sound

This section is the most important one for using OPENCP. If you want to change the configuration permanently you have to modify the entries of this section.

[sound] ; default sound section
  playerdevices=devpWSS devpEWS devpSB devpESS devpGUS devpPAS \
                devpNone devpDisk devpMPx
  samplerdevices=devsWSS devsSB devsGUS devsNone
  wavetabledevices=devwMixQ devwIW devwGUS devwSB32 devwDGUS \
                   devwMix devwNone
  ampegtomono=off
  ampegmaxrate=48000
  mixrate=44100          
  mixprocrate=4096000   
  mix16bit=on            
  mixstereo=on          
  plrbufsize=500        
  mixbufsize=500        
  samprate=44100        
  samp16bit=on          
  sampstereo=on        
  smpbufsize=2000       
  defplayer=             
  defsampler=            
  defwavetable=        
  midichan=64           
  itchan=64
  cdsamplelinein=off     
  bigmodules=devwMixQ    
  wavetostereo=1         
  waveratetolerance=50  
  amplify=100  
  panning=100 
  volume=100  
  balance=0  
  reverb=0   
  chorus=0    
  surround=off
  filter=1

playerdevices

OPENCP uses three different devices to communicate with the hardware. The playerdevices are used to play a stream of samples. As all sound cards support this feature you will find playerdevices for every sound card supported by OPENCP. This device is needed for playing .wav and .mp3 files and if you want/have to use the software (quality) mixer. OPENCP searches for all devices listed in this option at startup and only those found are actually loaded. You can delete all devices you have not installed to speed up to startup procedure. If you have multiple sound cards installed be sure to list all devices if you want to use more than one sound card.^5.5. If more than one device is listed the first in the list will be used as default.

samplerdevices

these devices are the least important ones. They are only needed if you want to use OPENCP when playing cd audio tracks or start the player in sample mode. The sample data is not calculated from files, but sampled from either the cd, line or microphone jack of the sound card. You can then use the graphical screens to view the sounds.

wavetabledevices

for mixing several channels you have to use wavetabledevices. Most sound cards are only able to play to channels simultaneously normally assigned to the left and right channel or your home stereo. The mixer devices are used to mix the sample data of module files to those two channels. However modern sound cards have special hardware to mix channels ``onboard''. But all hardware mixers have a maximum amount of channels to mix^5.6. Especially .it files often use more than 32 channels so an errorfree playback can not be guaranteed when using hardware mixing. You should include one of the software mixers for this case.

ampegtomono

play .mp3 files only mono. This might be necessary if you don't have the latest generation of Intel processors.

ampegmaxrate

the highest playback sample rate to use for .mp3 files.

mixrate

the default mixrate. Unless you have a very old sound card^5.7 or a very old processor^5.8 there is no need to change this option.

mixprocrate

if you have a slow cpu^5.9 you might not be able to play 32 channels at full mixrate. This value defines the maximum ``calculation power'' to which OPENCP tries to use the full mixrate.

mix16bit

Leave this option enabled unless you have a 8bit sound card.

mixstereo

dito for stereo cards

plrbufsize

When using a playerdevice to play sample streams a DMA buffer is used to minimize cpu resources for handling the sample stream. This option sets the DMA buffer length in miliseconds.

mixbufsize

When running in a multitasking environment there is no guarantee for constant cpu resources. To avoid a break in the sample stream OPENCP will calculate in advance. This option sets the buffer lenth in miliseconds.

samprate

When using a samplerdevice this value will be used.

samp16bit

dito

sampstereo

dito

smpbufsize

this options sets the length of the sample DMA buffer in miliseconds.

defplayer

with this option you can override the default playerdevice. Normally you don't need to set this option, as the default device can also be set by the order in the playerdevice option. This option can also be specified by using the -sp options from command line.

defwavetable

this option sets the default wavetabledevice. Can also be set with -sw command.

defsampler

the same as the -ss command line option.

midichan

unlike the module file types the MIDI file format does not specify the exact amount of channles to use. Complex .mid files can easily try to play several dozens of channels simultaniously. This option sets the maximum amount of channels to mix when playing .mid files. Note that this value has no effect when a hardware mixing device is used, as the maximum number is limited by the hardware.

itchan

the .it format can play more than one sample per channel simultaniously. A maximum number of channels to mix is required for this file type too. When playing .it files using a hardware mixer the maximum number of channels is again limited to the hardware.

cdsamplelinein

If you select a .cda file the cd input of your sound card is used to sample the current music. If you do not have a cd input or if you have connected your cd-rom to the line-in jack enable this option to change to sample input.

bigmodules

This option is of interest for users of hardware mixing devices only. Sound cards capable of mixing channels are not only limited by the amount of channels played simultaniously, but by the amount of onboard memory to store the sample data too. If files are marked as ``big'' in the fileselector this device listed in this option will be used for mixing this module.^5.10

wavetostereo

When playing a mono wave the sound card can either be switched to mono mode or the wave can be played as a stereo file.^5.11

waveratetolerance

if the sample rate of the wave file is not equal to a sample rate supported by your sound card, OPENCP will not resample unless this value is exceeded. Divide the value by 1000 to get the percentage.

amplify

the default amplification to use within the player. The following options are described in section 4.1 in detail. The command line option -va overrides this option.

panning

the default panning (command -vp)

volume

the default volume (command -vv)

balance

the default balance (command -vb)

reverb

some sound cards have an onboard effect processor^5.12 which features a reverb effect. This option controls the intensity of the onboard effect. (command -vr)

chorus

dito as reverb (command -vc)

surround

this options controls the fake surround effect^5.13 (command -vs)

filter

The software mixer can use a software filter to enhance the playback quality. Different algorithms can be used. (command -vf)

0

no filter

1

AOI - only filter samples when filtering is necessary

2

FOI - filter every sample even if filtering has no effect

Footnotes

... card.^5.5

you can change devices by using the special @: drive described in section 3.2

... mix^5.6

mostly 32 channels

... card^5.7

SoundBlaster 1.x or SoundBlaster Pro and compatibles

... processor^5.8

Something like 386SX

... cpu^5.9

<486DX

... module.^5.10

See section 3.3 on page for details about this feature

... file.^5.11

switching the soundcard may cause problems so enable this option.

... processor^5.12

currently the SoundBlasterAWE and the TerraTecEWS

... effect^5.13

this has little to do with real Dolby Surround although there should be a certain effect if you have such an amplifier