SonoBus Android beta

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Jesse Chappell

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Jan 11, 2021, 12:23:57 PM1/11/21
to SonoBus Users
Against my better judgement, I've built and released an open beta of
SonoBus for Android, available on Google Play! Figured it was better
that I do it myself, rather than have someone else do it.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sonosaurus.sonobus

It should also work on Chromebooks that can run Android apps.

You'll want to go into the audio settings of SonoBus and select the
smallest audio buffer size that works... it may select a really huge
one initially. Obviously, because most android devices are going to be
using wifi, don't expect any miracles here... if you have USB ethernet
adapters and they work for your device... give that a try too.

Jesse

Yonatan Mijelshon

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Jan 11, 2021, 1:55:17 PM1/11/21
to Jesse Chappell, SonoBus Users
Already tried it on a public SonoBus group! Works wonderfully on a Samsung A30, with 5.8Ghz WiFi nearby and just the onboard mic and cheap Samsung earbuds. 

With the minimum buffer size of 256, 5.8 wifi and both ways PCM 16bits (Sending mono, receiving Stereo), I got a 11ms initial-auto jitter buffer with someone on USA, and 21ms with somebody else also on USA. Audio quality was crystal clear, as always!!!! They had me at 8ms and 11ms respectively. So it seems to work acceptably even using WiFi... This is so promising!!!! I can already imagine 5g performance, if only carriers allow UDP p2p thru their networks (it doesn't seem to work on 4g at least in Argentina, if somebody got a trick to make it happen, let me know)

Just some questions from a usability perspective:

1) What version of Android OS is required? (that field shows "varies according to device" in google play) If i am to reccomend this app, it would be good to know in advance wether it will be available to people according to their phone model... 

2) is the minimum buffer size of 256 a soft limit that you put there based on expected performance of Android devices, or is that a hard limit? (would it be possible to mess with lower buffer settings as an experiment)? 

Things I've noticed: (Altough I understand that there is probably no point in trying to debug for 15000 different Android devices, and please do tell if you prefer a different way of reporting)

- Audio record did not work for me, it failed to record to file /emulated/etc etc (the default). Yes I did give it authorization to write, but it did not work

- I got multiple options to select from in Audio Device in/out, but only one worked, and the headset mic did not. Had to use onboard mic, which was OK anyway. Again, I know it is a miracle that it works at all!! not complaining, this is all great and will become the de facto solution, if only because it arrived before Android Jamulus, Jacktrip, Jamkazam or any other.

Sonobus is not showing YET if you straigh search for it on Google play. You need to click on the link you provided, then it works great! 

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Jesse Chappell

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Jan 11, 2021, 3:17:41 PM1/11/21
to Yonatan Mijelshon, SonoBus Users
Comments inline below:

On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 1:55 PM Yonatan Mijelshon
<musica...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Already tried it on a public SonoBus group! Works wonderfully on a Samsung A30, with 5.8Ghz WiFi nearby and just the onboard mic and cheap Samsung earbuds.
>
> With the minimum buffer size of 256, 5.8 wifi and both ways PCM 16bits (Sending mono, receiving Stereo), I got a 11ms initial-auto jitter buffer with someone on USA, and 21ms with somebody else also on USA. Audio quality was crystal clear, as always!!!! They had me at 8ms and 11ms respectively. So it seems to work acceptably even using WiFi... This is so promising!!!! I can already imagine 5g performance, if only carriers allow UDP p2p thru their networks (it doesn't seem to work on 4g at least in Argentina, if somebody got a trick to make it happen, let me know)

Nice!

> Just some questions from a usability perspective:
>
> 1) What version of Android OS is required? (that field shows "varies according to device" in google play) If i am to reccomend this app, it would be good to know in advance wether it will be available to people according to their phone model...

I have it set to 7.0 as the minimum supported Android OS version. I
don't want to deal with support from people with really old devices. I
may even increase the number even more....

