Foobar Setup XP

Foobar Setup for Windows XP :

Introduction

These instructions are for setting up Foobaar to work with Windows XP. There are separate instructions for setting up

Foobar for Windows Vista.

Foobar 2000 is a popular music player program. In its basic form it is somewhat rudimentary, but due to a large library of plug-ins, both official ones from the developer and third-party ones from a large number of enthusiastic users, it can be configured to become a powerful and versatile music player that may be customized to suit your needs. We recommend that you start with a basic configuration and add to it as needed and/or you become familiar with the system.

All users must download the main program file from the

Foobar 2000 download page. Simply double-click the downloaded file to begin the installation routine. If you are planning to use Direct Sound there are no other files required.

Setup

Start the Foobar 2000 application and then go to "File - Preferences". Select "Advanced - Playback - Fading". Then set "Fade on seek", "Fade out", and "Fade on pause" all to "0" milliseconds.

The reason for selecting these settings is that Foobar 2000 offers automatic sample rate changes. If the program attempts to fade between two music files recorded at two different sample rates, it may create "popping" or "crackling" sounds during the fade.

Next, select "Playback" and ensure that under "Replay Gain" that both "Source mode:" and "Processing:" are set to "none".

These settings will avoid any undesired signal processing that might degrade the delivery of bit-perfect data to the Ayre USB D/A converter.

Next select "Playback - Output". Choose "DS : " with the name of the Ayre USB D/A converter from the drop-down list for "Output Device:". In the "Output Format / Postprocessing" section, select "24-bit" from the dropdown list under "Output data format:".

For standard installations you are done!

ASIO4ALL Kernel Streaming (Recommended for advanced users only.)

If you have chosen to use the ASIO4ALL kernel streaming DLL to bypass the Windows KMixer, you should have already installed the ASIO4ALL DLL driver (see "Windows XP ASIO4ALL Setup").

To use ASIO4ALL with Foobar 2000, you must also download the

"ASIO Support" DLL file from the Foobar 2000 website. To install the ASIO Support file, simply copy or move it to the "Components" folder of your Foobar 2000 installation.

Start the Foobar 2000 application and then go to "File - Preferences - Playback - Output". Under the drop-down list for "Output Device:" select "ASIO : ASIO4ALL".

You will then need to configure both Foobar 2000 to use the ASIO4ALL driver, as well as the the ASIO4ALL driver itself.

First select "Playback - Output - ASIO Virtual Devices" from the Foobar 2000 "Preferences" window. Highlight "ASIO4ALL" by clicking on it, and then click the "Edit" button.

This will bring up the "ASIO Virtual Device Editor" window. Click on the "Configure" button.

This will bring up the ASIO4ALL control panel.

The ASIO4ALL control panel lists each sound device that is installed in your system. You can select whether or not to route each sound device through the ASIO4ALL driver by clicking the button next to each device. When the device is selected, the left side of the button will light up. When the device is deselected, the left side of the button will be grayed out.

Select only the Ayre USB D/A converter, and de-select any other audio devices.

Click on the "Wrench" icon to access the advanced section of the control panel. Click on the name of the device you wish to configure and it will be highlighted.

For the Ayre USB D/A converters, be sure to clear the checkboxes "Always Resample 44.1kHz <-> 48kHz" and "Force WDM Driver to 16 Bit". This will ensure that the data sent to your audio device is bit-perfect.

NOTE: If you are using more than one music player program, the ASIO4ALL DLL must be separately configured from within each program. Changes to the settings made from within one program do not carry over to any other program.

Close the ASIO4ALL Control Panel and return to "ASIO Virtual Device Editor" window in Foobar 2000.

You will have to map the channels so that they play back correctly through your music system. Highlight each channel of the Ayre USB D/A converter in turn and select the desired channel from the drop-down list. Normally "Device channel" 1 will be the "Left" channel and "Device channel" 2 will be the "Right" channel. If you are unsure, highlight "Play test signal" while your music system is powered on and a low-level pink noise will be sent to the selected "Device channel". This allows you to verify the correct channel mapping.

This completes the setup of ASIO4ALL for Foobar 2000.