OK - Here's a common occurance for me in shuffle mode:

Soft music, immediately cut off into loud, obnoxious jungle/hip-hop...

Cure: A crossfader!!!!!

It would be fairly simple to implement, and would make the shuffle mode that much more pleasant.. Even if the cross-fade was only at the beginning of the song (much easier to do... just have a menu option under "sound" called cross-fade, at the beginning of a song, drop by 10db, then raise within the next 5-6 seconds...), it would still make the shuffle mode that much more enjoyable..

Scnerio number 2:
Start car, get blasted by a song because I forgot that the volume was all the way up last time I was in the car..
Solution? CROSSFADE at the beginning when the empeg is turned on...

-mark

...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units

I agree that cross fading would be nice. Especially if you could set the intervals, etc. However I can see it being slightly difficult to implement due to the fact that you have to load and process the next MP3 while the current one is still playing. I'll let our Empeg coding friends answer this for certain, but I don't think it's something you code in an hour...

The start of the next tune is already loaded, due to the caching; however, we'd need to run 2 decoders in parallel and mix the output to do the fade. We have the CPU power to do this, and it may happen in later versions - it's not on the 1.1 list though.

Hugo

Greetings!

What about a fade out and a fade in? Granted, not as elegant as a cross fade, but only one song would be
active at any given time. Also, the code may already be there - I know there is a volume adjusting kernel
out there (sorry, I don't remember the author off hand). It might be possible to tweak that so that at X seconds
before the end of the track, start the fade out and fade in the next track for Y seconds. X and Y could be
configurable, of course. The nice thing is, if I remember what I read about that kernal correctly, it is all matrix
manipulation, and already looks ahead in the track to adjust volume. Most of the code may already be there.

Paul G.
R# 15189
(in queue for a 36GB Mk2)

What about having the volume slowly adjust to what it last was when you start the unit? I agree that having the volume blast when you first get into the car because you were out at a club and deaf on the drive home is very annoying for that morning commute! It can eliminate the need for coffee! My old head unit did this, but not slowly enough for me to realize that it was going up and lower it, if needed. So, I've gotten into the habit of turning the volume down as I pull into the driveway, so that it's already down the next time I get in the car. Having the music fade in slowly upon startup would be great!

George

Err..Sorry, by cross-fade, I really meant fadein-fade-out, althoug a true cross-fade would be nice as well... a fade-in, fade-out in shuffle mode (selectable) would be awesome though and would get rid of alot of my shuffle-mode-oh-no-is-that-loud-song-coming-on-next problems:)
-mark

...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units

A slow fade-in isn't on the 1.1 list, but it shouldn't be too hard; I'll put it on the wishlist for 1.2.

Hugo

I wonder how hard it would be to try and emulate the technique used by Mr Rampling, Mr Tong et al.: determine the BPM of the current and next songs and cross-fade the tempo as well as the volume?

Peter

Hello Hugo :-)

As you are talking about 1.x, when is it scheduled, i miss the regular "a new day, a new kernel to play with" updates from the good 'ol "pre-release" days...


Nils

1.1 is scheduled for sometime in the future :)

It should be within a month or so. The main reason releases are fewer now is that there's more testing and qualification as the empeg owner base is shifting from being predominantly techie (who understand problems) to more normal people (who don't want any problems).

It's absolutely nothing to do with the fact that in 1.1 we broke everything and it takes a long time to mend it all again. But that did happen ;)

1.1 is going to be a pretty major release. Hey, there are major features that noone has even suggested in the wishlist forum yet, but you'll all wonder how you lived without them!

Hugo

..Sounds good! Hurry on

I know you're doing your best.

TeeMcBee
Got my Mk2! # 080000143

"Hey, there are major features that noone has even suggested in the wishlist forum yet, but you'll all wonder how you lived without them!"

That's just plain CRUEL! Talk about being a tease! Okay, so we enjoy every bit of it... so what?! That still doesn't make it right!

George

But then there'd be no surprise, would there?


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

Yeah... we all remember sneaking downstairs trying to see what we were getting for Christmas or looking all through the house for where the stuff was hidden. Remember how disappointed you were on Christmas morning when you had to open the presents and already knew what was inside, looking for that one particular gift? Or maybe that was just me?

Actually, I love surprises. Little tidbits are nice, but I'd just as soon not know anything and be completely surprised. Nothing beats that feeling of utter shock (ask the cows! ... okay, bad joke... my bad). Now, I'm not saying you guys should actually do this... I think the rest of the BBS would lynch me! (Is that a mob I hear coming closer?)

George

you (or someone from empeg) have already hinted at a 1.01 kind of thing.
what about putting these type of 'beta' or interim patches on the beta release area. that way we (empeg extended family) can help with testing. We can then give you more acollades for these extra features.

Murray 06000047
____________________

1.01 (bugfixes for 1.00) will be out shortly: 1.1 is a much more major upheaval and it's often not stable enough to play music reliably at the moment as there have been many changes under the hood. No plans to let that out until we've done lots of testing - sorry.

Hugo

Empeg in the Mix! Hay I like that.

Sure you could try to write an algorithm to do this but I think you really need a
manual mode. When you've got a resident DJ in the passenger seat they can
mix in the tracks for you.

So, the Empeg MkIII will need an LCD touch screen remote (you draw two little
record decks on it then use the touch screen to spin the decks). Probably also
need a head phone monitor so that the DJ can synch in next track before
doing the cross fade.

Wow you could even do scraching ;-)

Oh well, back to planet Earth now then...

.Peter