FLAC -> Wav loader tool (Windows only)

mgalusha · « **on:** 26 Nov 2011, 07:53 pm »

Some say that playing back music files that are uncompressed such as WAV and AIFF sounds subjectively better than having the player decode a FLAC file on the fly. Some also say that playing files from a local disk, preferably SSD, also sounds better than playing them from a network drive.

For me both of these are true, I prefer the sound playing an uncompressed file from a local disk vs a FLAC from the network, even with gigabit ethernet.

However, while disk is (was) cheap unpacking 2TB means ~4TB of storage would be needed. What I wanted was a way to leave my music stored as FLAC along with all the metadata but have a way to easily unpack the files and play them from a local disk, or even better, from memory.

Some of the Mac folks such as Mach2 Music make it very clear that playing uncompressed files from local disk is mandatory to get the best results. I suspect this is part of the reason folks get such good results from their Macs but I am not, and likely never will be, an Apple customer.

In order to address this, I wrote a small program to handle this. This program allows you to chose the music files you want to play, converts them from FLAC to WAV and writes the output to the folder of your choice. It will attempt to locate any artwork in the source folder or embedded in the FLAC files and copy that to the destination folder as well. A playlist is then generated for the unpacked files and your music player is launched with the playlist as a parameter. An option is available to have the loader exit after launching the player so it's not using any resources while the music is playing.

On systems with lots of RAM the decoded files will be in system cache, so they are effectively being played from memory. Of course if you unpack more data than you have available memory this won't be true. I have 8gb in my music player machine and even a full Reference Recordings HRX disk is ~4gb, so the local disk is almost never accessed during playback.

The program does some housekeeping and removes all the files it finds in the output folder each time new files are unpacked. This keeps it from filling up your drive, however it's strongly suggested that you use a dedicated folder for the output so that other data is not removed.

There is no charge and the current version is 1.0, so there may be bugs and enhancements. If you want to give this a try visit the page for the program. I've tested this on 5 systems so far and all seem to work well but all are Windows 7. While it should work fine on WinXP and Vista I have not tested it on those platforms. The Microsoft .NET Framework v3.51 with SP1 is required.

At present there is precious little help in the program and this post is about as verbose as I get. I'll try to clarify things if anyone has questions.

Mike

DeadFish · « **Reply #1 on:** 26 Nov 2011, 08:15 pm »

Wow Mike, thanks for the efforts on the program, and thanks for sharing!!

I look forward to tinkering!

Best Regards,
DeadFish

WGH · « **Reply #2 on:** 26 Nov 2011, 10:29 pm »

Thanks Mike. FWL works with Vista just fine.

I am using a Toshiba laptop with Vista 64 bit and 4GB ram. Right now "Culture of Fear" by the Thievery Corporation is playing from memory, Vista plus the .wav files are using only 2.32GB of ram and the disk access light never comes on.

I have been playing .wav files stored on a 500GB hard drive in my XP tower and networked by a hard wired ethernet connection to the laptop because Vista with WASAPI sounds better than XP and any ASIO version I have tried. It will be interesting to compare the two methods (network .vs memory).

I'll be building a small fanless player for my shop and FlacWavLoader will let me re-use a smaller hard drive I have laying around.

Wayne

audioseduction · « **Reply #3 on:** 27 Nov 2011, 03:24 am »

I experience spectacular playback with Lossless uncompressed FLAC. I use DBPoweramp for encoding.

mgalusha · « **Reply #4 on:** 27 Nov 2011, 04:23 pm »

Posted v1.0.1, cosmetic change to progress bar. Absolutely no reason to update unless the pbar not zeroing if button pushed for new files bothers you.

Please note, the speed at which the decode occurs is dependent on several factors. These are basically processor and network speed. Gigabit ethernet will of course be faster than 100mbit and extracting from a local disk such as external USB it will be faster than a network connection. High sample/bit rate files such as 96/24 and 192/24 will take longer to extract as they are of course much larger. CPU speed makes a considerable difference. This runs much faster on my i7 machine than an i3 or Atom.

mgalusha · « **Reply #5 on:** 18 Dec 2011, 04:47 pm »

Not sure how many are using this but Version 1.0.3 has been posted. This adds drag and drop support for selecting files to decode & play. Please report any bugs in this thread.

http://www.mikegalusha.com/fwl/FWLSetup_v1.0.3.msi

Mike

mgalusha · « **Reply #6 on:** 20 Dec 2011, 08:44 pm »

Question for anyone using this. Is there any interest in having the loader be able to do sample rate conversion? I don't believe it would be difficult to incorporate SoX into the code and add some drop downs for desired output bit depth and sample rate and perhaps different types of re-sampling phase options.

