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VU-Meter playback monitor for WinXP
Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 5:31 am
by __philippe
Just discovered
VU-Meter v1.1 (
WinXP rel 11JUL06) can also monitor *playback* levels,
despite the product restrictive purpose statement:
"A standalone analog VUMeter for monitoring *recording* levels."
Alleluia
Minor drawback compared to VU-Meter 1.2 (Win7):
VU-Meter 1.1 is NOT resizeable
Code: Select all
c:\>dir vumeter* | grep -i meter
11/07/2006 21:00 973,312 VUMeter.exe
11/07/2006 21:00 1,453 VUmeter.txt
14/12/2018 13:07 856,187 vumeter.zip
c:\>sigcheck -a -q -v vumeter.exe
c:\mytools\VUMeter.exe:
Verified: Unsigned
Link date: 21:26 11/07/2006
Publisher: n/a
Company: James Chapman
Description: Analog VUMeter
Product: VUMeter
Prod version: 1.1
File version: 1.1
MachineType: 32-bit
Binary Version: 1.1.0.0
Original Name: VUMeter.exe
Internal Name: VUMeter
Copyright: Copyright ⌐ 2005-2006 James Chapman
Comments: Analog VUMeter
Entropy: 7.568
VT detection: 0/64
VU-Meter playback monitor for WinXP
Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2018 2:24 am
by __philippe
Yeahbut...
it's not portable ©®™, I hear someone muttering...
Code: Select all
Registry Key Name Type Data Length
HKCU\Software\VUMeter3 device REG_DWORD 0x00000000 (0) 4
HKCU\Software\VUMeter3 xpos REG_DWORD 0x0000028f (655) 4
HKCU\Software\VUMeter3 ypos REG_DWORD 0x000000a2 (162) 4
HKCU\Software\VUMeter3 topmost REG_DWORD 0x00000001 (1) 4
HKCU\Software\VUMeter3 dbscale REG_DWORD 0x00000010 (16) 4
Alright then, for portability's sake,
@zorro's nifty
registry manipulation script will do the deed indeed:
Code: Select all
@echo off
REG IMPORT vumeter.reg
start /wait "" "VUMeter.exe"
REG EXPORT HKCU\Software\VUMeter3 vumeter.reg /y
REG DELETE "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VUMeter3" /f
exit
VU-Meter playback monitor for WinXP
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2018 9:07 am
by __philippe
Wanna give it a whirl ?
...
GO
Re: VUPlayer
Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2024 9:09 pm
by freakazoid
Just discovered this audio player. Better late than never as they say!
To make VUPlayer portable, launch with the "-portable" command line flag. As zorro mentioned, this player highly resembles 1by1 with its directory tree and album artwork sidebar. Going to review this against 1by1 since both are very similar in my eyes.
Pros:
- WASAPI and ASIO output. Great for audiophiles. 1by1 only offers WaveOut and DirectSound as output options.
- Track conversion. You can convert tracks directly within VUPlayer to FLAC, Opus, MP3 (Lame) and WAV. You can't do this in 1by1.
- File tagging. 1by1 has a rudimentary tagger only for MP3 files. VUPlayer can tag any audio file and also multiple files at the same time.
- Visualization options. Switch between album artwork, peak meter, oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer and VUPlayer's very-own VU meter.
- Pitch control. Want to change the pitch of your current song? You can do that with VUPlayer.
- Dedicated Streams and Playlists options in the sidebar. 1by1 also supports streaming, but only if the stream is listed in your .m3u files. Having a dedicated Streams filter makes things easier for categorizing and sorting web radio streams. On-the-fly playlists are a nice feature as well as you don't have to deal with .m3u files.
- Audioscroller support. If you use Audioscroller, VUPlayer can scrobble your audio as you play your music.
- MOD playback with libopenmpt or BASS. 1by1 only supports BASS for MOD playback.
- MIDI support.
- MusicBrainz support
Wishlist:
- Favorites option only favorites individual tracks. Depending on your preferences, this might be a good thing. However, I'd prefer VUPlayer follow what 1by1 does, which is favorite by folders instead of tracks.
- VUPlayer was originally devised as a music database player, so when you load tracks in VUPlayer, file markers are stored in its VUPlayer.db file. 1by1 doesn't store file markers or a file database, so I'd love to see an option to disable the database feature entirely. If this supposed option was disabled, you would lose access to VUPlayer's sidebar filters which sorts your music by Artist, Album, Genre, etc. I don't tend to use these types of filters personally, but some do.
- Missing a compact player mode. 1by1 has one and I use it all the time.
- Winamp input plugin support. 1by1 supports older Winamp input plugins.
XMPlay is still my favorite audio player, but I tend to use 1by1 more since my music is sorted by folders. VUPlayer is a very good alternative to 1by1 and in some respects, surpasses it depending on what you look for in an audio player.
Re: VUPlayer
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2024 4:26 am
by Midas
VUPlayer is looking more and more like a sleeper hit -- thanks for the extensive review,
freakazoid.
I sort my audio files by folders, too (one album = one folder, with one big '
_Misc' with sub-dirs for random files), but as I do most of my listening on Android now, I use other options...
Re: VUPlayer
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2024 12:23 pm
by freakazoid
Midas wrote: ↑Fri Jan 05, 2024 4:26 am
I sort my audio files by folders, too (one album = one folder, with one big '
_Misc' with sub-dirs for random files), but as I do most of my listening on Android now, I have to use other options...
1by1 exists on Android. Try that out! It's barebones like Windows 1by1, but it does the job. Might be too barebones for some though.
Re: VUPlayer
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2024 4:50 pm
by Andrew Lee
Will move this to the "Submissions" forum, since it can be made portable.
Re: VUPlayer
Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2024 3:17 pm
by Midas
freakazoid wrote: ↑1by1 exists on Android. Try that out! It's barebones like Windows 1by1, but it does the job.
I was aware of that -- but I'm plenty satisfied with fully offline
Musicolet (
https://krosbits.in/musicolet/) which does everything I want including metadata management; if only
VUPlayer ever came to Android, it could be a worthy alternative...