfix release to Slacko 6.3.0 but it is so much more than that!

This is the first ever official puppy to support UEFI booting for both for 32 and 64 bit versions and the same ISO image will boot legacy BIOS PCs as well. And there is so much more that is improved, such as the theming, sound detection, firewall, default application management plus our home grown apps such as pMusic.

It is still based on upstream 14.1 but has all the latest security and bugfix updates. There is much more going on here than a point release can convey that is why we have given it 2 points!

The official release announcement is available for 32 bit and 64 bit.

For more information you can visit the release notes page and the download page.

I Hope you enjoy using Slacko!

:-D
Delete

kernel 4.6.3
qt5
vlc
ffmpeg
palemoon
deadbeef
hexchat
samba
and all the usual puppy stuff.

xenialpup64 and xenialpup 32bit isos are available here http://ftp.nluug.nl/ftp/pub/os/Linux/distr/puppylinux/test/xenialpup/

please post all bugs found on the xenialpup64 thread here http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=910078#910078

happy testing :)

No comments posted yet.