I need a bit of help / advice in some DSP settings etc pls

[CheekyChops]

Hi there

I do apologize for these questions, but I'm a bit of a technophobe and trying my best and thanks to a lot of advice and help I'm doing Ok

So, I'm at this point...

I have my set up, WiiM Ultra, Active Speakers, and a Sub (oh, and a laptop)

I am coming away from streaming so I'm using the WiiM Desktop App to pick up my 3000 odd stored FLAC files on my laptop, and I can play from there.
So, I have a few things I need to do.

1) I need to change everything to 24bit 48khz (which thanks to Spoon I know how to do) so I've added that DSP
2) I need to run every song through DBP in order to ensure all the volumes are the same, BUT, do I use replay gain (bearing in mind WiiM has a feature to 'Check" work with this feature) or do I use Volume Normalization?? If I use Replay Gain then I understand I should really do TRACK and not ALBUM?
3) I have checked with MP3tag and also Picard for my metadata/album art (to ensure I get the album art and info on the Ultra Screen or TV if I cast laptop display) but, can I select a DSP option whereby DBP can scan the files and correct them if required or add album art etc if there isn't any? If so, which option should I select.

I think that's it - once all this is done I'm home and dry and you'll never hear from me again hahaha!!

I have looked at the help files but it's kinda confusing and I don't want to either lose all my music or screw up the files irreversibly!!

thanks in advance for any help

CC

[garym]

why do you need to do this? Certainly not required by the WIIM.

1) I need to change everything to 24bit 48khz (which thanks to Spoon I know how to do) so I've added that DSP

[Dat Ei]

Hey CheekyChops,

to be true - I don't understand your setup, why you want to use your laptop and why you need the conversion of your flac files to 24 bit / 48 kHz.

Why do you quit streaming? If you don't want to rely on your network, you could use a local usb hard drive, copy all your music to that and connect it to your WiiM directly. From my point of view no need for a laptop... The WiiM Ultra can playback music files from usb hard drives with a sampling rate up to 24 bit / 192 kHz.

And the best way to protect your files from irreversible screw ups is to not work on your only copy of files. Backup! No backup - no regret!

Dat Ei

[CheekyChops]

why do you need to do this? Certainly not required by the WIIM.

1) I need to change everything to 24bit 48khz (which thanks to Spoon I know how to do) so I've added that DSP

I don't "need" to do this, I just want to as all my files are of different bit depth and sample rate - I like everything to be the same

[CheekyChops]

Hey CheekyChops,

to be true - I don't understand your setup, why you want to use your laptop and why you need the conversion of your flac files to 24 bit / 48 kHz.
See above reply for the conversion - as for the laptop - I've tried the USB input in the rear of the WiiM and there are known issues with it not finding all the files etc, lagging, slow at finding songs etc - the WiiM Desktop App is designed to act as a host through the WiiM Home App and local drive to access and play source material - it's reliable, and excellent - tried and tested by me I just want to do these final two things....


Why do you quit streaming? If I have all the content I want on my laptop then why would I pay for a monthly streaming service? If you don't want to rely on your network, you could use a local usb hard drive, copy all your music to that and connect it to your WiiM directly. From my point of view no need for a laptop... As above. I already have a laptop and I like to use it as the control centre sometimes rather than the iPhone The WiiM Ultra can playback music files from usb hard drives with a sampling rate up to 24 bit / 192 kHz. The Desktop App also does 24bit 192khz, but I don't need it or notice the difference so rather than up sample all the music I have already at 24bit 48khz or 24bit 96khz it's much easier and more sensible to encode to 24bit 48khz for uniformity - it's the perfect balance in my ears which is why i'm doing it.

And the best way to protect your files from irreversible screw ups is to not work on your only copy of files. Backup! No backup - no regret! Already backed up in two locations, one being cloud, and the other being an external SSD.

Cheers

Dat Ei

[CheekyChops]

Ah, I changed my font colour to red and it showed it in red to make it easier to read back but when posted it's all black - apologies for that, hopefully you can make sense of it all

[garym]

up to you of course, but this is really a bad idea. (sort of like, I am missing a finger on one hand so I chopped one off on the other hand so they are the same!)

Regarding volume, if the WIIM can read and use ReplayGain tags, then it is best to simply use the ReplayGain DSP and add ALBUM and TRACK ReplayGain. These are tags that are used by a ReplayGain capable server/player. Many players can use either ALBUM or TRACK RG tags based on a setting. If your player can ONLY use one RG tag, and you expect to play playlists (songs from different albums), then you'd want to use only TRACK RG tags.
(note, you seem to be willing to give up on having lossless bitperfect copies of your music (i.e., the bitrate and frequency conversions), so maybe you don't care about this. If not, you can also just use Volume Normalize, and this will permanently change the volume level of all your songs to be about the same. This is a lossy conversion of course, but so is converting to 24 bit/48kh.)

