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Topic: Sound Fluctuation - Page: 1

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J J ZrnPRO InfinityMember since 2019
The listeners to my stream are saying the volume of the music is fluctuating. Its not the stream or the internet (ping 8 ms, upload 25 Mbps, download 465 Mbps and im hard wired..no wireless) because when i stream with sam broadcaster the music does not fluctuate volume at all when i stream from that software with the same shoutcast stream etc. Would to high a sampling rate cause this?...they are mp3 and i had the sampling rate at 48000 in VDJ...i use a 128 bit rate.
 

Posted Mon 30 Sep 19 @ 12:25 am
set zerodb in options to -3 or -6 and as long as you analyze music before you play it you should be good

the reason this is happening is your music is hitting the limiter and to prevent distortion VDJ lowers the volume with its built in limiter.
 

Posted Mon 30 Sep 19 @ 12:58 am
J J ZrnPRO InfinityMember since 2019
wickedmix wrote :
set zerodb in options to -3 or -6 and as long as you analyze music before you play it you should be good

the reason this is happening is your music is hitting the limiter and to prevent distortion VDJ lowers the volume with its built in limiter.


Thank you so much!..i will change that setting. I guess im still confused as to why some hear it and some don't. I would think all listeners would. I dont really hear the fluctuation either...it sounds to me of more of a stereo imbalance versus a volume fluctuation...if that makes sense..xD
 

Posted Mon 30 Sep 19 @ 1:31 am
If some users hear it and others don't then it's not a volume fluctuation. Most likely they have momentary stream issues where the device/software that they use to listen drops bitrate (or stereo/mono) in order to keep stream alive instead of interrupting it because buffers went empty.
 

Posted Mon 30 Sep 19 @ 7:01 am
J J ZrnPRO InfinityMember since 2019
PhantomDeejay wrote :
If some users hear it and others don't then it's not a volume fluctuation. Most likely they have momentary stream issues where the device/software that they use to listen drops bitrate (or stereo/mono) in order to keep stream alive instead of interrupting it because buffers went empty.


So then why is it only happening when im streaming and not the DJ before of after me? Also, when i stream the music with SAM broadcaster that issue does not happen. Is there something i can change on my end in VDJ (I've made the changes suggested above) so they dont have the issue on their end? Also, when the music is playing, the indicators on the volume meters go in the red quite a bit, shouldn't i lower the gain so they never hit that red? Would that (the meters hitting red to much) potentially cause those types of issues (impact bitrate) on their device/software that they use to listen?

 

Posted Mon 30 Sep 19 @ 11:16 am
On the other hand, if you don't hear the sound fluctuating, and some of your users don't listen it fluctuating, why do you assume/think/believe that VirtualDJ causes the problem?
VirtualDJ streams to a server and your listeners connect to that server to hear the stream.
If the stream that goes to server has an issue it should be present/audible for ALL listeners, not some...
Also if the built-in limiter was kicking in, you would hear it as well on your own speakers.

 

Posted Mon 30 Sep 19 @ 11:43 am
J J ZrnPRO InfinityMember since 2019
PhantomDeejay wrote :
On the other hand, if you don't hear the sound fluctuating, and some of your users don't listen it fluctuating, why do you assume/think/believe that VirtualDJ causes the problem?
VirtualDJ streams to a server and your listeners connect to that server to hear the stream.
If the stream that goes to server has an issue it should be present/audible for ALL listeners, not some...
Also if the built-in limiter was kicking in, you would hear it as well on your own speakers.



I agree...its extremely baffling to me...if it happened to all (including me ) the cause would be easier to diagnose however, it only happens to some..with me streaming and not others using the same stream. Also, when i use SAM, it does not occur.
 

Posted Mon 30 Sep 19 @ 3:12 pm
AdionPRO InfinityCTOMember since 2006
How are you streaming from within vdj currently?
To a shoutcast/icecast server, or to youtube/facebook/..., or direct connection?
 

Posted Mon 30 Sep 19 @ 3:33 pm
J J ZrnPRO InfinityMember since 2019
Adion wrote :
How are you streaming from within vdj currently?
To a shoutcast/icecast server, or to youtube/facebook/..., or direct connection?


To a shoutcast server.

 

Posted Mon 30 Sep 19 @ 3:40 pm
J J ZrnPRO InfinityMember since 2019
So i made the adjustments and now the music is so low that i have to turn my speakers up almost full to hear the music at a decent volume. Suffice to say I was getting complaints as well about the volume which is why i turned the gain up to begin with.... but I went back to streaming my music from Sam broadcaster and it sounds and works perfect however, I want to use VDJ!....but at least i have time to work on figuring out what my problem is and what im doing wrong.... This doesn't make any sense. Im not giving up till this is figured out. Could the computer hardware settings impact the stream volume at all with different software?... because SAM sounds perfect. ....Is it only in the software that controls volume ( or gain) of the stream?...the volume that goes to shoutcast.

