7  Playback Settings

The Playback Settings menu allows you to configure settings related to audio playback.

7.1  Shuffle

Turning shuffle on will cause Rockbox to randomly re-order the playlist. Thus, to shuffle all of the audio files on the player, you first need to create a playlist containing all of them. For more information on creating playlists refer to section 4.4.
Options: Yes/No.

7.2  Repeat

Configures settings related to repeating of directories or playlists.
Options: Off / All / One / Shuffle / A-B:

Off.

The current playlist will not repeat when it is finished.

Note: If you have the Auto-Change Directory option set to Yes, Rockbox will move on to the next directory on your hard drive. If the Auto-Change Directory option is set to No, playback will stop when the current directory or playlist is finished.

All.

The current playlist will repeat when it is finished.

One.

Repeat one track over and over.

Shuffle.

When the current playlist has finished playing, it will be shuffled and then repeated.

A-B.

Repeats between two user defined points within a track, typically used by musicians when attempting to learn a piece of music. This option is more complicated to use than the others as the player must first be placed into A-B repeat mode and then the start and end points defined.

To set the Start Point (A) press Power + Prev. Setting the End Point (B) is done accordingly using Power + Next. To reset the markers press Power + Play.

7.3  Play Selected First

This setting controls what happens when you select a file for playback while shuffle mode is on. If the Play Selected First setting is Yes, the file you selected will be played first. If this setting is No, a random file in the directory will be played first.

7.4  Fast-Forward/Rewind

These settings control the speed and acceleration during fast forward and rewind. The setting FF/RW Min Step controls the initial speed and FF/RW Accel controls the acceleration.

7.5  Anti-Skip Buffer

This setting controls how early Rockbox starts refilling the music buffer from the hard drive when playing. A longer Anti-Skip Buffer helps prevent skips in music playback if Rockbox has trouble reading from the disk. This can happen if the player is knocked, shaken or jogged heavily while Rockbox is trying to read the hard drive.

The anti-skip buffer can be set to various values between 5 seconds and 10 minutes.

Note: Having a large anti-skip buffer tends to use more power, and may reduce your battery life. It is recommended to always use the lowest possible setting that allows correct and continuous playback.

7.6  Fade on Stop/Pause

Enables and disables a fade effect when you pause or stop playing a song. If the Fade on Stop/Pause option is set to Yes, your music will fade out when you stop or pause playback, and fade in when you resume playback.

7.7  Party Mode

Enables unstoppable music playback. When new songs are selected, they are queued at the end of the current dynamic playlist instead of being played immediately. Pausing and stopping playback is disabled as well as skipping songs and launching plugins.

7.8  Crossfade

This section controls the behavior of the crossfader. The crossfader, when enabled, smoothly fades one track into the next. This can occur in two situations: an automatic track change or a manual track skip. An automatic track change occurs at the end of the track, moving to the next track in the playlist without user intervention. A manual track skip goes to the next track immediately when the appropriate button is pressed.

Options for crossfade settings are:

Enable Crossfade.

If set to Off, crossfade is disabled and all track changes are gapless. If set to Automatic Track Change Only, crossfade occurs for automatic track changes, but not for manual track skips. The next setting, Manual Track Skip Only, is the opposite: tracks will only crossfade when manually skipped. If set to Shuffle, crossfade is enabled for all track changes, automatic or manual, when the shuffle feature is set to Yes, but disabled otherwise. If set to Shuffle or Manual Track Skip then crossfade will be active either when shuffle is set to Yes or the track is manually skipped. If set to Always, tracks will always crossfade into one another.

Fade In Delay.

The “fade in delay” is the length of time between when the crossfade process begins and when the new track begins to fade in.

Fade In Duration.

The length of time, in seconds, that it takes your music to fade in once the Fade In Delay has ended.

Fade Out Delay.

The “fade out delay” is the length of time between when the crossfade process begins and when the old track begins to fade out.

Fade Out Duration.

The length of time, in seconds, that it takes your music to fade out once the Fade Out Delay has ended.

Fade Out Mode.

If set to Crossfade, one song will fade out and the next song will simultaneously fade in. If set to Mix, the ending song will not fade out at all, and will continue to play as normal until its end with the starting song fading in from under it. Mix mode is not used for manual track skips, even if it is selected here.

Note: The rules above apply except in the instance where Fade Out Delay plus Fade Out Duration is less then Fade In Delay (which would create a gap in the audio). In this case, the Fade In Delay is reduced to eliminate the gap.

The graphic below illustrates how the different settings work in practice.

