DSP is short for Digital Signal Processing, think of a DSP effect as altering the sound in some fashion (for example you can alter the treble on a HiFi, DSP effects can do this too with a Graphic Equalizer DSP Effect). dMC comes with advanced and varied DSP effects, obviously you will not want to run them all, be selective thinking of what final effect you are trying to achieve. DSP effects are listed and explained alphabetically and later examples of using multiple DSP effects are given.

To access DSP Effects from dBpowerAMP Music Converter select DSP Effects, from Audio CD Input select Power button >> DSP Effects:

DSP Effects is split into 3 sections: 

• Available DSP Effects lists DSP effects not being used, to select one to be used double click on it and it is transferred into the left hand list,

• Active DSP Effects are the effects being used, when running effects dBpowerAMP works from the top of the list to the end, the order is quite important for certain effects. A selected DSP effect can be removed by selecting it and clicking Delete, it will be moved back into Available DSP Effects.

• One effect in the active list can be selected, its settings are show in Selected DSP Settings

Clear empties the active list, Load and Save save the list (but not the settings within each DSP effect). Clear Active DSP Effects After Conversion is a one time setting (that auto unchecks for the next complete conversion) that will set dMC to use any DSP effects after conversion.

Available DSP Effects

• Add Silence, silence can be added of any length to the beginning or end of an audio file,

• Add Tag Element sets a Tag element to be always written, taking priority over any tag value already present, for example a tag element COMMENT (comment field in ID3 Tag) of a certain value can be written to each file converted. A list of standard Tag Elements is presented when Add is clicked,

• Channel Move is quite a powerful DSP effect, at its simplest any channel can be moved (ie left channel moved) to any other channel. Set Channels can be [as source] to leave he channel count as is, or be a fixed number of channels, this can increase the channel count, or reduce it. The option Combine dictates what happens when reducing a channel count, for example going from 5.1 channel to 2 channel audio present in the upper 4 channels can be Dropped (removed), or Added / Count (added together divided by channel count), Added or added on a percentage. When increasing channel counts, Combine is also used to determine how a new channel is created. Manually defined channel moving take preference over combine,

• Eden Swap care must be used with this effect, it is only used rarely if the audio source has the audio bytes swapped (ie certain Mac audio files),

• Graphic Equalizer works as it's physical counter part on a real Hi-Fi, certain frequencies can be increased in loudness or reduced. Pre-set lists many standard settings such as bass boost,

• Looper can create files of a certain length (looping audio content over and over to create that length) or can loop an audio file a certain number of times,

• Maximum Length sets the maximum length of an audio file, for example a whole bunch of full tracks could be converted with a maximum length of 30 seconds to generate preview files. If the length of an audio piece is below the maximum length then it is left untouched,

• Minimum Length creates an audio file of a minimum length, extended as necessary with silence at the end,

• Music Removal removes music from an audio piece, leaving just singing. This can only be achieved if the audio is mastered with the singer singing into a mono microphone, and the rest of the music is given a stereo effect between the left and right channels. The voice can therefore be isolated. How well this effect performs depends upon how the original was recorded by the studio.

• Remove Silence: silence at the beginning or end of a rendition can be removed, care must be taken to select a silence detection threshold that can detect music, whilst at the same time remove silence noise hiss (from records especially),

• Remove Tag Element an ID tag element can be removed, this option will only work when 'Preserve ID Tags' is used on the main option page, to remove all ID tags from a file without recompressing look at Utility Codecs,

• Reverse takes an audio file and reverses it, listen to those rock tracks for hidden devil messages! ;)

• Sound Grabber a section of audio (either from beginning or end) can be grabbed, that is saved as the converted file, for example grab 30 seconds worth of audio 40 seconds from the end.

• To 16 Bit (dither) & To 8 Bit (dither) these two can take audio of a higher bit count and reduce it at the same time dithering (theoretically will create 17 bit audio when dithering from 24 bits to 16 bits),

• To 24 Bit increases the audio bit rate - note the quality is not increased, a 16 bit file can be increased to 24 bits, but it will still be 16 bit quality, of main use when using a Graphic Equalizer (see below), IMPORTANT certain audio formats, such as mp3 will not accept 24 bit source files,

• Trim: a fixed amount can be trimmed from either the beginning or the end. I use it for those irritating audio tracks that seem to have 30 seconds of irrelevant waffle / crowd cheering at the end - simply listen to the track and make a note of where the waffle starts (say 30 seconds from end), and trim,

• Voice Removal Karaoke - remove the voice from a recording (perfect for the sing-along-type), this is only possible when the singers voice is positioned centrally between the left and right speakers. How well this effect performs depends upon how the original was recorded by the studio,

• Volume Fade tracks can be faded in (at the beginning) and out (at the end), enter the time in mill seconds (seconds * 1000), the volume will fade over this period,

• Volume Normalize: 

  In layman's terms volume normalize will make the sound level of any quieter recordings louder, so when played with other recordings they all sound the same loudness. A desired volume (in percentage of maximum) is set. Simple Normalization will scan through the audio file, find the maximum value (it might be 60%) then it works out how much it has to increase the volume to get it to the desired value. Simple Normalization generally works well, however there are a few situations which can throw it - if you have a track that is only at 50% of max, except for a few bits at the beginning (a pop from a record) that is 100%, then simple normalize will leave the audio level untouched.

  Adaptive Normalization can be used to over come the problem of short loud sections, where the rest of the track is quiet (perhaps a piece of classical music, that is quiet until the drums at the end). Adaptive Normalization is like having a friend constantly changing the volume control of your stereo, turning it up and down as required. The Window size is the length of track that is scanned ahead to work out the volume level, a smaller window will result in more volume twiddling.

  NB Volume Normalize only makes tracks louder - it will not make tracks quieter,

• Volume Quieten lessens the volume by a fixed percentage or dB,
• Write Silence at any position,

Example Usage

If using Graphic Equalizer then to obtain the best possible quality (assuming the source is 16 bit from an audio CD) then use these effects in this order:

To 24 Bit
Graphic Equalizer
To 16 Bit (dither)

what this does is to increase the bits (does not increase the quality initially) of the 16 bit file, to 24 bits, then running the Graphic Equalizer on a 24 bit file will give better results dues ot the 24 bit depth, finally the 16 bit dither reduces the bit range to the standard 16 bits, but dithering potentially gives 17 bit audio (pseudo random noise creates this extra perceived depth). Graphic Equalizer, Volume Normalize and Fade are the only DSP effects to benefit from increasing bit rate when dithering back down.

  File Selector             Jump to Top             Power Pack