Settings Guide

This guide follows the settings pages in the current ECHO NEXT code and is written for first-time users.

If you do not understand a setting, keep the default. When sound disappears, playback stutters, or errors appear, undo the setting you just changed first — do not keep flipping advanced options.

Start here

Situation	Suggestion
You just want to listen normally	Only touch language, close-to-tray, output device, theme, and library folders.
Playback stutters	Enable low-load playback mode; turn off the realtime spectrum, video backgrounds, and background batch tasks.
No sound	Switch back to System or shared output first; turn off EQ, ReplayGain, speed change, and DSD.
Lyrics are off	Switch candidates manually first, then adjust the per-track offset. Global offset comes last.
The library looks wrong	Check tags, merge strategy, and scan status first. Do not delete the database.
The database is broken	Use the recovery assistant in the danger zone: snapshot and restore first, rebuild last.

Common questions, short answers

Question	Answer
Should I enable this option?	If you do not know, leave it off. ECHO’s defaults lean safe and stable; advanced options are for people who know exactly what they want.
Why is an option missing on my machine?	Some settings appear based on platform, output mode, account state, feature unlocks, plugins, or the current page. ASIO / DSD lean Windows and device-specific, download actions require unlocking, and HQPlayer options require enabling the integration first.
Will changing settings delete my music?	Normal settings never delete music files. Only danger-zone buttons labeled clean, delete, rebuild, or remove all local data are high risk; duplicate cleanup moves lower-priority duplicate files to the recycle bin.
Which settings break playback most often?	Output mode, exclusive / ASIO / DSD, EQ, ReplayGain, speed change, Automix, HQPlayer, proxy, and low-latency / resampling options. Turn them back to defaults one by one.
Automatic lyric matching is wrong.	Switch candidates manually first, then adjust the per-track offset. Do not start with the global offset or by clearing the library.
Is stuttering a broken app?	Turn off the realtime spectrum, MV immersive background, video wallpaper, and background completion first, and reduce remote background concurrency. Remote sources, network proxies, and mechanical drives also slow things down.
How do I get back to normal?	Switch playback back to System / shared output; turn off EQ, ReplayGain, speed change, DSD, and HQPlayer; reset theme and lyrics to defaults; rescan for library issues instead of deleting the database.

The settings tabs

Open ECHO NEXT and click Settings on the left. The page is split into these tabs:

Tab	Main purpose
General	Language, window, startup, home display, backups, hidden features.
Playback	Output mode, device, low load, advanced audio, ReplayGain, gapless.
Shortcuts	In-app and global hotkeys.
Lyrics	Lyric display, sources, offsets, desktop lyrics, backgrounds.
MV	MV sources, quality, auto matching, immersive background.
Integrations	Proxy, accounts, Discord, Last.fm, Windows controls.
Plugins	Local plugin directory, sample plugin, plugin page entry.
Remote	WebDAV, Jellyfin, Emby, Subsonic, and other remote sources.
EQ	DSP workbench entry and current DSP status.
Appearance	Theme, sidebar, wallpaper, fonts, cover shape.
Library	Folders, live updates, lyric completion, health checks, duplicates, caches, scanning.
About	Version, updates, safe mode, diagnostics.
Danger Zone	Database recovery, duplicate cleanup, cache clearing, resets, local data removal.

The exhaustive per-setting reference — every field, default value, and allowed range, with screenshots — is maintained on the Chinese settings page. This page covers the structure and the decisions that matter most.

General

The General tab manages language, window behavior, entry visibility, basic performance switches, and data backups.

Highlights:

• Display language: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, English. Usually no restart needed.
• Hide to tray on close: with this on, the close button hides ECHO to the tray instead of quitting. Enable it for background listening.
• Launch at startup: off by default. Enable only if you use ECHO daily.
• Remember window size: recommended on.
• Fast startup: light library verification at launch; the full data-protection snapshot completes in the background. Useful for large libraries, but turn it off while debugging database or startup problems.

