External Audio

This chapter is about using external audio instead of the built-in player.

info

If you aren't interested in using external audio, this chapter can be skipped for now as it doesn't introduce any new concepts or terminologies needed later on. Just keep in mind that its usage is documented here.

Once enabled via its button to the right of the "Browse" button (or the 'shift + u' shortcut), whatever external audio source that has been set up will be used instead of the playlist content.

Please be aware that using external audio has some implications, namely that most features of the player and playlist area will not be available. What's left is the following:

• volume control
• muting
• peak level meter

For everything else you will have to use the controls of your external audio player application.

The actual audio routing is twofold:

1. Regarding EQdrill itself, you only have the 'External audio input' setting in Settings window to worry about.

2. Regarding getting the audio signal from some other application's output routed to selected external audio input of EQdrill is a completely different story and depends highly on your operating system. That being said, this documentation tries to give some pointers on how to achieve it.

Routing on Linux

The good news on Linux is: you likely already have everything needed for routing audio installed on your system.

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This "HowTo" was tested on Manjaro Linux. If you are using a different linux distribution, it might look bit differently.

The first thing we need to find out is whether you are using pulseaudio or the newer pipewire on your system. This can be done like so:

• open a terminal window
• run the following command: pactl info | grep '^Server Name'
• you are using pipewire if the output contains the following:
  • Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire ...
• otherwise, if it's just containing "Pulseaudio" without mentioning "Pipewire" anywhere, you are using pulseaudio

First off, within EQdrill:

• make sure external audio usage is enabled in EQdrill
• also make sure that Default is selected for external audio input setting
• the end result should be that the setting is established and the "external audio" button is enabled

Now, if you're using pipewire:

1. open a terminal
2. run the following command: pactl load-module module-null-sink
3. open pavucontrol application (we assume you have it installed; otherwise either install it or establish the following in an analogous way)

   • select the 'Playback' tab:

     • locate your external audio player (this example uses audacious)

     • change it's output routing to "null-sink Audio/Sink sink" (or something along those lines)

       

   • select the 'Recording' tab:

     • locate "Chromium input"

       info

       The reason for this is that EQdrill is built using electronjs framework, which means it's running a chromium instance. If you happen to have the chromium browser running in parallel, you might need to try around to find the correct one (or simply close your browser temporarily to make it more obvious).

     • change it's input routing to "Monitor of null-sink Audio/Sink sink" (or 'Monitor of ...' using whatever name your sink had in the previous step re 'Playback' tab)

       

If instead you're using pulseaudio:

• it's basically the same as above for pipewire
• only exception is to use the command pacmd instead of pactl (i.e. in all the commands above that use pactl)

info

Due to the increasing popularity and prevalence of pipewire over the older pulseaudio at the time of development and writing this documentation, we have focused our testing on pipewire.

Best case scenario is that you now hear the external audio through EQdrill (peak lever meter is moving), albeit with somewhat lower volume than before due to player volume in EQdrill not being at 100%. If not, double check the above procedure, including settings within EQdrill.

Routing on Windows

In our experience, routing audio from one application to another on Windows 11 usually requires some additional third-party software. As we are not trying to endorse any specific solution, we are not going into detail here like we did for Linux. But the general challenge is the same: somehow routing the audio output of your given "music player" to EQdrill audio input.

If you don't yet happen to know of a way to achieve it, try doing an online search along the lines of:

• "Windows 11 route audio from one application to another".
• "Windows 11 route audio output of one program to another program"
• ...

Routing on macOS

Similar story as for Windows: chances are you can find various information online on how to route audio on macOS from one application to another.