Wavebar progress out of sync

[hiccup]

When I have a clear head and more time/concentration I'll see if I can come up with some coherent info that may perhaps be more useful.

This is not the clear-headed analytical response yet, but I did notice something very odd I thought to mention:

I tested one track that is now right on the money. (using both an mp3 and a flac rendition)
But I tested another track where the audio trails the visuals substantially. As a rough guess at least half a second. (both flac and mp3)

So it looks like there is a whole different factor at play here that has an influence.
(perhaps embedded metadata, albumart?)

I'll do some more testing, perhaps tomorrow.

[phred]

With the update in Reply #44 I'm finding that it's close enough that I can live with it. There is still a very slight lag on just about every track I tested. But not enough of a lag to spend more time on it for me although hiccup seems to have issues. I'll wait for his more thorough testing.

BTW, I'm using WASAPI shared. I have no ASIO device so I tested on Direct Sound which to me seemed as close as WASAPI shared.

There were (are) two tracks that are more 'off' than everything else I tested today. But I'm not going to worry about a random track here and there. Although I would think if it's fixed for the bulk of them, why would it not be for these odd ones?

[projeKct]

I must say that with the latest updates I'm pretty satisfied too. I use WASAPI shared, and every file I listen to is "accurate enough" since today's updates. Thanks! 

[Steven]

@phred, can you also try with WASAPI exclusive?

[hiccup]

The exact same track that yesterday clearly trailed a lot (some 0.7 sec) both as mp3 and as flac, now play pretty much spot on.
No changes to audio settings, just a pc restart.
I'm putting this on ice.

[Steven]

The exact same track that yesterday clearly trailed a lot (some 0.7 sec) both as mp3 and as flac, now play pretty much spot on.
No changes to audio settings, just a pc restart.
I'm putting this on ice.

i am not sure whether you saw my comments and are using the updated version which made some changes for event mode

[hiccup]

i am not sure whether you saw my comments and are using the updated version which made some changes for event mode

I used the latest patch 3.3.7091.36867
Since I didn't change settings between yesterday and today, and now both songs play fine, there must have been some glitch I can not explain.
To repeat myself for clarity, yesterday song A played fine, both mp3 and flac, but track B trailed some 0.7 sec., both the mp3 and the flac version.
Today all 4 versions play well.

Since I can not replicate it today, I don't have much to contribute to this further, and I am gonna put the wavebar in the small corner where it used to live before, and where any discrepancy never bothered me.

[phred]

@phred, can you also try with WASAPI exclusive?

WASAPI exclusive seems to be closer than WASAPI shared. But if it actually is, it's only by micro-milli-seconds. Barely detectable difference.

As stated yesterday, I'm willing to put this to rest. Unless it pops up again in the future.

Thanks for plugging away on this, Steven.

Somewhat related question - why would/should I use WASAPI exclusive rather that shared? There are time where I'm playing something in MB (shared) and stop the playback and check out something online. As I understand it, I'd have to shut down MB exclusive in order to hear audio from another source. Is that correct?

[frankz]

Somewhat related question - why would/should I use WASAPI exclusive rather that shared? There are time where I'm playing something in MB (shared) and stop the playback and check out something online. As I understand it, I'd have to shut down MB exclusive in order to hear audio from another source. Is that correct?

Here's what Steven said on another thread about it a few months ago:

WASAPI (Shared) and DirectSound are different APIs that both use the same windows processing via the Windows Mixer.
The advantages are for the functionality available to developers.
However some exernal applications and Linux Wine need the DirectSound API to be used in order to function

You don't need to shut down MB to hear audio from another source, you just need to stop (rather than pause) playback in MB when you want to.

I hear a pretty significant improvement in sound quality using Exclusive over Shared, and I'm not particularly "golden eared.".

[hiccup]

Don't put any more effort on this on my account, but the issue was still in my head, and while playing a very short track I noticed the waveform was completely off.
Doing a test with very short tracks seems to show that short tracks can have some weird waveform issues.
(Which might explain what I experienced yesterday with what was also a short track, approx 30 seconds.)

In case anybody's interested and wants to try it out, here are two tracks that on my system don't even come close in matching audio/waveform progress.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o3k0d0fw2ok6yvd/short%20test.rar?dl=0

Anyway, since for more 'normal' length tracks it seems there is not really an issue anymore I can understand if this case is closed.

[Steven]

Thats due to the very short length and presumably wide wavebar you might have - the returned graph data doesnt correctly represent the actual values. There are some limitations on the bass decoder that makes handling that situation more difficult but i will see what can be done

[Steven]

actually it was quite easy to fix:
https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee33_Patched.zip

[hiccup]

Nice, another mystery solved.
The 30 sec track now also plays tight every time.

[sveakul]

I hear a pretty significant improvement in sound quality using Exclusive over Shared, and I'm not particularly "golden eared.".

Ditto that here.  Also, since Exclusive by-passes the Windows mixer, the sample rate of the original file is passed directly to the device instead of being resampled to match the sample rate set in Windows.    As long as your audio device/card is compatible with the source sample rate, that is the rate at which it will be played, regardless of the Windows setting.  With the BASS library, if the source rate is NOT compatible with your device (which means that in Exclusive the playback would fail), bass.dll itself will resample to a compatible rate (44.1kHz in my experience).  That very rarely is necessary with modern devices which accept a wide range of source sample rates.

[hiccup]

There now often appear some artifacts in the waveform:

https://i.imgur.com/BSrz3Iq.gifv

(likely a consequence of the latest waveform fix)