Disable data protection skips the snapshots taken at startup, in the background, after scans, and before updates. Do not enable it unless you know for certain the snapshots are slowing down your workflow.

Backup-related entries are worth setting up early:

• Export / import settings: export a copy before big changes so you can roll back.
• Auto data backup: backs up settings, the library index, playback memory, local account state, wallpapers, cover cache, and metadata. Choose a stable directory — not a drive that disconnects. A 7-day interval suits most users.
• Backup now: click it before upgrades, full rescans, mass tag edits, or cleanups.
• One-click export / migrate data package: exports settings, library index, playlist snapshots, and cover cache paths. It does not copy music files or login keys. Read the included RESTORE.md before restoring.

Playback

Get normal songs playing before touching advanced playback settings.

Audio settings follow the player drawer at the bottom-right. If the drawer next to the bottom player disagrees with the settings page, trust the drawer — it is closest to the real playback chain.

The basics, in order:

1. No sound? Click the “No sound? Click me” helper first. Do not start with ASIO.
2. For Output mode, pick WASAPI Shared (recommended) or safe mode if unsure. Exclusive and ASIO are for people who can troubleshoot sound cards.
3. Keep Shared backend on WASAPI Shared for daily use; try DirectSound compatibility only for old devices.
4. Set Output device to the headphones, speakers, DAC, or sound card you are actually using. The wrong device is the most common “no sound”.
5. If the mouse lags, the UI stalls, or fans get loud during playback, enable Low-load playback mode; add Low-load enhanced protection if needed.
6. Keep the Advanced playback settings panel collapsed unless you have a HiFi or troubleshooting need.

Advanced output and rescue buttons:

What you see	What to do
Restart audio engine	Low risk; click first when ECHO’s own audio chain gets stuck.
Restart Windows audio service	Affects other apps’ sound; confirm other players and browsers can be interrupted.
Audio issue diagnostics window	Open when reporting playback problems; it shows state, progress, duration, backend, and underruns.
JUCE main output	Only when you need the native output chain; not needed for normal listening.
Persistent native decode	For WAV / FLAC / MP3 native decoding; falls back on failure.
DSD DoP experiment	Only when local DSF files, ASIO, and the DAC all support DSD.
ASIO native DSD experiment	High-risk experiment; keep off if unsure.
ASIO unavailable protection	Falls back to safe output when ASIO devices disappear — keep on.
Exclusive instability auto-fallback	Returns to shared output on WASAPI exclusive underruns — keep on.
SOXR fallback protection	Falls back to FFmpeg default resampling when resampling fails — keep on.

Playback-experience options (not the first stop for “no sound”):

Feature	Plain explanation	Suggestion
Speed mode	Nightcore is faster and higher-pitched, Daycore slower and lower; plain speed is neutral	Stay at 1.0x while troubleshooting
Audio export format	The format the export button saves	MP3 if unsure; FLAC / WAV for lossless
Fixed volume	Locks ECHO’s volume to 100%	Fine with an external DAC or preamp; careful with direct headphones
Play / pause fade	Eases sound in and out	Add a little if you hear pops; off for raw output
Mini player	A small window with cover, title, progress	Reset position if you lose the window
A-B loop	Repeats a marked segment	Practice, transcription, detail listening
Automix	Automatic transitions between queued tracks	Fine for shuffle; off for albums
Gapless album playback	Minimizes gaps between album tracks	On for live, classical, continuous albums
Volume normalization	ReplayGain evens loudness between songs	On for shuffle; off for bit-perfect testing

ReplayGain details: -14 LUFS is the common target; lower is quieter. Keep preamp gain at 0 dB unless you know better, and leave clipping prevention on.

Shortcuts

Every action has two columns: an in-app shortcut and a global shortcut. In-app Space for play / pause works by default. Global shortcuts conflict easily — test after recording, and if recording fails, the combination is likely taken by the system or another app. Pick a different one instead of fighting for it.

