Dopamine

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

On 7/20/2020 at 12:46 PM, ajjmin said:

Will you support gapless playback in the future?

I don't know. The reason why it's not yet supported is that it is very hard to implement. Gapless playback stems from the time of records, which are gapless by design due to the music being recorded one an uninterrupted track. Audio files are separate entities (honestly, why on earth are gapless records ripped as separate files in the first place?). Getting them to play gapless, is not trivial. A music player needs to load a file in order to play it, and that comes with, at least, some milliseconds of delay. This delay is noticeable between 2 tracks (unloading the previous one, and loading the next one). Gapless playback of files requires this:

 

1. Play a file
2. Load the next file in memory before the previous file has finished playing
3. Just before (good luck getting this timing right) the previous file is finished playing: 
   1. Shortly fade out the previous file
   2. Start the next file and shortly fade it in (not too long! The user may cannot notice we are fading! This is not a cross-fading plugin!).
   3. IMPORTANT: do a rain dance, jump 10 times up and down, avoid all black cats, Friday the 13th's and walking under ladders (for those that believe in this crazy stuff, I don't care, and tempt fate every time I can), and hope that the user didn't hear that click or pop between the 2 files (which the player tries to mask by doing the fancy fade out/fade in trick).

 

Dopamine 2 will never support it, as the audio engine doesn't have such possibility built-in. And I'll never get all this madness right by adding workarounds around the engine.

Dopamine 3? Maybe, maybe not. I haven't reached audio engine testing with it yet.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Are "gapless" and "crossfaded" the same thing?  It seems like what you described is crossfading?

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

1 hour ago, Code Name: Lockdown said:

Are "gapless" and "crossfaded" the same thing?  It seems like what you described is crossfading?

They are 2 different things. But gapless requires short crossfading to mask the click or pop that can occur when switching tracks. Closing and reopening the audio device can cause this, and even if the player would play the files directly after each other, without crossfading, users won't be happy, as they would still hear a click between tracks. Quite some trickery is required to have a perfect illusion of gapless. That is why gapless is never the first feature a player supports. I honestly find it annoying. Annoying that we need so much effort and trickery to get around the fact that the format (files) is being misused and that a feature of a totally different format is expected. It's like when switching from horses to cars, the car drivers would expect car makers to make cars jump up and down to simulate the horse's walk on pavement.

[allannyholm]

@Raphaël G. I've updated the danish language for Dopamine. I edited the DA.XML file on a Mac using CotEditor. For the adventurous I've uploaded the "DA.XML" file here on my Jumpshare account. I will test on my Windows partition also - since I speak danish I really should test. I edited the file on macOS using CotEditor.
Direct link to DA XML

 

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

On 8/9/2020 at 9:17 AM, allan.nyholm said:

@Raphaël G. I've updated the danish language for Dopamine. I edited the DA.XML file on a Mac using CotEditor. For the adventurous I've uploaded the "DA.XML" file here on my Jumpshare account. I will test on my Windows partition also - since I speak danish I really should test. I edited the file on macOS using CotEditor.
Direct link to DA XML

 

Thank you! I've downloaded the file. Looks great. 👍

[kukata]

@Raphaël G. I sent you a bug message.

[ajjmin]

On 8/5/2020 at 9:39 PM, Raphaël G. said:

I don't know. The reason why it's not yet supported is that it is very hard to implement. Gapless playback stems from the time of records, which are gapless by design due to the music being recorded one an uninterrupted track. Audio files are separate entities (honestly, why on earth are gapless records ripped as separate files in the first place?). Getting them to play gapless, is not trivial. A music player needs to load a file in order to play it, and that comes with, at least, some milliseconds of delay. This delay is noticeable between 2 tracks (unloading the previous one, and loading the next one). Gapless playback of files requires this:

 

1. Play a file
2. Load the next file in memory before the previous file has finished playing
3. Just before (good luck getting this timing right) the previous file is finished playing: 
   1. Shortly fade out the previous file
   2. Start the next file and shortly fade it in (not too long! The user may cannot notice we are fading! This is not a cross-fading plugin!).
   3. IMPORTANT: do a rain dance, jump 10 times up and down, avoid all black cats, Friday the 13th's and walking under ladders (for those that believe in this crazy stuff, I don't care, and tempt fate every time I can), and hope that the user didn't hear that click or pop between the 2 files (which the player tries to mask by doing the fancy fade out/fade in trick).

 

Dopamine 2 will never support it, as the audio engine doesn't have such possibility built-in. And I'll never get all this madness right by adding workarounds around the engine.

Dopamine 3? Maybe, maybe not. I haven't reached audio engine testing with it yet.

Thank for your hard work and replies. This is by far the best and light weight player I've came cross that have amazing ui.

