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VU Level Metres in Rainmeter?

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eclectic-tech
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Re: VU Level Metres in Rainmeter?

Post by eclectic-tech »

sl23 wrote:It seems that hitbit has tried updating Rm and has no problems. As he is using the installed version it appears to be a portable issue? Is there any difference? :confused:
In portable, everything (Rainmeter, plugins, skins. etc.) are all in one "Rainmeter" folder. Nothing is added to the Windows installation (see Portable Install). The only thing I can think of that may be causing issues, would be having multiple audiolevel.dll file versions on your system.
sl23 wrote:Incidentally, it would be helpful if the example VU metre had the code added for peaks so we could see how it worked. Might be worth adding it into the manual? Would you mind adjusting the manual to add this please?

Thanks very much :thumbup:
That's for the dev's to consider.

For your skin, I would suggest looking at Hitbit-PA's Audioscope-2 skins. The Mono displays all have a delayed peak display. Looking at that code should help you get the desired effect.

You basically set a very high (2500+) peakdelay value in your main audio measure and have separate set of meters for the Peak values and the RMS values. For your case, you would not need all the frequency measures and meters, just the RMS L-R and Peak L-R measures and meters.

I may get time to create an example, but not for a while... hope this helps in the meantime :welcome:

Edit: balala posted while I was typing... between these suggestions, hopefully, you can get closer... :)
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eclectic-tech
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Re: VU Level Metres in Rainmeter?

Post by eclectic-tech »

@sl23

Try the attached rmskin. It will add an "ExampleAudioLevelBarPeak,ini" skin into the "ExampleAudioLevelBitmap" folder.
Peak.gif
This may help you get the effect you are looking for.
Attachments
ExampleAudioLevelBarPeak_1.0.rmskin
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sl23
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Re: VU Level Metres in Rainmeter?

Post by sl23 »

Thanks very much for your assistance :thumbup: :great:

@balala:
I added your code to mine and the peaks show up and work but never go down? They just keep rising until at the 0db mark and stay there! Appreciate the effort though, thank you.

@eclectic-tech:
Portable beta requires certain .dll's to be added to it's folder doesn't it? Or at least it used to, has that been changed?

The settings I used are just what has been copied and pasted from elsewhere. I only had the left channel to make things clearer to see where I was at so as to try and get it working, I failed! :thumbdown:

Hitbits skins aren't working for me for some reason, so I can't try any of them out. I'll check the code in the one you mention though, thanks for the tip.

The peaks aren't exactly what I was hoping for now I see them in action :(
Though I am very grateful for your efforts, I don't suppose there's a peak hold option?
If not, could this please be considered as a feature request please? Cheers.
It's still great though, now to try and integrate it with my other skin! :oops:

Thanks to you all for your help, :thumbup:
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Re: VU Level Metres in Rainmeter?

Post by balala »

sl23 wrote:@balala:
I added your code to mine and the peaks show up and work but never go down? They just keep rising until at the 0db mark and stay there!
No, it doesn't go down. That's why I said that eclectic-tech can help here more then I can and as I see, he did.
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Re: VU Level Metres in Rainmeter?

Post by sl23 »

Ah, ok, thanks for trying though :thumbup:
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balala
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Re: VU Level Metres in Rainmeter?

Post by balala »

sl23 wrote:Ah, ok, thanks for trying though :thumbup:
You're welcome and sorry I couldn't help more.
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Re: VU Level Metres in Rainmeter?

Post by sl23 »

Well... now you mention it...

Hoiw do I transpose the code eclectic-tech gave from Vertical to Horizontal?
I tried to move it around and got the meters the right way but the peaks were working from right to left!

I'll post the code tomorrow when I have more time. Gotta go...
Thanks.
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Re: VU Level Metres in Rainmeter?

Post by eclectic-tech »

sl23 wrote:Thanks very much for your assistance :thumbup: :great:
...
@eclectic-tech:
Portable beta requires certain .dll's to be added to it's folder doesn't it? Or at least it used to, has that been changed?
AudioLevel is built in to Rainmeter. You should not have to copy the separate files to plugins folder.
sl23 wrote:...
The peaks aren't exactly what I was hoping for now I see them in action :(
Though I am very grateful for your efforts, I don't suppose there's a peak hold option?
If not, could this please be considered as a feature request please? Cheers.
It's still great though, now to try and integrate it with my other skin! :oops:

Thanks to you all for your help, :thumbup:
How are they not what you expected? You can change the PeakDelay to a higher value to further delay the dropping of the peaks.

I looked at the code you posted, and made some mods. You only need a parent audiolevel measure with the values for RMS, Peak, Min/Max Frequencies, and Sensitivity. Then add child measures to pull the RMS and Peak values. I would recommend using Image meters for the peak display (not a Bar meter).

You do not need to use FFT, Bands, etc. those are only used if you want a Spectrum Analyzer output; you are looking for L-R RMS and Peaks. Adding bands will create unnecessary load on the CPU.

