Issue with saving settings and a bunch of other q's

[JCjammin]

Hi there, 

I just got the full app with the un-locker and after playing around with it I have a bunch of Q's

 

First, I'm having an issue with saving settings. On the EQ page it has a save button, that seems to suggest I can save these settings for a particular album or even song but sometimes this save button does not light up, any thoughts to why?  If I do make saves for say speaker or bluetooth in general, does that mean if I have a unique one for a specific album or song then those take priority? Does adding lots of these eat up memory or are they only accessed when the song/album/output is used?

When using the EQ, I notice there is an overall gain aspect along with the various sliders, as far as distortion goes do you recommend lowering the overall gain to help minimize that. I realize I can also test this by ear, but I was wondering if there was a method that helps reduce overall distortion or ways to minimize it.  I made all my own recordings using Flacs and connect through bluetooth just in case that changes anything.  

 

Album art is sometimes not showing up as correct. Some of it is just using the same picture for each cover on a box set even when the specific disks have unique covers. Others I would like to add my own. I see I can change it with a few options, but is there a way to make a folder and my own art so I can customize my art even more?  For instance, making specific covers for entire albums or adding my own pictures of artists? I would assume I would need to size them correctly, but I did not see an option to search other places for art. I'm guessing that would mean making a unique folder for my custom art under music or something else perhaps? 

Album listings, I have some artists that I would like to have grouped with their bands, verse alone.  For example, 10,000 maniacs is listed first, but I have a Natalie merchant album Tigerlily that shows up later, as it should. I see i can change tags for songs and move them to different albums, but is there a way to change entire album locations, or perhaps a way to rename them in a way that they group up with the main band?  I was thinking perhaps i could change it to 10,000 maniacs, Natalie Merchant for example. It's more about being able to list the albums in a better order overall, while still keeping the alphabetical aspects intact. Any advice on this? I have many albums/artists that have this same issue and listing by artist doesn't always help with this either. Manually fixing them seems to be the only way, but I'm not exactly sure how i should go about it. 

 

Power consumption, is it better to leave this app in sleep mode, or would it be better to go with deep sleep? It seemed like it was using more power when I had the fancy screen saver like thing running. I was able to turn that off and I think I'm using less now. I was using another music player app that was defiantly using a smaller % of the power, but that was before I turned off the screensaver animations. But still I was wondering if there are any settings, I should be aware of to help limit the power use? I really do like this app a lot more that the other, but you know how power is always an issue so I'd like to help optimize where I can. For some reason my phone wasn't putting anything to sleep even with the option turned on, but I figured out how to manually do it and that helped a ton. I just want to be sure I'm not overlooking something. 

Do custom skins use more power than the default? They certainly seem to have a much brighter look and many with lots of colors which looked nice, but i wonder how much extra juice they take to look that nice. 

Along with that, is there a way to power it down completely? for instance, I press the close all apps button, but when I get into my car the app starts right up so something is running somewhere. Maybe I'm just old school but I like things not running in the background when I'm not using them. 

 

Avoiding lock screen when I'm using Poweramp. Is there a way I can avoid going into auto lock when I'm on long drives/walks ect?  Or is there a better lock screen widget I can use that I could change music that way? I have no issues swapping songs on the album but switching albums I need to unlock.  

 

lastly, I read that the Un-locker needs to remain installed, and you have limited unlocks is there a set number or something? Also when I used the un-locker it said it needed internet access for two days or something along those lines? No clue what it was talking about as I thought the app was purely an offline player?

 

Well, I think I asked enough Q's for one post, if any kind person out there on the interwebs can help it would be greatly appreciated.

[andrewilley]

Rather a lot for one post as this'll get really fragmented, but to address some of what you've asked:

When you press Save in the EQ menu you are only saving it internally within PA's database. If you want to save it elsewhere, use Export. When you use Save/Assign, you can either simply name it as some Preset name that you might want to access later (e.g. "Boosted Midrange"), or also assign it to a particular output method/device, or even a song or Album/Folder/etc (depending on what listening mode you are using at the time), so it gets re-applied automatically when that situation arises:

Album/song EQ settings will override any device-specific ones, they won't be merged. So if you want to use the EQ system to apply adjustments to compensate for specific output devices then you should not also use song presets as you will only get the song settings, not your calibrations for the device.
 

The pre-amp gain can be used to avoid situations where excessive boosting, often of bass frequencies, causes possible over-saturation and thus clipping distortion. There is also a Limiter which will reduce the gain automatically whenever such a situation occurs. If you plan to use a lot of boost, reducing the pre-amp is a good idea. You can also use ReplayGain, which if enabled is designed to reduce any tracks that would peak close to 100% digital maximum to a less vulnerable level.
 