[ajjmin]

On 8/5/2020 at 11:40 PM, Raphaël G. said:

They are 2 different things. But gapless requires short crossfading to mask the click or pop that can occur when switching tracks. Closing and reopening the audio device can cause this, and even if the player would play the files directly after each other, without crossfading, users won't be happy, as they would still hear a click between tracks. Quite some trickery is required to have a perfect illusion of gapless. That is why gapless is never the first feature a player supports. I honestly find it annoying. Annoying that we need so much effort and trickery to get around the fact that the format (files) is being misused and that a feature of a totally different format is expected. It's like when switching from horses to cars, the car drivers would expect car makers to make cars jump up and down to simulate the horse's walk on pavement.

Oh, I didn't know they are two separate things. Is there an option for crossfading?

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

Hello everyone!

 

Dopamine 2.0.4 has been released. This is the change log:

 

– [Fixed] Playlists now load slightly faster
– [Fixed] Album list does not always reflect the choice of artist type (Song artists, Album artists or All artists)
– [Fixed] Audio is resampled to lower quality instead of playing at full quality
– [Changed] Updated the Hungarian translation

 

Enjoy!

 

Download here

[kukata]

On 06/09/2020 at 09:32, Raphaël G. said:

Hello everyone!

 

Dopamine 2.0.4 has been released. This is the change log:

 

– [Fixed] Playlists now load slightly faster
– [Fixed] Album list does not always reflect the choice of artist type (Song artists, Album artists or All artists)
– [Fixed] Audio is resampled to lower quality instead of playing at full quality
– [Changed] Updated the Hungarian translation

 

Enjoy!

 

Download here

For me, after each update, the icon on the taskbar disappears. It becomes white as a deleted program.  Not only after this update.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

On 08/09/2020 at 15:25, kukata said:

For me, after each update, the icon on the taskbar disappears. It becomes white as a deleted program.  Not only after this update.

I'm aware of that issue and have not yet found a solution to it. Re-pinning is the only workaround.

 

(No idea how to prevent this message to merge with the previous, but, here goes)

 

Dopamine 2.0.5 has just been released. Please check the change log below:

 

- [Added] Added support for the APE file format
- [Added] Added support for ModernFlyouts (https://github.com/ShankarBUS/ModernFlyouts/)
- [Changed] Updated the Portuguese (Portugal) translation
- [Changed] Updated the Chinese (Simplified) translation

 

Download here

 

Enjoy!

[Darkbluesky]

Hi,

 

I am new in these forums, and I have just discovered Dopamine player. I wanted first to say thanks for this player as it -finally- is what I was looking for (I used others until now, but I was never really satisfied). 

 

I have a little problem though. I use the 2.0.5, and I find that the equalizer is not smooth at all, it sticks and lags, 1 second or less, and is not smooth. I am testing it in a new laptop (Asus G732LXS, Strix SCAR III, brand new). Other programs run smooth and fine, so I don't see why it could do that. The files I play are mp3 at low bitrate 128 or so... I would like to know if someone has found that too, and if not if you have some hint or thing I could test.

 

Thanks for any help, and congrats for this wonderful, nice and well balanced app.

 

[jnelsoninjax]

I've been using Dopamine for about 3 weeks now, but my chief complaint is that I can not open a music file from explorer, despite that it is set as the default player. Is this an issue or something I am doing wrong?

[Frankdoodle1]

Hey there, been using Dopamine for a while now. I've been wondering if there was any way to export or change the directory of a playlist? I wanted to move and change the name of my music folder but then my playlist would obviously stop working. I want to keep the order of the playlist the way I set it. I thought the playlist file Dopamine makes would work but it still needs the same directory.

[Darrian]

I finally got my Surface Pro X! At $200 off for the holiday I was able to pick up the SQ1 128GB model for $800! Dopamine runs without error, so I'm happy on that front, but it's noticeably sluggish. Has there been any progress towards an ARM build? Just curious, no pressure. You already said it may not even be possible. Was just wondering if it's been looked into or considered more. Thanks for continuing to make Dopamine awesome!

[Markef]

Hi all,

 

Thanks a lot for dopamine.
I discover the product and find it perfect.
Just a quick question:
My PC screen does not switch to slepp mode when Dopame is launched so I have no problem with other software.
Is this normal? Is this a parameter to change?
If this is not normal, I will be happy to send you my logs.

Thanking you

 

Marc

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

On 01/11/2020 at 22:05, Darkbluesky said:

Hi,

 

I am new in these forums, and I have just discovered Dopamine player. I wanted first to say thanks for this player as it -finally- is what I was looking for (I used others until now, but I was never really satisfied). 