> 2) is the minimum buffer size of 256 a soft limit that you put there based on expected performance of Android devices, or is that a hard limit? (would it be possible to mess with lower buffer settings as an experiment)?

This will be different for each device. The Oboe native android device
driver that JUCE uses should pick up the lowest latency choices
available based on the device and OS capabilities.

> Things I've noticed: (Altough I understand that there is probably no point in trying to debug for 15000 different Android devices, and please do tell if you prefer a different way of reporting)
>
> - Audio record did not work for me, it failed to record to file /emulated/etc etc (the default). Yes I did give it authorization to write, but it did not work

Will check that out... trying to figure out the best place for
recorded audio to go.

> - I got multiple options to select from in Audio Device in/out, but only one worked, and the headset mic did not. Had to use onboard mic, which was OK anyway. Again, I know it is a miracle that it works at all!! not complaining, this is all great and will become the de facto solution, if only because it arrived before Android Jamulus, Jacktrip, Jamkazam or any other.

Not sure what is actually happening here under the hood with the
choices that appear and how they are selected... JUCE/android audio
i/o selection must be a little buggy.

> Sonobus is not showing YET if you straigh search for it on Google play. You need to click on the link you provided, then it works great!

That's fine with me, as a beta I'd rather it not be searchable yet anyway.

Jesse






> El lun, 11 ene 2021 a las 14:23, Jesse Chappell (<je...@sonosaurus.com>) escribió:
>>
>> Against my better judgement, I've built and released an open beta of
>> SonoBus for Android, available on Google Play! Figured it was better
>> that I do it myself, rather than have someone else do it.
>>
>> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sonosaurus.sonobus
>>
>> It should also work on Chromebooks that can run Android apps.
>>
>> You'll want to go into the audio settings of SonoBus and select the
>> smallest audio buffer size that works... it may select a really huge
>> one initially. Obviously, because most android devices are going to be
>> using wifi, don't expect any miracles here... if you have USB ethernet
>> adapters and they work for your device... give that a try too.
>>
>> Jesse
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SonoBus Users" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sonobus-user...@googlegroups.com.
>> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sonobus-users/CAKtSYAWUm3p2qPHjjEsCdZwN8tTE8%2B2C4NEe46txRJnK%3DsY8kg%40mail.gmail.com.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SonoBus Users" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sonobus-user...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sonobus-users/CA%2BB8mAmKfcB0LyqasynMpOHhmb-FfMuowxxRHM2_LZ4xgRpf2A%40mail.gmail.com.

Tom Holden

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Jan 11, 2021, 5:43:18 PM1/11/21
to Jesse Chappell, SonoBus Users
My Samsung A51  Android 9 is very unfriendly to Sonobus. I connected to a public group, to my own group, and directly to my Windows pc. In all cases, the connection was erratic with controls and status changing state at a high rate. 

I cleared all apps and restarted with similar results.

Sorry for the bad news. I hope there are more good ones such as Yonatan's.

Tom

Jesse Chappell

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Jan 11, 2021, 5:47:52 PM1/11/21
to Tom Holden, SonoBus Users
Tom, you didn't mention how you configured the audio settings. What
audio buffer sizes did you try on your device in the audio settings?
You may need to start trying different buffer sizes, starting from the
lowest and moving up until you get more stable operation. You will
also need to make sure that Auto jitter buffer is used when you
connect to your other systems.

Jesse
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sonobus-users/CA%2BwsX-NrWPjog8fAU82AhbRVTQzxB3Wx%2BVbzOeP4He5rvs8VpA%40mail.gmail.com.

Tom Holden

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Jan 11, 2021, 7:20:52 PM1/11/21
to Jesse Chappell, SonoBus Users
Ultimately, I was up to 1920 samples, 40ms (large if I haven't remembered the precise numbers) and Auto jitter. 

For Direct Connect, the phone showed 192.168.0.200:xxxxx while the PC showed 0.0.0.0:xxxxx. That looks suspicious.