Generally, let Android manage app load/unload, that's what it's meant to do. Just because an app is still listed in the Recents list doesn't mean it is actually running. Avoid allowing CPU throttling during sleep (such as "power/battery optimisation" features in Android settings) as that can impact on playback quality when the screen goes to sleep. There is a background service designed to re-launch Poweramp for certain situations (button presses, connection to headset/bluetooth/etc), which you can disable using PA Settings=>Misc=>Keep Service, but I really doubt you'll see any measurable difference.

Poweramp is pretty well optimised anyway, especially if you avoid excessive high-res processing which can be slightly more draining. When the app is not longer in focus and it is not playing, it will be effectively unloaded after a minute or two anyway. Custom skins make no difference to power consumption (other than if you set up a very bright layout on a OLED-style device anyway, but that applies to everything).

Yes you can force force PA to not trigger the device's lock/sleep state (PA Settings=>Look and Feel=>Keep Screen On) but that is completely contrary to what you were saying earlier about power saving, and I would normally only suggest it when a device is permanently running on external power.


The Unlocker app does not need to remain installed after the licence has been validated via the internet and the status saved, and you can remove it later if you don't want to see it in the apps list. You'll need it back again if you ever reset or reinstall the app though, so unless you have a particular problem with it being visible in the full apps list I'd just leave it be.

Please discuss the album art questions in a separate thread for clarity, after having read the User Guides and FAQs: https://forum.powerampapp.com/kb/en_us/

Andre

[JCjammin]

 Thanks for all the answers, greatly appreciate your time. 

 

 

"You can force force PA to not trigger the device's lock/sleep state (PA Settings=>Look and Feel=>Keep Screen On) but that is completely contrary to what you were saying earlier about power saving, and I would normally only suggest it when a device is permanently running on external power."

 

I just don't want it locking while I'm using it.  I don't mind a bit of extra drain at that time. Having to unlock the screen every 20 mins or so while I'm listening to me should be unnecessary you know? I guess if you have some 3 hour play list or something and that would conserve power it might be a good thing.  (figuring out how to do play lists is another thing i need to learn, but i assume that info is easy to find) But i often just Leave the phone down, flat so I can see the screen and change music as I see fit which the interface does a great job of doing that. But having to having to unlock after 3-4 times in a couple hours is really annoying. Maybe I should just change the lock screen time, as I typically just lock my phone manually anyway with the side key. I just thought there might be a better way in the app.   I'll try those settings you suggested though. 

Thanks for that link, I did do a bunch of searching though engines and redit and such but everything I found was so old and far earlier versions I figured I make a profile and ask. I do online tech support daily for computers for 25 years. I just never had a phone, ironic ehh?  I read that post about how to get high quality sound so i need to do some more diggin into that thread as well to maximize the sound over my car's stereo. And i'll check out the other link's about the album art. 

Have a great day!

[JCjammin]

Ok, so I played around a bit more and it would seem the max I can set the screen to stay on is 30 mins.  But I stumbled upon using the app while the phone is locked. I'm not sure if that is what you were talking about or not.   But i also need to use the side button to get the app back open, verse just tapping the screen.  Sometimes I need to press it a couple of times, as it will go to to the unlock screen where I need to type a pin. I'm not sure if there is a rhythm to this or not.  I suppose pressing the side button is a bit easier than retyping the pin, But boy would it be great if i could just get the screen back on by tapping the screen instead. 

[andrewilley]

As I said, PA Settings=>Look and Feel=>Keep Screen On should do exactly what you want, but it's a simple on/off toggle, there's no way to only enable the screen-on mode only during audio playback for example. And leaving the screen on permanently is probably the single worst thing you can do to drain your battery.

You might also want to look into PA Settings=>Lockscreen, and see if putting the main PA interface onto your device's lockscreen (as opposed to the miniplayer version that Android provides) might help. But even then, you'd still need to wake the display after Android has put the screen to sleep.

Playlists are covered in the Guides section that I mentioned previously:

Andre

[JCjammin]

Heh, we posted at the same time.  I did find that way to play during locked with the full app.  I think that might be the way to go.

 

I guess one last Q,  Is there a PDF manual?  I saw the help in the app, but i'm kinda old school and like to read big ol manuals.

[andrewilley]

No, just like most Android apps, there is no item-by-item printed manual as such. The nearest thing would be the Guides I mentioned before.

Andre

[JCjammin]

I'll look into them when I get some more time.  You helped me with the most important issues and now I have a few things I can try to see which works best for me. Thanks a bunch for all your help.