Useful ones to set: show main window (for tray listening), locate current song (large libraries), and toggle desktop lyrics.

Lyrics

The lyrics settings also appear in the lyrics drawer; both use the same panel.

First decide whether you want lyrics at all:

• Enable lyrics off means the lyrics page will not load, search, or match anything.
• Lyric match threshold is the bar for auto-applying lyrics. Higher is more conservative; lower auto-applies wrong lyrics more easily. Beginners should not lower it.
• Auto-open candidate panel pops up when a choice is needed — recommended if your lyrics are often off.
• Romanization, kana, and translation are helper text. Enable them when you cannot read the original language.

Readability lives in fonts and colors: adjust the main font size first, then helper text, then line spacing. Smart readable colors picks text colors based on the cover, wallpaper, or MV frame; readability enhancement adds outline and shadow for busy backgrounds.

When lyrics are inaccurate, follow this order — not the reverse:

1. Make sure Enable online lyric matching is on; otherwise only local lyrics are used.
2. Check Lyric sources. Local lyrics take priority; unchecked online sources do not participate.
3. Deep search looks across more platforms — more complete, but slower.
4. If auto-matching keeps applying wrong lyrics, reduce automation and pick candidates manually.
5. Auto-save local lyric files writes manually applied online lyrics as sidecar files next to the song, without overwriting existing .lrc / .ttml / .txt.
6. Default delay for new lyrics only affects newly matched lyrics.
7. Global delay affects every song. Touch it only when all songs are uniformly early or late.

Desktop lyrics options (layout, font size, opacity, hiding when no lyrics exist) affect the small desktop window only, not the main lyrics page.

MV

The MV tab controls whether picture is shown, how your own videos play, and how fancy the background is.

The official product does not provide platform MV search, login, or parsing. If leftover source toggles remain in the UI, keep them off; do not treat them as official capability.

• Enable MV is the master switch. Off if you do not want picture.
• Max quality is a ceiling. Your own video will not grow quality it never had.
• Preload MV prepares video ahead of time — smoother switching, more cache.
• Sync strategy: stable / balanced / precise. Use balanced by default; do not chase precise on a struggling PC.
• Immersive MV background uses the picture as a background. Turn it off on low-end machines.

Integrations

The Integrations tab is not about audio quality; it manages how ECHO and other software know each other’s state.

Feature	What it does	Suggestion
Account login	Saves optional online-service logins used for lyrics and metadata completion	Log in only to services you need
Discord status	Syncs now-playing to Discord Rich Presence	If it shows Error, confirm Discord is running
OBS browser source	A link OBS can display for current lyrics and track info (no audio)	Streaming only
Stage API	Local HTTP / SSE interface for Stage clients	Only for external control panels
Windows media controls (SMTC)	Publishes playback to the volume flyout and lock screen	Recommended on for Windows
SMTC lyrics	Writes lyrics into Windows media info	Off if you prefer privacy
Taskbar controls	Play buttons in the taskbar thumbnail	Optional
Last.fm	Login, scrobbling, now playing	Only if you use Last.fm

Network proxy notes:

1. The proxy serves online artwork, lyrics, and metadata completion.
2. Keep remote libraries and playback byte streams off the proxy to protect playback stability.
3. If you do not know whether you have a proxy, keep it Off. A wrong proxy address makes online lyrics and metadata fail more.
4. After changing the proxy, click Save and apply, then Test connection. Filling the address alone does nothing.

Plugins

Setting	Use
Open plugin page	Plugin management
Open plugin directory	Opens userData/plugins for manual installs
Create sample plugin	Generates a playback-status panel example
Open plugin docs	The plugin tutorial

Be careful with plugins requesting settings:write, library:write, or network. Do not enable high-permission plugins from unknown sources.

