Introduction

Introduction

Active DJ Studio (amp3dj.ocx) is an ActiveX control developed by MultiMedia Soft that makes it easy adding sound and video playback and mixing capabilities to applications written with the most diffused development environments that accept ActiveX controls such as Visual Studio and Visual Studio.NET.

Active DJ Studio comes with built-in decoding capabilities in order to decode most common sound formats like MP3, WAV, Ogg Vorbis and many others: it can load different sounds at the same time on different virtual decks , usually defined as "players" (*), and, thanks to the use of DirectSound, allocated players can have separate Volume, Tempo, Playback Rate, Pitch and Equaliser values: each player comes with a set of embedded and configurable visual feedbacks like VU-Meter, Spectrum Analyser, Oscilloscope and Waveform. An embedded automatic fader can easily mix audio tracks loaded inside a playlist with an accurate and configurable fade-in/fade-out.

Thanks to the integration with DirectShow, Active DJ Studio can load and play video files using formats whose specific codec is available on the target machine and, through the mentioned players, it can apply different sound effects (equalization, volume, DMO effects, etc.) to the sound portion of a video file.

Active DJ Studio is open to the external world of DSP effects: it can work with custom DSP effects developed by the developer himself and also with the multitude of VST effects available on the Internet.

Let's see a brief summary of the available features:

Playback of the following audio formats: MP3, WAV, OGG Vorbis, MP4, AAC, M4A, AC3, FLAC, WavPack, ALAC, W64, AU, PAF, SVX, NIST, VOC, IRCAM, PVF and CAF

Playback of PCM audio RAW formats

Playback of Windows Media formats (requires the availability of Windows Media Player modules on the target PC)

Playback of CD tracks

Playback of MOD Music

Playback of video clips whose DirectShow compatible codec is installed inside the target system

Playback of files stored on an Internet server (not available for MOD music files)

Playback of Internet radios Shoutcast/Icecast streams

Possibility to change the player volume and the sound card volumes.

Multi-player

Real-time embedded visual feedbacks (VU-Meter, Oscilloscope, Spectrum, Waveform display)

Support for reverse playback of audio tracks

Sound card output choice and speakers assignment

Playlists support

CDDB database queries (through FreeDb servers)

CD cover pictures retrieval (through Amazon Web Services)

Load sound files from memory

Export loaded sound to WAV format (on both disk file or memory buffer)

Automatic Fader

Pre-amplifier

Advanced equalizer and auto-equalization of audio tracks through formatted XML files

BPM (Beats Per Minute) detection

Beats position detection

Tempo, Playback rate and Pitch support

Position triggers management

Cue points management

Support for DirectX Media Objects (DMO) effects

Support for EAX effects

Support for custom DSP effects

Support for VST effects

Waveform analysis

Support for delayed playback of loaded sounds

Support for encrypted sounds

Lyrics synchronization through LRC files

Creation of graphic bars for custom displaying of Vu-Meters, Spectrum and Progress bars.

Integration with our Active Sound Recorder and Active Sound Editor controls

A number of tutorials that will certainly help you beginning your developments with this powerful control can be found here.

(*) A "player" can be compared to a physical "deck" on a DJ console, the place where you put the vinyl/CD to be played; the developer can create a console with many virtual decks that can play simultaneously many different songs on one or more sound cards, each deck having its own volume/tempo/pitch settings. The availability of a certain number of players (decks) will enable the container application to mix several songs on different output channels, giving for example the ability to play advertising spots while songs are being played/mixed on different output channels: this is very useful for multi-channel radio stations automation software.

Supported target systems:

x86 versions of Windows 98 / ME / 2000 / XP / Server 2003 / Vista / Server 2008

x64 versions of Windows XP / Server 2003 / Vista / Server 2008 if the container application is compiled specifically for x86

IMPORTANT NOTES:

For redistribution of the control with your application, we recommend you to take a close look to the Files to be included with your application section.

Return to Table of contents