Mystery solved - dMC Auxilliary Input

[UGTBK]

Wanted to share a quirk I discovered using dMC Auxilliary Input. Did not find anything in the documentation or on these forums that described the problem, and spent considerable time uninstalling and re-installing dbPoweramp trying to correct the problem before I discovered its cause.

I was converting my audio-cassette collection to MP3. Most of the music converted nicely not requiring any equalizer effects, but a few albums did, so I used Power Pack to get a cleaner sound. When I completed these conversions, I did not clear the effects in Music Converter before using Auxilliary Input to record the next album. That's when the problem began.

If you leave the DSP settings in effect, they will automatically be invoked the next time you run Auxilliary Input. On the surface that may not seem to be problematic, but if you are recording multiple tracks at a time as I was, it makes Auxilliary Input all but useless. Here's why.

Normally, Aux Input converts songs real-time on the fly. If you have Auto End turned on as I did, as Song 1 ends so has the conversion and Aux Input is ready for Song 2 as it begins playing. This all changes however when you have left some DSP effects turned on in Music Converter as I did.

In this scenario, Aux Input doesn't stop recording and doesn't write anyting to your hard drive until Music Converter has finished its conversion and written the results to your hard drive. It will not stop recording even if you pause the input source (tape deck in my case). The result is Song 1 will consist of all of Song 1 then about 10 seconds of the next song or however long it took for Music Converter to complete its work.

I did not realize this was what was going on, so spent hours trying to figure out why Aux Input would not stop recording when I stopped the music, and would not write to my hard drive real time as songs played. Tried uninstalling and re-installing the entire package, which worked the first time, but when the problem appeared again even after re-installing the problem persisted. (In retrospect, I must have gone into Music Converter and cleared the DSP effects.)

Another trait of the software that confounded my ability to diagnose what was going on was that after uninstalling it and manually deleting all the folders left behind, when I re-installed, surprisingly, Auxilliary Input remembered all my previous settings for Output To, Auto Start and Auto End settings, Sound Card, etc. This made no logical sense to me since I had uninstalled and deleted directories. (The only thing I can surmise is dbPower AMP stores these settings elswhere on your system.)

So that's it. Problem solved, everything is working fine now. I still really like the software--it's powerful and feature rich--and will continue to use it. Just wanted to share my observations with the group.

[ChristinaS]

Re: Mystery solved - dMC Auxilliary Input

I'm glad you found it by yourself, nothign like first hand experience to drie it home :D You may disagree with me if it caused you too much grief but it's actually about the only way to be aware of that "quirk".

This thing about DSP effects holds for all types of conversions done through any of the dBpowerAMp programs, no matter which ones, as they all use dMC which is what can apply DSP effects in the first palce.

[LtData]

Re: Mystery solved - dMC Auxilliary Input

I believe there is a box for DSP effects to use them for one conversion only.

Also, dMC stores the last-used settings for conversions in the Windows Registry.

[UGTBK]

Re: Mystery solved - dMC Auxilliary Input

Thanks for both responses. It fills in my knowledge gap of how dbPowerAMP works. I now understand dMC is the engine invoked by all the apps with the possible exception of the player.

Part of my ignorance stemmed from previous use of this package. Although I've owned it for nearly two years, my primary use has been occasional ripping of CDs to MP3, and as an ID Tag editor. Rarely used DSP effects except for occasional sound leveling on existing MP3s.

So, here I am two years later making major use of Auxillary Input for the first time and had no idea it used Music Converter and by default any associated DSP effects. I suppose I lucked out initially by subscribing to the philosophy of never applying equalizer effects to recordings when ripping from CD or recording through Auxillary Input. Record them first, then use Music Converter to apply equalizer effects. What snagged me was I was recording many audio-cassettes one after the other, and between recordings running dMC with equalizer turned on for some albums. Occasionally, I would remember to clear these effects before exiting and starting up Aux In to record the next album; other times I did not and that's when the problem would surface.

I've worked around software development for many years, so understand the learning curve involved with any app. Thanks to both of you for your clarifying remarks.