Remote

The Remote tab reuses the remote source panel: source type, name, server URL, credentials, connection test, and sync / index strategy. Always test the connection before saving, browse before indexing, and do not launch full-scale jobs against a large remote library on day one. Details are in Remote and Online Sources.

EQ

The EQ tab in settings keeps only a DSP workbench summary. ECHO SRC / upsampling is sample-rate conversion inside the DSP — it is not a volume boost and not an automatic “sounds better” switch. Once enabled, output takes the DSP path and is no longer marked bit-perfect.

The simplest approach:

1. If you do not know what you want, choose Off.
2. To try upsampling, start with 2x PCM, not 8x Ultra.
3. Transparent favors low distortion, Balanced favors stable overhead, Low latency favors responsiveness.
4. Use A/B native to compare with and without upsampling. If you cannot hear a difference, do not force it on.
5. The Bit-perfect path indicator shows whether output is still original.

If upsampling causes pops, stutters, or slow track changes: lower the ratio first, then switch to Low latency or Realtime Safe, and finally turn upsampling off. Do not change ten filters at once. GPU Compute / CUDA requires an NVIDIA GPU with drivers installed.

Actual tone shaping (EQ bands, headroom, channels) happens in the DSP workbench in the sidebar. See the EQ guide.

Appearance

Appearance only changes looks and layout — never music files.

• Theme: light, dark, follow system, Ambient. Scheduled dark mode switches by time of day.
• Left sidebar: reorder or hide entries. Click Restore defaults if you lose an entry.
• Theme presets are full color templates. Pick a preset first, then fine-tune colors.
• Window acrylic is an experimental translucent material; it works best on Windows 11 22H2+. If the window renders oddly, restart ECHO or turn it off.
• Custom background supports images and local videos per orientation. Video backgrounds cost more performance.
• Appearance defaults restores fonts, sizes, spacing, and cover shape when you have tuned yourself into a corner.

Make the interface pleasant, but do not drag the computer down for looks. If playback stutters, video backgrounds and cover-color extraction are the first things to turn off.

Library

Many library buttons read the disk, scan files, query the network, and write the database. During playback they can stall the UI, slow track changes, delay lyrics and MV, and in bad cases briefly interrupt sound — especially with mechanical drives, external drives, mapped cloud drives, NAS, very large libraries, or while playing DSD / upsampling / MV. The safest pattern: pause playback or wait for the current song to end before running scans, completion jobs, avatar fetching, duplicate analysis, BPM analysis, or cover-cache migration.

If you are listening while organizing, prioritize like this:

1. Need stable playback right now: do not scan, do not complete lyrics, do not analyze duplicates.
2. Must organize while listening: set Scan performance to Low usage, pause avatar fetching, turn off full lyric completion, and keep operations small.
3. Already stuttering: pause running avatar / lyrics / BPM / scan tasks, turn off live library updates, and resume after playback stabilizes.
4. Mass importing: finish the import and scan first, then listen. Do not scan tens of thousands of tracks with MV, upsampling, and the realtime spectrum on.
5. Mechanical or network drives: one job at a time. Do not stack scanning, artwork completion, lyric completion, and BPM analysis.

Key entries:

• Folders: your music entry points. Add music directories only — not the system drive, downloads folder, desktop, or game directories.
• Live library updates: watches added folders and auto-imports new or changed files. Turn it off during playback on mechanical, external, or unstable network drives.
• Native file scanner / native metadata reader: experimental. Keep defaults; do not enable them just because the names sound faster.
• One-click lyric completion: batch-finds missing lyrics over the network. Use quick mode first; run full mode overnight or while away.
• Library health report: a read-only summary of database, scan, cache, metadata quality, and remote source state. It is a diagnostic entry, not a cleanup button — reading it is safer than blind rebuilding.
• Artist avatars: a network + cache task. Pause it when playback stutters.
• Playlist auto-backup: saves a JSON backup before refreshing, clearing, or deleting playlists. Keep on.
• Duplicate tracks: hides lower-quality duplicate versions without deleting files. Analyze duplicates scans the library — do not click it repeatedly mid-playback.
• Merge strategies: standard album / normal artist merging suits most users. Loose merging can merge things that should stay apart.
• Embedded tag rescan / full rescan / missing covers: all read many files. Full rescan ignores caches and takes longest — avoid running it while listening.
• Cover cache directory: only migrates the cache location; it never moves or deletes music. Do not point it at the ECHO program directory, a sync-drive temp folder, or a removable drive.
• Scan performance: low usage / balanced / high performance. Use low usage while listening.
• BPM / offset analysis: time-consuming on large libraries; run in idle time.

