vst plug-in support?

**RPM_VR4** · 04-16-2006, 01:09 AM

Isn't that type of stuff better performed with a real car electronics EQ/Pre-Amp (like a high-end headunit or a hide away box)? I've never liked the idea of connecting a PC sound card directly to a car amplifier. Can a good PC sound card really get you 4V (or higher) pre-outs like a headunit/pre-amp can do? Is the volume range on the PC as good or better than out-putting line-level to a head unit and using it for volume?

I hate software controlled volume anyway... you never know when a "bug" in some program is going to blast your head off. I like my system to be able to go that loud at max, but only when I want it to, not when real-player or quick-time decide to randomly set the windows mixer to max.

Also, most OEM setups do not have volume controls on the touch-screen. Those are always steering wheel-controls and/or buttons/knobs near the screen. It is easy to add a nice car IR remote (pioneer/alpine/sony/etc) to your PC system for up/down/left/right/enter navigation as well as using it for head-unit only volume control. I have my OEM steering wheel controls wired to send the same IR as my remote for volume control on the HU and next/prev track on the PC as well.

Plus, with hardware only volume/mixer/eq control, that leaves more space on your front-end for navigational buttons instead of having those damn vol+/-/mute buttons that David still hasn't made optional (hint, hint

).

**Quack** · 04-16-2006, 05:53 AM

A lot of good information in this active thread about software-based processors. I've tried to answer your questions below.

Originally Posted by RPM_VR4

Isn't that type of stuff better performed with a real car electronics EQ/Pre-Amp (like a high-end headunit or a hide away box)?

Traditionally, yes but the landscape is changing. Processor/RAM have always been limiting factors. These become cheaper by the day and they're at a point where a typical, reasonably-priced setup is going to have adequate power to handle it. So, software options are becoming more practical and their flexibility is just about limitless.

I've never liked the idea of connecting a PC sound card directly to a car amplifier. Can a good PC sound card really get you 4V (or higher) pre-outs like a headunit/pre-amp can do? Is the volume range on the PC as good or better than out-putting line-level to a head unit and using it for volume?

Soundcards are getting there. Most are still 2V, but 4V are starting to appear. Excellent sound quality is pretty easy to find nowadays.

I hate software controlled volume anyway... you never know when a "bug" in some program is going to blast your head off. I like my system to be able to go that loud at max, but only when I want it to, not when real-player or quick-time decide to randomly set the windows mixer to max.

Also, most OEM setups do not have volume controls on the touch-screen. Those are always steering wheel-controls and/or buttons/knobs near the screen. It is easy to add a nice car IR remote (pioneer/alpine/sony/etc) to your PC system for up/down/left/right/enter navigation as well as using it for head-unit only volume control. I have my OEM steering wheel controls wired to send the same IR as my remote for volume control on the HU and next/prev track on the PC as well.

This is personal preference, but I would definitely rather have all the system controls on the TS interface than having an extra DIN-sized unit in the dash or fiddling with a remote.

Plus, with hardware only volume/mixer/eq control, that leaves more space on your front-end for navigational buttons instead of having those damn vol+/-/mute buttons that David still hasn't made optional (hint, hint

).

I would imagine that the front end would have a separate screen for the EQ/time-alignment functions since the functions are fairly complex and may require a lot of screen real-estate. Plus, they're typically set-and-forget...you wouldn't want to accidently change the time alignment of your front-left tweeter when you miss hitting the volume button by a hair.

**scott_fx** · 04-18-2006, 01:31 AM

sorry, i havent checked this thread in a while but as far as your concern for pc sound cards havig 4v or higher, the answer is yes. I actually just got mine in the mail today. It's a echo gina3g card and it has 5.75vrms outputs on the balanced output (the break out box has 6 outs) you can easily convert balanced outputs to unbalanced by simply grounding the negative signal wire. Two of my amps have balanced inputs for the front speakers and my sub amp is unbalanced. The install should happen in the next few weeks, i have the alpine pxa-h700/7001 right now and i'm hoping with the implementation of vst support in one of the front ends that i'll have an even better signal.

for the volume, i'm going to make a knob from a usb phidget encoder that i have laying around the house....stilll not software based but you could put a quick kill switch on your remote turn on leads if there ever is a problem.

for those of you reading this, please post a reply if you're interested. vst plugins are pretty cool and will give you greater system flexibility at little cost to you (no new hardware) posting here will only help encorage david

and thanks david for your great front end and support!

**scott_fx** · 04-18-2006, 01:33 AM

oh...and if any of you were wondering where i got the voltage specs from the card, well i've been talkin alot with the echo tech guys....they are great.... go buy there stuff! :-)

**tj!2k4** · 04-18-2006, 01:59 AM

"sounds" good to me

**cobra42799** · 04-19-2006, 06:14 AM

Scott- I was wondering if the usb phidget encoder you will use as a volume control will control the sound in windows or bypass it and control the echo gina 3g. I have to say that output voltage is awesome! Good find. I havent been able to find a volume control that controls anything but the windows volume which adds alot of distortion. sorry for the off topic post. Frontends dont seem to support cards using ASIO drivers and such. These are necessary to bypass kmixer in windows to get better sound.

**scott_fx** · 04-19-2006, 03:01 PM

cobra, thanks for that post, i wasnt really aware of the distortion from windows volume. I'll have to look into this more.

**cobra42799** · 04-19-2006, 07:09 PM

You're welcome. The other thing is that using the alpine unit you go digital spdif out of your computer, right? The digital connections will sometimes bypass the windows audio already. It all depends on the audio drivers. Also, the windows volume distorts the sound because of a built in windows program called kmixer. I have been trying to contact Echo as well to find out about using a hardware usb volume knob with their products. The Phidget just needs a driver where you can select your sound card just like the waveout and directsound output of winamp. But I am getting way off topic here. We should start up a new post to discuss this.

**scott_fx** · 04-19-2006, 07:20 PM

that'd be great, let me know what you find out. the echo guys are really great to deal with. also please post a link to the new thread in here... and vise versa. I'd like to get a lot of exposer for this thread.

**azzurro** · 04-22-2006, 07:54 PM

I think that this is a great idea!

Take a look at this:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showt...0&pagenumber=1

I did some playing around. What you can actually do is the following:

Use "virtual cables" to create a Windows device driver, with Wave In and Wave Out ports. If you could set Centrafuse to use these fake device drivers, then you could set this fake device driver as your input (Wave In) within the Console program (explained in the above link) to do all your routing, and then set your real sound card as the output (Wave Out).

To make the cables...

NTONYX VAC
http://www.ntonyx.com/vac.htm

It will let you make sixty four cables, and each can be two channels wide. You can get by with only one cable (two channels), because you can route the same output as input to an unlimited number of other plugins from within Console.