From the SoX documentation:

Quote

All resamplers use ﬁlters that can sometimes create ‘echo’ (a.k.a. ‘ringing’) artefacts with transient signals such as those that occur with ‘ﬁnger snaps’ or other highly percussive sounds. Such artefacts are much more noticeable to the human ear if they occur before the transient (‘pre-echo’) than if they occur after it (‘post-echo’). Note that frequency of any such artefacts is related to the smaller of the original and new sampling rates but that if this is at least 44.1kHz, then the artefacts will lie outside the range of human hearing.

A phase response setting may be used to control the distribution of any transient echo between ‘pre’ and ‘post’: with minimum phase, there is no pre-echo but the longest post-echo; with linear phase, pre and post echo are in equal amounts (in signal terms, but not audibility terms); the intermediate phase setting attempts to ﬁnd the best compromise by selecting a small length (and level) of pre-echo and a medium lengthed post-echo.

For some examples of what pre and post ringing look like, visit the Infinite Wave SRC comparison page: http://src.infinitewave.ca/

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Mike

mgalusha · « **Reply #7 on:** 21 Dec 2011, 03:18 am »

Perhaps I have too much time on my hands; I've made some more changes.

1) Drag and drop now works for folders as well as individual files.

2) The biggie - I have added SoX sample rate conversion. You now have the option to re-sample the files. This can be either up or down sampling, depending on your needs. If you are using a 96/24 device, down sampling a 192/24 file ahead of time is likely better than letting your player or worse, Windows, do this on the fly. If you want to try up conversion, again, it's almost certainly better to do this outside of your player. SoX has some of the best SRC that I am aware of. iZotope is supposed to be fabulous, but it's far from free.

Please note, this is very much a beta version, while it seems to work just fine it may have bugs. I have not test all possible sample rate/bit depth combinations.

http://www.mikegalusha.com/?p=23

Mike

munosmario · « **Reply #8 on:** 21 Dec 2011, 01:36 pm »

Mike, no problem with your having too much time on your hands. Great job. Question, what are the up/down sampling frequency values in SOX's SRC covered ranges (could not find any specifics in their web site)? Also, what are values for bit conversion?

munosmario

mgalusha · « **Reply #9 on:** 21 Dec 2011, 04:24 pm »

I put in options for all common sample rates; 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 and 192 kHz. 16, 24 and 32 are available bit depths. These can be selected in any combination though it's hard to imagine choosing something like 176.4/16.

SoX has a boatload of options, I put in just what I thought would be useful to audiophiles. When time permits I'll add a selector for minimum / linear / intermediate phase filters.

Please experiment and let me know how you get on.

Mike

munosmario · « **Reply #10 on:** 21 Dec 2011, 05:51 pm »

Thanks, Mike. I have not used/downloaded your program yet. I read your thread just this morning and it stroke me like something the doctor ordered. I am not into playing media directly out of a computer...I store FLAC files in my computer but play them through a media player that handles USB memory sticks, memory cards, and ESATA drives (using SS in my case). So, I transfer files manually from my computer rotary HDD to my portable SS memory device of choice. I gather your program will simplify process for me with the added bonus of, basically, automated conversion to the more desirable wave format and desired or needed sample/bit rate conversion (looking forward to try that 16/176 combination you mention

munosmario

audioseduction · « **Reply #11 on:** 22 Dec 2011, 05:41 pm »

munosmario , you mean everytime you want to play a playlist you have to copy the selected tracks for that playlist from your HD to your SS storage of your choice? That sound like a real big PIA. For what reason if so? I played from both my attached ext. HD and the enternal SS and heard no differance. Now I do play from memory so that might be why.

munosmario · « **Reply #12 on:** 23 Dec 2011, 06:03 am »