7.9  Replaygain

This allows you to control the replaygain function. The purpose of replaygain is to adjust the volume of the music played so that all songs (or albums, depending on your settings) have the same apparent volume. This prevents sudden changes in volume when changing between songs recorded at different volume levels. For replaygain to work, the songs must have been processed by a program that adds replaygain information to the ID3 tags (or Vorbis tags).

Options for replaygain are:

Replaygain Type.

Choose the type of replaygain to apply:

Album Gain.

Maintain a constant volume level between albums, but keep any intentional volume variations between songs in an album. (If album gain value is not available, uses track gain information).

Track Gain.

Maintain a constant volume level between tracks. If track gain value is not available, no replaygain is applied.

Track Gain If Shuffling.

Maintains a constant volume between tracks if Shuffle is set to Yes. Reverts to album mode if Shuffle is set to No.

Off.

Do not process replaygain information, i.e. turn off the replaygain function.

Prevent Clipping.

Avoid clipping of a song’s waveform. If a song would clip during playback, the volume is lowered for that song. Replaygain information is needed for this to work.

Pre-amp.

This allows you to adjust the volume when replaygain is applied. Replaygain often lowers the volume, sometimes quite much, so here you can compensate for that. Please note that a (large) positive pre-amp setting can cause clipping, unless prevent clipping is enabled. The pre-amp can be set to any decibel (dB) value between -12 dB and +12 dB, in increments of 0.5 dB.

7.10  Track Skip Beep

Controls the volume of the beep that is heard when skipping forward or backward between tracks. The beep is disabled when set to Off.

7.11  Auto-Change Directory

Control what Rockbox does when it reaches the end of a directory. If Auto-Change Directory is set to Yes, Rockbox will continue to the next directory. If Auto-Change Directory is set to No, playback will stop at the end of the current playlist. Using the Random feature requires you to first generate a folder list via the Random Folder Advance Configuration plugin (see section 12.4.19).

Note: You must have the Repeat option set to No for Auto-Change Directory to function properly.

Note: This feature only works when songs have been played from the file browser. Using it with the database may cause unexpected behaviour.

7.12  Constrain Auto-Change

If enabled and you have set Start File Browser Here to a directory other than root, Auto-Change Directory will be constrained to the directory you have chosen and those below it. See section 4.1.2.

7.13  Last.fm Log

Enables logging of your played tracks for submission to http://www.last.fm. This service was formerly known as Audioscrobbler. When you enable this option, you’ll have to reboot to start the logging. The log-file is called .scrobbler.log,and is to be found in the root directory of your player.

Note: See LastFMLog for a further description, and for tools you can use to submit your Last.fm log.

7.14  Cuesheet Support

Enables reading of cuesheet files for played tracks. If a cuesheet is found for a track, track markers are displayed on the progressbar and it is possible to skip between the tracks within the cuesheet. Also the information found in the cuesheet file will replace the information from the ID3 tags. When you enable this option, you’ll have to reboot for it to come into effect.

Cuesheet files should have the same file name as the audio file they reference, except with the extension .cue. This file can either reside in the same directory as the audio file (checked first), or within the .rockbox/cue directory.

The contents of a cuesheet file can also be embedded within the metadata of an audio file. There is currently support for the FLAC tag/ Vorbis comment CUESHEET or the ID3v2 TXXX CUESHEET tag.

7.15  Skip Length

Designed to speed up navigation when listening to long audio tracks, Skip Length changes the behaviour of the Prev and Next buttons so that they skip by a given time instead of skipping to a new track. The Skip to Outro option changes the behaviour so that the buttons skip to just before the end of the track, so that the last few seconds are played before the next track.

7.16  Prevent Track Skipping

If this option is enabled, the ability to manually skip tracks is disabled in order to avoid accidental track skips. It does not prevent changing tracks if a track ends, which can be achieved by combining this option with Repeat set to One

7.17  Rewind Before Resume

When restarting a track or a bookmark, a short rewind can be done before the playback is started. This can be useful when listening to speech material, to help remember what was being said just before playback was stopped. The size of the rewind can be set to various values between 0 (off) and 60 seconds.

Note: This option does not apply to resuming a paused track. Use the next option for rewinding on pause.

Note: The actual rewind distance may differ a little from the requested value, depending on the file in question.

7.18  Rewind on Pause

This option rewinds the current track by a small amount whenever it is paused (not stopped). The amount to rewind can be set between 0 and 15 seconds.

7.19  Frequency

This is the sampling frequency used for the rockbox playback engine. Audio at a different sampling rate will be converted to this sampling rate prior to mixing using a cubic Hermite polynomial resampler.

Note: For best quality and battery life, select the sampling rate used by your audio. This is typically 44.1kHz.

Note: Opus files are always 48kHz.