Regarding album art, PerfectTunes (a sister product to dbpoweramp) can check all your albums, look for either missing art or low quality art, and suggest replacements. It works really well.

[Dat Ei]

Hey CheekyChops,

If I have all the content I want on my laptop then why would I pay for a monthly streaming service?

you talked about streaming in your post, not streaming service with costs. As you know, you can stream music from local ressources without any additional costs, i.e. audio files which you have ripped with dBpa.

As above. I already have a laptop and I like to use it as the control centre sometimes rather than the iPhone

3000 flac files don't need to much disk space, so that the additional costs for a usb hard drive is reasonable. I assume that you could control the WiiM with an attached usb drive by the desktop app still, but with the iphone alternatively and this without having to start your laptop.

The Desktop App also does 24bit 192khz, but I don't need it or notice the difference so rather than up sample all the music I have already at 24bit 48khz or 24bit 96khz it's much easier and more sensible to encode to 24bit 48khz for uniformity - it's the perfect balance in my ears which is why i'm doing it.

Ok, this is you. From an audio point of view that doesn't make any sense, neither to upsample audio files with a lower resolution, like ripped CDs from 16 bit / 44.1 kHz, nor to downsample audio files with a higher resolution, like downloaded hires files, to 24 bit / 48 kHz.

To be clear: it's your decision - I just wanted to understand your setup and to give you a feedback from an outside point of view.


Dat Ei

[CheekyChops]

Hey, thanks for the replies - god, what a nightmare lol - this quiet and loud business is very frustrating, and if you say the normalization process is lossy then I'm losing even more.
Barbra Streisand, Guilty - terribly low volume then something else comes on and boom - I guess there's no solution really - I do wonder how other people deal with this... it can't be just me!!
Dat Ei - I can control the WiiM USB drive but it's slower, more laggy and just not as good as the Desktop App - also, you can't cast the Now Playing screen from the WiiM but you can from the laptop (or when I'm using it, the iPad) - nice to have something to look at when listening to music

Thanks for your tips guys - much appreciated... unsure where I go from here, but every day is a school day as they say !!!!

Cheers.

[Spoon]

Keep a copy of your tracks, untouched, then convert the whole collection to a new volume normalized, FLAC, if your source files are 16 bit do this:

DSP Effect: Bit Depth 24 bit
DSP Effect: Volume Normalize EBR (default settings)

This will not lose any real quality as you have increased the bit depth to allow loud tracks to be made quieter without quality loss.

[simbun]

Hey, thanks for the replies - god, what a nightmare lol - this quiet and loud business is very frustrating, and if you say the normalization process is lossy then I'm losing even more.
Barbra Streisand, Guilty - terribly low volume then something else comes on and boom - I guess there's no solution really - I do wonder how other people deal with this... it can't be just me!!

For some reason when using the Windows WHA it's not possible to have the WiiM device (tested with a Pro) perform the ReplayGain processing so you would need to modify your files to normalise their volume.

Assuming you're on Windows another option would be to use MusicBee. MusicBee is a music manager and player, with a UPnP plugin in development that already works well with my WiiM Pro and is capable of applying ReplayGain, so you'd just need to add the approprate tags to your files.

[Spoon]

Or you could use Asset UPnP and enable the transcoding option to apply gain, then select 'Local Media' and choose asset in Wiim.

[CheekyChops]

Hey guys, apologies for the delay in responding...

Much appreciated, all the help and advice - I tried MusicBee and didn't like it - I tried JRiver Centre and didn't like it - for some reason I like the interface of WiiM Desktop App and also the WiiM Mobile App - I like the fact I can leave the WDA running and do all the operating from the iphone or ipad and cast from Windows Laptop to my TV etc.
I will do as mentioned above, using the Normalization method (I have backed everything up so it's all good). I have very few 16bit files tbh, probably 50 or so, only some tracks that I could only get on CD etc, everything else is 24bit Vinyl Rips over years of collecting.

I will let you know how I get on - I won't even discuss my DSD files and what to do with them lol - seriously tho - WiiM only handles 24bit 192khz, so I think I'd only play them through headphones direct from the laptop via a little dongle DAC that can handle DSD files - but I'm still deciding what to get - I'm more keen to get this hurdle over and done with.

Away for a day or two but will check in later in the weekend.

Thanks again guys