No, Mike, it does not work that way. I don't select tracks out of play lists. I transfer entire play lists (which are actualy compilations following certain personal preference/criteria for different moods) as folders into the portable SS memory device of choice. It takes only seconds. My media player allows me to choose whatever folder I want, to play media contents sequentially or randomly (shuffle), or individual tracks. I actually could stream from computer (via lan or wireless) into the media player but I want to stay totally away from using computer as transport (only as a data storagge facility)...so I use my media player as a standalone device with its own flat monitor screen, and portable SS memory devices directly connected to it. I want to be strictly "local,"as you call it, computer-free, in my dedicated listening room with a high-end two-channel system. Re SS eSATA drives, I use a pair of 240 giga Mini-Pro OYEN Digital drives (simply phenomenal). I could have bought a single 480 giga but I prefer having two separate ones (no bulk at all, convenient, and good risk management). Incidentally, what software do you favor to ripp CDs?

munosmario

mgalusha · « **Reply #13 on:** 24 Dec 2011, 06:02 pm »

munosmario,

I think you were replying to "audioseduction" but it sounds like you are using something like a Bryston BDP-1, so I can see why you are playing them from local media. I understand your desire to be computer free in your dedicated listening space but of course the media player is a computer, just one that is dedicated to the purpose.

I wrote the program for essentially the same reason, I have a purpose built computer that has no spinning disks in my listening room, completely silent with an SSD but of course that doesn't provide any storage for music, so this computer's sole function is as a media player. My music is stored on a NAS (unRaid) box under the stairs in my basement and the two are connected via gigabit ethernet. The little program simply pulls the flac's from the storage server and unpacks them to the local SSD as WAV and now can optionally convert the sample/bit rate if desired. I should have mentioned that SRC is strictly optional. The default option is "Don't Resample".

I also have the player software configured to cache the tracks to memory, so it plays from memory.

Mike

munosmario · « **Reply #14 on:** 24 Dec 2011, 06:57 pm »

You are abolutely right, Mike, wrong party in my response. My apologies to both of you, senior moment, I guess

Thank God my hearing so far is still fine.

Yes, in modern technical parlance, media players, smartphones, anything that has some sort of CPU and supporting elements are computers...as you know, semantically, any device that aids in or performs calculations is a computer (starting with the humble abacus). Anyhow, I am positive you get my drift: I want to stay away of multitasking, internet-connected personal computers, with EMI-generating, high-speed, rotary electromagnetic parts. Don't want to have to get into MSCONFIG--to deactivate scores of programs-- every time I want to listen to my computer-stored music. Or having to depend on programs that turn my PC (MS or Apple lineage) into a virtual, dedicated, music playing device....to me, that is the same as using a curve as the shortest path.

Thanks again for your efforts and contribution to the cause. More important, the best to you and dear ones during the holidays and the coming year.

munosmario

PS: What do you use to rip? m

mgalusha · « **Reply #15 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 04:13 am »

Quote from: munosmario on 24 Dec 2011, 06:57 pm

PS: What do you use to rip? m

I use dBpoweramp, while EAC also offers accurate rip I like the flexibility of dBpoweramp.

mgalusha · « **Reply #16 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 04:16 am »

Beta 2 of v1.1 has been posted. I added the option of using minimum/intermediate/linear phase response filters when using SoX resampling. Most other changes are cosmetic but there were a couple of bug fixes.

Also defaults to using included flac decoded if SoX not installed or configured so SoX is not required.

Update page: http://www.mikegalusha.com/?p=32

munosmario · « **Reply #17 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 05:11 am »

Quote from: mgalusha on 27 Dec 2011, 04:13 am

I use dBpoweramp, while EAC also offers accurate rip I like the flexibility of dBpoweramp.

Thanks a lot, Mike. I prefer that too.

munosmario

audioseduction · « **Reply #18 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 07:44 pm »

I also use DBpoweramp encording done in Lossless Uncompressed FLAC. Love this app!

mgalusha · « **Reply #19 on:** 30 Dec 2011, 04:18 am »

Yet another beta version posted.

Added help button for SoX path
Added handler to clear player and SoX paths if user clicks cancel when browsing
Packaged installer in .exe to keep IE from complaining about .msi file

http://www.mikegalusha.com/fwl-version-1-1-beta-3/

If you find any bugs or have suggestions they can be posted here: https://bitbucket.org/mgalusha/flacwavloader/issues

Mike