If i dont get any responses to this in a week im going to start another thread. I want to be able to use the software, I think it just needs some tweaking....or at least something does.
 

Posted Sat 05 Oct 19 @ 4:32 pm
did the volume fluctuations go away when the volume was low? (try -3 instead of -6 for more loudness) that is the real question.

if it did then the problem is you were hitting the limiter.

if it did not then it is probably some weird network issue.

I stream with VDJ all the time no such issues (in second life as well) also just have a listen to http://www.virtualdjradio.com/ they all use it there no such issues.

I think you need to get a recording of the problem and I'm sure someone could help more.

 

Posted Sat 05 Oct 19 @ 4:42 pm
J J ZrnPRO InfinityMember since 2019
wickedmix wrote :
did the volume fluctuations go away when the volume was low? (try -3 instead of -6 for more loudness) that is the real question.

if it did then the problem is you were hitting the limiter.

if it did not then it is probably some weird network issue.

I stream with VDJ all the time no such issues (in second life as well) also just have a listen to http://www.virtualdjradio.com/ they all use it there no such issues.

I think you need to get a recording of the problem and I'm sure someone could help more.



Thanks so much for your response!!..Ahhh..so you have no issues in SL using VDJ...thats is awesome to hear!!...at least i know its gotta be doable and i must have messed something up in my settings/need to do some tweaking. For me, the fluctuations didn't sound to bad, the music just sounded odd. Also, when i asked others in the place, they said it sounded okay...So i dont know why some majorly did and some didn't which made it even more frustrating. Regardless, it needs ( and sounds like its possible) to sound good for everyone!

And yes!..the fluctuations most definitely went away when the volume was low. But i got complaints that the volume was low, then when the next DJ came up ...bam!!..the music was so much louder than mine and sounded really good!!!...I need to figure this out!.....It does sound like a clipping issue but i gotta be able to get the volume up somehow, thats why i thought it could perhaps be my computer...but then SAM sounds fantastic!.....so idk.....Thanks for all your help!!..Ive been so disappointed.
 

Posted Sat 05 Oct 19 @ 9:15 pm
you could try lowering the line levels to like 90% and leave the zerodb setting at 0

what ever you do you have to bring the volume down some or the limiter will kick in and you get the unpleasant sound
 

Posted Sat 05 Oct 19 @ 9:39 pm
J J ZrnPRO InfinityMember since 2019
wickedmix wrote :
you could try lowering the line levels to like 90% and leave the zerodb setting at 0

what ever you do you have to bring the volume down some or the limiter will kick in and you get the unpleasant sound


There is only Default then it goes to -1, -3, -6 .........So is default "0"?....I had the zerodb on Default and the gain up so it ended up in the positive range of the DB...like 4-6..thats when the distortion happened....but i mistakenly raised the gain to get the volume up cause at 0 db it was too low which is why i raised the gain..but that made the distortions cause of the limiters.
 

Posted Sat 05 Oct 19 @ 10:05 pm
user19353655 wrote :
at 0 db it was too low


No - 0dB is the maximum. It's not "too low". It's the loudest you should run anything playing digital audio.

Digital audio cannot go past 0dB without major distortion, hence the limiter to stop that happening.

The loudest you can get VDJ to play is to set zerodb to default.

Assuming you have VDJ set to autogain (which you really need to) then when you raise a deck fader, you should get a good output level.

Master meter in the green, no limiter light flashing. No need to adjust gain controls - that's the idea of autogain.

If you want to make it sound louder, try using a maximizer (i.e. loudmax) on the master FX.

 

Posted Sat 05 Oct 19 @ 10:15 pm
you have to be below zero or you get distortion

you could use a plugin like loudmax on your master which i use as well to get the volume up with the zerodb at -6

you set the plugin threshold at -6.5 and set its output at 0.8 that way you always stay just a little below zerodb and no clipping ... loudmax will compress instead of limit so it sounds different and not unpleasant.

you can find loudmax here https://loudmax.blogspot.com/

just copy the dll file to the virtualdj plugins folder in my documents ... you will have to choose 64 or 32 bit depending on what version of vdj your running.
 

Posted Sat 05 Oct 19 @ 10:17 pm
Instead of messing around with gain controls, you should make sure that MASTER volume is maxed instead, since it takes part on how loud your recording/broadcast is.
If you have speakers connected on your master output turn their volume down, and max up master volume.
Finally zerodb setting should be at -1db and autoGain at "auto"
 

Posted Sat 05 Oct 19 @ 10:23 pm
J J ZrnPRO InfinityMember since 2019
Thanks you guys for all the responses. Im a novice at best with this and appreciate any, and all, the education.
 

Posted Sat 05 Oct 19 @ 11:05 pm
J J ZrnPRO InfinityMember since 2019
Thanks!!
 

Posted Sun 06 Oct 19 @ 1:10 am
put here \Documents\VirtualDJ\Plugins64\Other
 

Posted Sun 06 Oct 19 @ 1:49 am
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