If playback suddenly stutters and this page shows a recent scan, artwork completion, or a stuck task — stop the library job first. Do not suspect a broken sound card.

About

Check version first, updates second, diagnostics last.

• Version number: required in every problem report. “Latest version” is not useful; say v26.x.x.
• Auto update checks GitHub Releases at startup and notifies in the top-left. Pick whichever download source is fastest; switch if downloads fail.
• Safe mode is a diagnostic mode: it records only anomalies, renderer errors, audio errors, and startup stages. Use it to reproduce problems — it is not a daily quality switch.

When reporting a problem, prepare in this order:

1. Check the Diagnostics assistant status. A healthy snapshot means local state is readable.
2. Click Export Markdown for a readable report.
3. Click Open log directory to find local logs.
4. Open the Audio report for playback issues or the Crash report for startup crashes.
5. Open the debug console only when a developer asks.

Export settings exports only user settings, never music files. Import settings overwrites current settings (a backup is made automatically first) — do not import settings JSON from unknown sources.

Danger Zone

The danger zone will not delete your music folders, but it affects ECHO’s local database, caches, settings, accounts, plugins, and records. Read each description before acting.

Follow this order — rescue first, clean second, rebuild last:

1. Library problems: check the health status in the Recovery assistant first.
2. Run Check health when it is available.
3. Click Create health snapshot before any big change. With a snapshot, there is a way back.
4. If things are already broken, prefer Restore latest health snapshot over rebuilding.
5. Restart into recovery mode serves the recovery assistant; it is not an ordinary restart button.
6. Export diagnostics is one of the most useful buttons before reporting an issue.

What the destructive buttons actually do:

Button	Effect	Note
Scan duplicate tracks	Scan only	Always scan before cleaning
Clean scan results	Moves lower-priority duplicate files to the recycle bin and updates the index	High risk; confirm the keepers first
Clear library cache	Removes the library index, scan records, and cover cache	Does not delete music files or folders; not a fix for playback issues
Restore default settings	Resets app preferences, cover cache directory, and appearance	Does not delete music
Rebuild library database	Archives the old database and creates a fresh one	For a fully corrupted database only — not a routine refresh
Delete library database	Archives and deletes without creating a new one	Harder than rebuild; last resort
Delete all ECHO local content	Wipes settings, accounts, plugins, database, caches, logs, wallpapers, protection snapshots, and download records	Highest risk; only for a total reset

The confirmation-word input exists to prevent accidents. Type exactly what the button asks for — and if you are not sure what it means, stop.

Snapshot first, diagnose first, restore first. Clear caches, restore defaults, and rebuild the database only at the very end.

When something breaks, follow this order

1. Think about which setting you just changed, and change it back.
2. For playback problems, return to System or shared output.
3. Turn off EQ, ReplayGain, speed change, DSD, and Automix.
4. Turn off the realtime spectrum, video backgrounds, and background batch completion.
5. Check Playback -> Audio status and copy the diagnostics.
6. For library problems, read the Library health report first.
7. For database problems, then go to Danger Zone -> Library database safety.
8. Before reporting, gather version, page, screenshots, logs, and reproduction steps.

Do not delete the database as a first move. Most problems are just the output device, a proxy, a lyric candidate, or an unfinished scan — rebuilding the database only makes diagnosis harder.