 

I have a little problem though. I use the 2.0.5, and I find that the equalizer is not smooth at all, it sticks and lags, 1 second or less, and is not smooth. I am testing it in a new laptop (Asus G732LXS, Strix SCAR III, brand new). Other programs run smooth and fine, so I don't see why it could do that. The files I play are mp3 at low bitrate 128 or so... I would like to know if someone has found that too, and if not if you have some hint or thing I could test.

 

Thanks for any help, and congrats for this wonderful, nice and well balanced app.

 

Sorry for the late reply. I loose track of communication. Thank you for liking Dopamine. I'm not sure why the equalizer lags for you. I know that it is not perfect, but I'm not experiencing that specific issue. The libraries that I use in Dopamine are somewhat limited in possibilities, so I can images it causing problems on specific hardware. I'm hoping to improve that in Dopamine 3, which will use totally different technology. Dopamine 3 is currently in development. The road to a feature rich player is still long, but I hope to have a working basic player (which will be the start of the preview program) in a few weeks and will add features gradually. 

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

On 08/12/2020 at 18:06, jnelsoninjax said:

I've been using Dopamine for about 3 weeks now, but my chief complaint is that I can not open a music file from explorer, despite that it is set as the default player. Is this an issue or something I am doing wrong?

Are you using the portable of installed version? With the installed version it should be possible to associate file types to Dopamine: right-click on an audio file, choose "Open with > Choose another app", select Dopamine from the list, check the box "Always use this app to ope ... files" and click OK.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

On 17/12/2020 at 07:35, Frankdoodle1 said:

Hey there, been using Dopamine for a while now. I've been wondering if there was any way to export or change the directory of a playlist? I wanted to move and change the name of my music folder but then my playlist would obviously stop working. I want to keep the order of the playlist the way I set it. I thought the playlist file Dopamine makes would work but it still needs the same directory.

That's not currently possible. I'm not sure if other players handle this well. If you know a player which does this, I'd like an example, which I could use to improve Dopamine :) Your only work-around for now would be to perform a search and replace of the music directory in the playlist files.

On 21/12/2020 at 08:58, Darrian said:

I finally got my Surface Pro X! At $200 off for the holiday I was able to pick up the SQ1 128GB model for $800! Dopamine runs without error, so I'm happy on that front, but it's noticeably sluggish. Has there been any progress towards an ARM build? Just curious, no pressure. You already said it may not even be possible. Was just wondering if it's been looked into or considered more. Thanks for continuing to make Dopamine awesome!

Unfortunately, that is currently not planned.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

On 28/12/2020 at 18:05, Markef said:

Hi all,

 

Thanks a lot for dopamine.
I discover the product and find it perfect.
Just a quick question:
My PC screen does not switch to slepp mode when Dopame is launched so I have no problem with other software.
Is this normal? Is this a parameter to change?
If this is not normal, I will be happy to send you my logs.

Thanking you

 

Marc

That's a known issue. See: https://github.com/digimezzo/dopamine-windows/issues/1227. I'll try to resolve this for the next release.

[jnelsoninjax]

4 hours ago, Raphaël G. said:

Are you using the portable of installed version? With the installed version it should be possible to associate file types to Dopamine: right-click on an audio file, choose "Open with > Choose another app", select Dopamine from the list, check the box "Always use this app to ope ... files" and click OK.

Installed version, and I have the files associated to Dopamine, but the file(s) will not open if I just double click them in explorer.

[jnelsoninjax]

New problem suddenly appeared: same as before, double clicking a file via explorer launches the program, but will not play the track, and even now when I open the program, my albums list is empty as is the Songs, and going to Folders and adding a song that way also yields no playback of the track. I uninstalled the program and reinstalled it, went through the whole welcome screens, and it is acting just as it was before.

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

On 30/01/2021 at 17:15, jnelsoninjax said:

New problem suddenly appeared: same as before, double clicking a file via explorer launches the program, but will not play the track, and even now when I open the program, my albums list is empty as is the Songs, and going to Folders and adding a song that way also yields no playback of the track. I uninstalled the program and reinstalled it, went through the whole welcome screens, and it is acting just as it was before.

Sorry for the delay answering this. I'll try to keep better track of my messages.

Could you send me the log file? When you say it is acting as before, do you mean that it works again, or still fails to play the tracks?

[jnelsoninjax]

2 hours ago, Raphaël G. said:

Sorry for the delay answering this. I'll try to keep better track of my messages.

Could you send me the log file? When you say it is acting as before, do you mean that it works again, or still fails to play the tracks?

For a period of time I could double click an mp3 in explorer and it would launch and play via Dopamine, but just as suddenly it started, it stopped, and then the new issues arise. Where would you like me to send the log file?

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

1 hour ago, jnelsoninjax said:

For a period of time I could double click an mp3 in explorer and it would launch and play via Dopamine, but just as suddenly it started, it stopped, and then the new issues arise. Where would you like me to send the log file?

Please e-mail it to [email protected]. Thanks.