Tom

Jesse Chappell

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Jan 11, 2021, 7:43:44 PM1/11/21
to Tom Holden, SonoBus Users
There’s just a bug in the windows IP address reporting in SB. 

So you had to go all the way up to 1920 and it still didn’t work well, yuck.

Jesse

Tom Holden

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Jan 11, 2021, 10:27:28 PM1/11/21
to Jesse Chappell, SonoBus Users
On opening SB on the Samsung A51, the Mute Others control is mainly red, flickering white in bursts of a few flashes irregularly  but never much more than a second between bursts. That continues on connecting and is seen at the PC peer as "Other end muted us" flickering between reports of various data rates whether set to low bitrate or PCM. I've tried manual jitter buffers of high values as well as high audio buffers. Audio does get through from phone to pc but is modulated by an interruption at a rate of perhaps 10-20/s. In the other direction, the receive Mute button can't be unmuted but the meter shows flashes of audio level. It's as though the touch screen was getting tapped at a high rate on the Mute/Unmute All button. 

Tom

Lars Kjebekk

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Jan 12, 2021, 9:44:26 AM1/12/21
to SonoBus Users
Hi there!
I also confirm same issues as Tom described on my Samsung Note 8. 

Lars

Jesse Chappell

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Jan 12, 2021, 10:09:20 AM1/12/21
to Lars Kjebekk, SonoBus Users
I wonder if the thing mentioned in this article is happening on your devices, and the location of the ghost touches is just unlucky for SonoBus to be right on a mute button:

Jesse

Joe

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Jan 12, 2021, 11:51:29 AM1/12/21
to SonoBus Users
I have not done extensive testing, but I find that the app generally seems to work on a Pixel 5 (android 11).  On this device, the lowest buffer size is 96 samples.  Recording a mix seemed to work.  I had to search to find where the recording file got saved (Music/SonoBus/).  Selecting a file for playback doesn't seem to work.  If I select an mp3 or an m4a file, the selected file name shows up in the playback area, but underneath the name it says "(No audio file selected)".  It won't permit me to select a .flac file (such files appear in the selection list, but are greyed out and can't be selected).  (The recording that I saved with the app was a .flac file.)

I find that the aforementioned problem with the flickering 'mute all users' button begins if I connect to the phone with a bluetooth headset.  I disconnect bluetooth and the button returns to normal.  The behavior occurs even when not connected to any group.

The phone has no headphone jack, so I was using its built-in speaker & mic.  I'll try a usb mic/headset when I have a chance.

Jesse Chappell

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Jan 12, 2021, 2:15:47 PM1/12/21
to SonoBus Users
Thanks, the file access stuff is a known issue.

Regarding the flashing mute button problem at the bottom, it seems to
be related to sample rates that aren't actually compatible with the
device setup. If you are seeing the flashing mute, try changing the
sample rate in the audio setup to 44100, instead of 48000. And also
don't use bluetooth! Or if you do, I bet if you tried some different
even lower sample rates it might end up working.

Jesse
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sonobus-users/b63bea20-a326-4ec4-8cf3-4791dbb069e1n%40googlegroups.com.

Joe

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Jan 12, 2021, 2:49:10 PM1/12/21
to SonoBus Users
Agreed on both points. Lowering the sample rate eventually gets you to a point where the flashing mute button problem (while using bluetooth) seems to go away. And obviously -- don't use bluetooth.  I just brought it up to illustrate that the problem was likely something other than ghost touches.

Tom Holden

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Jan 12, 2021, 5:03:15 PM1/12/21
to Jesse Chappell, SonoBus Users
Aha, 44100 did the trick even with Bluetooth enabled but not connected to anything. I have the problem at 48000 regardless, even in airplane mode with just Wi-Fi enabled. For my use case, 16000 Hz could be good enough (barbershop quartet).

Thanks, Jesse. Now more to explore!

Tom

NLM Stjørdal

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Feb 18, 2021, 10:23:15 AM2/18/21
to SonoBus Users
Hi!
Any update on the 48000 hz issue on Android?

br
Lars
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