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I recently downloaded the trial version of a VST plugin
called iZotope Ozone 3, which has, well, a bunch of
stuff, but the "Loudness Maximizer" component has a bit-depth
meter, which is always a useful item.I installed iZotope Ozone 3 in Foobar 0.8.3 using
two bridge adapters: Foobar2WinampPlugin
(foo_dsp_Foobar2WinampPlugin.dll) and "VST Host DSP v1.0 for
WinAmp" (dsp_vst.dll).The iZotope bit meter seemed to work fine in this configuration,
and I made an interesting (if disappointing) discovery with
it. Foobar 0.8.3 will play back a 24-bit WAV file without
complaint, but apparently only a truncated-to-16-bit version
gets through to the DSP section[*]. This is also, of course,
true if you use the Diskwriter's "record://" function
(even if you've modified record.cpp from the 0.8.3 SDK and
rebuilt foo_diskwriter.dll with Visual C++ 6 to support 24-bit
input, in which case you'll see something like
"1. Recording: 44100 Hz 24 bps 2 ch" in the Playlist;
and even if you're using a WAVE_MAPPER source
that doesn't return WAVERR_BADFORMAT on a 24-bit call to
waveInOpen() -- Virtual Audio Cable supports this).With Foobar 0.9.4.2 playing back a 24-bit WAV file, the
iZotope Ozone bit-depth meter shows all 24 bits active
(you have to use the new Winamp DSP Bridge plugin-in,
foo_dsp_winamp.dll, with Foobar 0.9). However, the Diskwriter
record:// function has not been carried over to Foobar 0.9.I also tried Winamp for the first time (Winamp 5.3.3 lite),
and the iZotope bit meter shows 24 bits using Winamp set to 24-bit
playback, and also using Jasper van de Gronde's LineIn plugin
for Winamp 2/5 set to 24-bit input. So I'm now using Winamp
as a realtime upsampling 24-bit pass-through on a dedicated PC with
two sound cards, using the LineIn plugin,
HQSoftProc v4.6 Pro SRC, and Otachan's ASIO output plugin
for Winamp 5 (out_asio(dll).dll, v0.67).I'm a little disappointed that Foobar can't do this.
[*] It's conceivable that the 16-bit truncation is due to
foo_dsp_Foobar2WinampPlugin.dll; there's absolutely no
way to know for sure (short of reading the source code, I
suppose).
Follow Ups:
You are very comprehensive in your analysis of the situation - well done!Suggestion: rather than using foobar or winamp, you may want to consider using a real VST host that communicates directly to the ASIO driver. One of the problems with the WinAmp VST bridge is that it's only 2ch I think.
> [Y]ou may want to consider using a real VST host that communicates
> directly to the ASIO driver.Indeed, if de Castro Lopo's SRC or, for that matter,
iZotope 64-bit SRC, were available as VST or DX plugins,
I'd ditch these p***ant hosts and use WaveLab in
an instant! ;->(I draw the line at buying a Macintosh just so I can
play around with upsampling, though.)Real-time SRC, it seems, is not considered a "serious"
application for professional DAW software. As opposed
to batch SRC, I mean. Somebody
on Hydrogen Audio, or somewhere similar, asked about
that, and the reply was basically "what for?"
Real time 64-bit or better precision resampling with thousands of filter taps is basically the Holy Grail.Not sure if that's possible yet (that's why most of the DAWs are only doing it in batch mode and generally only using 32bit fp). Once it is, then any objections about resampling artefacts become moot.
Until then, I'm avoiding all processing on digital playback :-)
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