You mentioned trying to change my code to a horizontal version; here is code with another image, and with longer peak delays.

Code: Select all

[Rainmeter]
Update=25
BackgroundMode=2
SolidColor=40,40,40,225
DynamicWindowSize=1
AccurateText=1

[Metadata]
Author=Edited by sl23 (Mixx Beatz - Original Author)
Description=VU Metre

[mAudio]
Measure=Plugin
Plugin=AudioLevel
Port=Output
RMSAttack=50
RMSDecay=200
RMSGain=2.5
PeakAttack=50
PeakDecay=10000
PeakGain=2.0
;Bands=2

[mLeft]
Measure=Plugin
Plugin=AudioLevel
Parent=mAudio
Type=RMS
Channel=L
;BandIdx=0

[mRight]
Measure=Plugin
Plugin=AudioLevel
Parent=mAudio
Type=RMS
Channel=R
;BandIdx=1

[mPeakLeft]
Measure=Plugin
Plugin=AudioLevel
Parent=mAudio
Type=Peak
Channel=L
;BandIdx=0

[mPeakRight]
Measure=Plugin
Plugin=AudioLevel
Parent=mAudio
Type=Peak
Channel=R
;BandIdx=0

; [Background]
; Meter=Image
; BitMapImage=Back 1 - No LED.png

[PeakLeft]
Meter=Image
MeasureName=mPeakLeft
SolidColor=235,70,0,255
;BarOrientation=Horizontal
X=(200*[mPeakLeft])
Y=2
W=3
H=9
DynamicVariables=1

[Left]
Meter=Bar
MeasureName=mLeft
BarImage=#@#Images\200_G2R_H
BarOrientation=Horizontal
X=0
Y=0

[PeakRight]
Meter=Image
MeasureName=mPeakRight
SolidColor=235,70,0,255
X=(200*[mPeakRight])
Y=1R
W=3
H=9
DynamicVariables=1

[Right]
Meter=Bar
MeasureName=mRight
BarImage=#@#Images\200_G2R_H
BarOrientation=Horizontal
X=0
Y=-3r

Save this code as an ini file. Then copy the image below and save it in the "@Resources\Images\" folder for that skin as "200_G2R_H.png"; it is a 200x14 gradient.

Bar meter sizes are based on the original image, so setting W & H on those meters has no effect (TransformationMatrix will work as balala explained in an earlier post), otherwise to resize, you would need to edit the image.
200_G2R_H.png
Preview:
sl23-H.gif
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sl23
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Re: VU Level Metres in Rainmeter?

Post by sl23 »

Wow! Thank you eclectic-tech for your help. :thumbup:

When I said "The peaks aren't exactly what I was hoping for now I see them in action," I meant I've never seen peaks work as dynamically as this before, i.e. they're in constant motion. Normally peaks hold their position for a set time then have a decay. Think of it like an ADSR audio envelope where you have only the Attack, Sustain and Release portions of the envelope.
The initial attack we have, and also the release is there, but there is no sustain for the peak. This would be an improvement because you can't see peaks if the delay is too long when the sound level drops.

In my DAW, that is how it works, and pretty much all sound systems that I've seen too. In all honesty, I can't say I've ever seen one that works the way this plugin does. :confused:

I can see that it's not possible to have the Sustain time, so would that be another possible feature request? Is it likely to be implemented? Who is in charge of the plugin now it's integral to Rainmeter? Hopefully this is possible and can become a part of the coding, adding a PeakSustain=500 for example, to delay the onset of it's descent.

Anyway, for now I thank you for your time and the code you have supplied, I shall be looking at it in depth to get it how I would like. For my own personal use though I will be using a screenshot of Ocenaudio's VUmetre and editing to obtain the necessary graphical elements required for this. If you'd like to see it when it's done I'll post a pic?

:thumbup:

EDIT: Oh, by the way, with regards to files required for Rm portable beta, it's the VisualStudio.dll's If I remember correctly, but looking at the 'installation' folder, it seems this is no longer a requirement. May have been with Rm v3.x?

EDIT: I thought I'd show you this plugin for foobar2k, it's called musical spectrum and the pic below is the settings page, notice the highlighted section called 'Peaks.'
FoobarPeaks.png
There's two options, as you can see, one for how long to hold, or sustain, the peak and the other for the gravity or release.
Hope you understand my meaning now ;-)
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eclectic-tech
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Re: VU Level Metres in Rainmeter?

Post by eclectic-tech »

Audiolevel Peak options has PeakAttack, PeakDecay, and PeakGain settings which control the action of the peak indicator.

In reference to your foobar2k example, it just doesn't have the "gravity" option, but you should be able to get close to those actions with the available settings.

Glad to help. :)

I always am interested in other skins and how they are coded, so I would definitely look at yours if you post a link. :great:
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