Easyeffects-IRS-profiles-database

A community maintained database of IRS+easyeffects profiles files, to be used with the convolver

On this repository, you'll find a database with IRS (Impulse Response Sound) files, and easyeffects profiles.

Background:

I started this project, after noticing that , for some reason, my laptop speakers had better bass and mid frequencies sound with windows, than with Arch Linux. I though it was my speakers, but I was wrong.

So, I started researching the reason, and ended with https://github.com/shuhaowu/linux-thinkpad-speaker-improvements repo, which helped me to fix and match my audio to the way Windows was doing it. After trial and error, I was able to create a proper json profile for Easyeffects, that now any other user can load.

Now, I want you, the one reading this repo, to help me profile every possible device, so new users can just get the files and enjoy better audio.

Notes:

The IRS files were made from Windows, and may be possible to be done from macOS too, with the goal in mind of capturing the way those OS do the audio. by using the convolver, with an IRS file, you can replicate the sound that you had with Windows/macOS, on your Linux system.

This project is meant to be a collab with the Linux community, so you don't have a RAW, flat audio output, by having users uploading their own IRS + Easyeffects profiles.

How to use:

Download the files matching your laptop/PC model, and place the json on ~/.config/easyeffects/output, and the .irs on ~/.config/easyeffects/irs

Open EasyEffects, and load the profile for your laptop/PC. Notice the audio quality improving.

For fine tuning, check that the convolver is using the right .irs file.

Contributing:

I would love anyone on the Linux community, to contribute, and help me grow this repo, into a full database. That way, new Linux users won't need to profile their Windows audio, and just enjoy.

Of course, if the .irs file doesn't exist, you can create a new one. To add files to this repo, just create a new folder, and upload your configuration files, with brand and model of your PC/audio device/laptop.

Creating a new .irs to contribute to this database:

How to profile Windows audio and get the .irs based on your device:

We need to figure out how the filtering is done with Dolby on Windows. To do this, we can simply play an impulse audio file, and measure the output audio, which is the impulse response and we can use it in a convolution filter. Step by step:

Note: I recommend you to do this twice or more, depending on how many audio devices you have. 1st, start by only using the speakers of your laptop/PC. then, plug your headphones and repeat the process, and so on.

This way, you'll end with 2 or more .irs files for each device. Each device has a different wave, so repeat as needed.

1. Install Audacity and VLC on Windows. If you don't have Windows, you can try using Windows to go on an external USB drive. You can make a Windows VM, to use rufus for this purpose.
2. Enable all Dolby effects using the Dolby app (Dolby Audio Premium at the time of writing this). Convince yourself that it is working by playing some music and turning the Dolby effects on and off.
3. Open Audacity, select Edit -> Preferences and then select the Audio Settings on the left tree.
4. Under Interface -> Host, select Windows WASAPI
5. Under Playback -> Device, select the speakers (Speaker (Realtek(R) Audio) for me).
6. Under Recording -> Device, select the speakers loopback (Speaker (Realtek(R) Audio) (loopback) for me).
7. Under Quality, make sure the Project Sample Rate and Default Sample Rate is 48000Hz.
8. I selected 24-bit for the Default Sample Format. 32 bit float might be fine as well.
9. Click OK to save the settings.
10. Download the impulse WAV file from either the original source or a mirror of it in this repo.
11. Open the WAV file with VLC. Pause the playback.
12. Go to Tools -> Preferences in VLC. On the bottom left, it says Show settings and there are two radio boxes, Simple and All. For me, Simple is selected, click All to get a more detailed preferences menu.
13. On the left tree, go to Audio -> Output modules.
14. On the right side, the Audio output module should be Windows Multimedia Device output and the Media role should be set to Video. I also tried a Media role of Music, but it made no difference in the impulse response profile on my machine.
15. Click Save to save the settings.
16. Go back to Audacity, click the Record button (big circle at the top). The recording might be stuck (no waveform shows on screen), which is OK.
17. Click play in VLC. This should cause the recording to show a waveform in audacity.
18. Stop the recording in Audacity and stop playback in VLC (if necessary).
19. Zoom into the peak of the wavform and see something like the following. You have to zoom in quite far. In the screenshot below, that's a range of abouy 4ms.

20. Select the audio clip centered around the maximum of the waveform, as shown in the above screenshot. Then go to File -> Export Selected Audio. Save the file as a WAV file.
21. Rename the resulting file's extension from .wav to .irs. Keep this file around.

Importing the .irs file into Easyeffects:

0. Ensure no external speakers are plugged in and this is for the internal speakers only. Start playing some music.
1. sudo apt intall pulseeffects
2. On the left hand side, activate Convolver, on the right panels. There's a button that looks like a wave form above Stereo Width. Click it.
3. Import Pulse and select the desired .irs file. Click Apply.
4. On the left panel, use the arrow buttons of the Limiter row and move it below the Convolver. Activate that as well.
   • Without doing this, the convolution may cause the audio to clip and you may here artifacts due to that.
5. We need to setup a preset so this setup can be turned off when headphones are plugged in. On the top right corner, there's a button to set a preset. Click on it and a small popup will show with a textbox. Type Laptop Speaker into it. Press the + button. Then press the save button (should be the left-most icon button in the row of 3 buttons).
6. Press the middle icon button that looks like an refresh button. This will cause this preset to be loaded when the speakers are used.
7. Plug headphones in. Create a new preset called Headphones with the top right buttons. Switch to the new preset by clicking Load next to it.
8. Disable both the Convolver and Limiter filter.
9. Press save (left icon button) to save to the filter pipeline (which should have no filters) to the pipeline.
10. Press the middle icon button to instruct PulseEffects to automatically load this preset when headphones are plugged in.
11. Click the hamburger menu at the top right of the screen. Go to General and click Start Service at Login. This makes PulseEffects run on boot.
    • I have seen that I have to reload the filters in PulseEffects after a reboot for them to take effect.
12. Optionally could set the Priority Type to be Real Time.

Your screen should look something like this (note I edited the Output gain of the Convolver filter, but that's up to you):

You can test the headphone/laptop speaker switching. My observation is that it takes about 1-3 seconds for PulseEffects to switch between the presets.

I recommend to add a limiter after the convolver or other effects, so it doesn't sound saturated/distorted. of course, adjust the gain of the effects, and ensure it doesn't peak beyond 0 dB.

It is recommended to do this on a silent room, with speakers at 70% volume, so you can notice the small differences.

Tip:

you can use AutoEQ to get even more accurate sound based on your headphones model.

https://autoeq.app/

Additionally, a more detailed webiste that can be of help: https://gadgetrytech.squig.link/

References and documentation

You may like to dig deeper into samplerates and quantum values. here are some documentations

This post can help to calculate the right values:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1gao420/low_latency_guide_for_linux_using_pipewire/

Official docs can be found here:

https://docs.pipewire.org/page_man_pipewire_1.html

Another useful post regarding values:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=288886

For a more in depth documentation: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/PipeWire/en#Configuration_fragments