why audio sounds so much better with vlc then mpc-hc?

[rocketman122]

I installed vlc but the gui is problematic there. no click to pause/play and no drag option makes vlc a no go for me but audio music/video sounds SO much better then on mpc-hc. its like theres distortion with mpc. I love mpc. its lightweight and familiar and gui is lovely

maybe its a setting/codec thats set in mpc?

[pandy]

VLC rely on own audio path - all processing is performed internally (as such you can activate for example HRTF for multichannel headphone listening) - MPC-xx is different - fully rely on OS audio processing as such it is affected by all problems - distortion may be related to not activated sound normalization - combining many channels into stereo may create this kind of effect.

[rocketman122]

thanks for the reply. next question, how can I get mpc to sound better because I cant stand dealing with vlc ui anymore. erased it now. how great it may be, ui is lacking and thats a lot. its just too annoying.

or can you recommend a super lightweight music player ?

[cholla]

@ rocketman122,
Are you using the LAV filters with MPC-HC ?
The image is for setting the external filters to use LAV.
Also uncheck all the Internal filters (unless you fine one you need).

[Attachment 82804 - Click to enlarge]

For myself I prefer Winamp with the DFX Audio Enhancement for Winamp.
For music & some videos.
For different video formats Winamp does require some tweaking.

[rocketman122]

HOLY COW!!! good ole winamp! I forgot about this gem! big hug thanks so much

in the print screen you show, mine has ffdshow only in the list to the right. NOTHING else. and I remember removing ffdshow audio processor


ok no good, same issue with winamp as vlc. no click to pause/play no drag to move. its small so I can understand but no good. maybe I can add some audio codec into mpc? Im very problematic.

also no pressing space bar to pause play

[cholla]

@ rocketman122,
I'm using Winamp version 5.63 .
You need to put it on the "video" tab
You may need to select the "MediaLibrary" when you open Winamp & then the "video" tab.
You will need to do this after using the slider also to Pause/Play with the spacebar.
For the spacebar to Play/Pause.
Mouse click does not pause Winamp
The Slider to drag to move is in the upper left corner.

[Attachment 82805 - Click to enlarge]

For MPC-HC you need to install LAV filters:
https://www.videohelp.com/software/LAV-Filters
Then copy & paste them into the MPC-HC LAV Filters folder in Program Files.
This is a YouTube for setting up the LAV Filters in MPC-HC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaQvHLRVxgs

[El Heggunte]

or can you recommend a super lightweight music player ?

I recommend foobar2000.
But I don't know if it fits YOUR definition of "super lightweight"

[hello_hello]

Have you tried enabling the MPC-HC audio renderer (under Internal Filters/Audio Renderer).

I'd also recommend foobar2000. It's not exactly lightweight in respect to features, but it's fast and a very good player.

If you add the ffdshow audio processor as an internal filter for MPC-HC, you can use ffdshow's Winamp filter to run Winamp plugins.
Here's an old post showing how to do it. When you've added ffdshow as an external filter, you can double click on it to open the ffdshow configuration.
If a plugin only supports stereo audio, you can re-order the ffdshow filters and downmix before the Winamp filter.
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/379012-Voice-Clarity-in-Movies-Best-solution#post2448789

[syberdude]

I feel that XMPlay is a solid lightweight music player. It uses the Bass audio library for music codecs. The music player allows winamp dsp and many other functions/features. Foobar2000 is a solid player as well but XMPlay is more lightweight overall.

I think FFDShow audio processor allows winamp dsp through 32bit version of DirectShow players like MPC-HC. I believe one of the developers of FFDShow started working on LAV Filters a while back. They took up the MPC-HC project and kept updating it until this very day. The newest version of MPC-HC comes with LAV Filters built-in to the player.

I believe the distortion probably has to do with the normalization/compressor feature in MPC-HC that may be turned on automatically for you. The other issue could be that you may need to tinker with the Stereo Downmix settings in the audio portion of LAV Filter. LAV Filters have a built in clipping prevention feature if you tick the box when downmixing to stereo.

As for Winamp, there is a person named dr0 who supposedly worked on it previously and decided to start his own project called WACUP to modify and improve the old winamp to work better for modern OS/computers.

[cholla]

Thanks syberdude,
I'm trying WACUP.
So far it is a lot like the winamp I have.