Live Monitoring SpecWeb if you don't have a 5.1 soundcard

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zeerround

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In describing how to adjust SpecWeb settings while listening in realtime I was reminded than many people don't have 5.1 "soundcards" or HDMI outputs to AVRs on their PCs. I added 5.1 mixdown to stereo to the features request list, to cover that case but then it also occurred to me to look for an existing mixdown solution.

Here is one I found that seems to work well: VB Audio's VoiceMeter (donationware):

https://vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/
It creates a virtual multi-channel audio device, that you can select as the output in SpecWeb, then a mixdown button, and your choice of stereo audio output device to monitor.

VoiceMeter.png


In the above you can see a mixer type interface for the Virtual Input that has SpecWeb's 5.1 output. Then you can use the A1 drop down in the master out section to pic your stereo audio hardware. Lastly, just press the MIXdown button so that all the 5.1 channels can be heard in stereo.

Sweet!

The way you connect SpecWeb to this is to first drop a stereo file on the SpecWeb icon on your desktop, then expand the window and/or scroll up to see the Audio Output Device section:

Audio Output Selection.png


Look for the number of the ASIO Voicemeeter Virtual ASIO device. In this case 112. Now you can quit SpecWeb.

Next, right click on the on the SpecWeb Play shortcut on your desktop and select properties:

SpecWeb Play ShortCut.png


change the number after the -P to the number of the Voicemeeter device you identified in the last step (no space between -P and the number) and hit apply.

Now you can drag and drop a stereo track onto SpecWeb Play and listen to the output (assuming your computer is powerful enough to run SpecWeb live) mixed down to stereo.

The Web interface for playback and settings adjustment in SpecWeb looks like this:

SpecWeb Web UI.png


So going back to the start of this adventure, now you could for instance, click once on Center solo/mute (SM) button to hear only the center channel (solo) while adjusting the Center Width Slider so that C channel width is as small as it can be with the the vocal in C still sounding "full". Press the C SM button again and it will mute the center channel, letting you hear what the rest of the channels sound like without C.

Then you can repeat the process for LF and RF together, with the goal of minimizing the front width, which will leave you with the most possible sound in the rears. Of course you can use the LS and RS SM buttons to listen to the Rears in isolation as well.

This is just one example of settings adjustments while listening live.

If you are still working on your song as it comes to the end, be sure jump or rewind to the beginning before it does end.

Once you are happy with your settings you can press the record button, and it will process the song and save the output. The "Save" button, will write out a custom ini file with your settings, if you should want to use them with other tracks or make them your defaults.

There are a lot more details in the SpecWeb guide, but the point of this was to show how to monitor in Stereo with VoiceMeeter MIXdown.

Cheers,
Z
 
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