RootlessJamesDSP Guide
RootlessJamesDSP is a powerful and highly configurable audio equalizer app for Android that allows you to enhance your mobile audio experience even for inexperienced or amateur listeners when used in combination with things like AutoEQ. It is about as close as it gets to a non-rooted system-wide audio equalizer on Android, along with its rather impressive feature set — it can feel like you're wielding desktop software on mobile. This guide will outline what AutoEQ is and how to make use of it, as well touch on specifics about how to get certain apps working with RootlessJamesDSP when they aren't already fully supported.
Why you might want a parametric equalizer
While it is in part outside the scope of this guide, there are plenty of reasons you might want to consider using a parametric equalizer. Among which is the ability to take advantage of AutoEQ.
For further reading on a similar topic, you may be interested in checking out this Reddit discussion thread.
Using AutoEQ
AutoEQ is a crowdsourced collection of equalizer configuration presets for a wide range of various different headphone models, with the general idea being to tune headphones for clearer and more neutral sound. AutoEQ essentially allows you to reap the benefits of a parametric equalizer without having to do the hard work yourself, or you can use the presets to further tune your sound, which is appealing if you are a beginner or are simply looking to get better sound quality out of your device.
Over in the main interface for RootlessJamesDSP, you can just simply enable the toggle for Arbitrary response equalizer and search for your headphone model in the AutoEQ profiles search.
Alternatively, you can use the Convolver equalizer. Acquire the file for your headphone model configuration from AutoEQ, then select your headphone model and choose RootlessJamesDSP as the equalizer app. From there you can import the .wav
file and select the newly imported configuration as your Impulse response filter. This approach should allow for better performance.
And that does it, you'll now start enjoying the benefits that AutoEQ brings, provided there weren't any faults along the way.
Patching unsupported apps for use with RootlessJamesDSP
RootlessJamesDSP supports just about every app that plays audio that you can think of. But there are certain app which will require more finesse, amongst which is Spotify. Fortunately enough, there is a remedy for this, and with this method, you also get to enjoy certain other perks.
Important note
Chromium browsers are just about hopeless, as attempting to patch them will result in a PathNotFoundException
, due to the inherent nature of how audio playback is done on them.
Firefox, its forks, and related browsers however, are almost completely supported out of the box, requiring you to only follow one other step.
If you plan to use your browser for media playback, this does mean you will have to give up your Chromium browser if that is what you're currently using. However, if you are able, one suggestion I have is to try to use Firefox or a similar browser for when you plan to stream media in browser. A recommendation would be Iceraven.
- The first step is to install Revanced Manager if you haven't already.
- Next you should acquire the files for the app that you want to use or have it installed. Note that this app may have its data wiped in the process if an uninstall is neccessary.
- Now enter Revanced Manager and make sure the option Show universal patches is turned on in the settings.
- After which you can select the app you want or choose the APK file you've just acquired with the file picker.
Once having done all that, choose the Remove screen capture restriction patch, which will allow RootlessJamesDSP to capture audio for otherwise unsupported apps. Note that this is not a silver bullet and won't work for apps using the native AAudio C++ API for audio playback, which is why Chromium browsers aren't supported.
- Patch and install the app. You may need to uninstall when there is a signature conflict if one arises.
Rather important little tweak
We're still not done however, you will still need to adjust just one more thing in RootlessJamesDSP.
Go to the settings, in the Troubleshooting section you'll want to change the Preferred session detection method from AudioService dump (recommended) to AudioPolicyService dump or you will encounter audio streams going undetected or audio duplications.
What this setting will do is put RootlessJamesDSP in a more persistent and aggressive audio capturing mode, which should allow you to use some apps that already had support, like Firefox browsers. The downside may be that RootlessJamesDSP will continuously process every single audio stream as they're being detected even while they're not playing audio, but otherwise no big deal.
..and that concludes this guide! Now you can go forth and enjoy a better audio experience on your mobile device with RootlessJamesDSP.
This guide was written by oldbama on Discord [epoc、ippoku]. I felt compelled to write this guide to cast some light on this application, as it had been the solution to many of the pains I had with other equalizer apps. With that said, feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or inquiries, and I'll try my best to respond!