The Easy Way to add DSP plugins to any music app

[mitchco]

I have been asked many times how do I add convolution to Spotify, or a loudness control to Roon, or how about spatial audio like cross talk cancellation for any of the music apps listed here, which are examples.

I thought the best way to do this is to make a presentation explaining how digital audio loopback works and then showing step by step walkthrough demos to show how easy it is to add plugins to any audio app or system wide audio on Windows and Mac. Once setup, everything can be run minimized on startup as "set and forget." Just press play on your music player.

Hang Loose Host is also available on Linux and Raspberry Pi and can be set up for loopback much the same way I show here on Windows and Mac, but that is a future presentation/demo.

Hope you find the content useful.

 

[ShadowBoxer]

Should it be possible to use this same approach with (HLH + LoopBeAudio)? ie LBA virtual interface software instead of VB-Matrix?

 

[mitchco]

Yes. I use LoopBeAudio with HLC on my media computer with minimum phase FIR filters for low latency convolution when watching movies over speakers or headphones. Of course, if latency isn't an issue, can use linear phase filters for music listening as well.

The only caveat is clock drift. Unlike VB-Matrix, there is no clock drift compensation. And it seems to vary depending on ones setup. For some folks, not an issue. For others, over a period of a couple hours, static and eventual drop outs can occur. A simple reset of the stream fixes it, like resetting the buffer size will clear the static.. Unfortunately, there is no way to no up front other than trying it. On my media server, some days it can go for hours with nary an issue. Other days, need to reset the stream in a couple of hours...

Hope that helps.