HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

[dalizard]

I was using the dB Power Amp converter as usual (I have the power pack installed). It was ripping a CD into an MP3 file and I got an error message about "disc full" which was absurd since I was putting it onto the hard drive which has 150 GB of free space.

Later, I noticed that when I tried to play the CD track before ripping (play straight from the disc to check the song) the DMC audio player was making a garble noise about every five seconds repeatedly as I played the track.

But, the tracks ripped into MP3 checked out OK. No garble sound. Only when trying to play from the source CD. I tried playing the CD's through other players on the computer (Real media player, Roxio, and also Pyro) and they played fine. It's not a disc or drive problem.

Here is the strange part: I have two CD drives in the computer, one reads only the other is read/write. The DMC player is only screwing up with the read only drive, the one that was playing when the error message came up. Yet, that drive works fine with all the other player software in the machine.

What's going on?

Do I need to reload the DMC download?

Can I do that without losing all my files of CD track names and also the power pack installation I paid for?

[ChristinaS]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

What brand of cd drive is it and what OS are you using?

[Spoon]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

It will be your CD drive that is ripping a bit then stopping and respinning up thus causing a delay - you can try something like Nero Drive speed (see support) and set the speed to x4.

[Unregistered]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

It's a e-machines (new computer) with two drives. The one that DMC no longer will play from is called:

D:HL-DT-ST-DVD-ROM

The point is, it always played no problem until CMC pooped on itself while ripping. The drive is feeding all thwe other players fine (Real Media Player, Roxio Player, and the Pyro player).

If the drive was screwing up, it would not play properly with any media player.

Further, you missed one thing: the "problem" drive sends MP3 files into the folder that play back no problem. The only thing CMC can NOT do is play audio straight from the CD.

This looks like a software problem to me. By the way, I can hear when the drive "spins up" and it is NOT doing that. This "garble burst" is repetitive about every five seconds continuously.

How do I reload this to get the corrupted software fixed?

[Unregistered]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

"It's a e-machines (new computer) with two drives."

It is the T2885 machine with Windows XP.

[Unregistered]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

More data on the problem: As I said, the "problem" drive will read the WAV files off a CD and rip them into MP3 files which I can then play back and they sound fine (using my Pyro player to listen to the MP3 files).

As a second test: I took an MP3 disk I had previously made to use as a test. Since it is not an "audio disk", the CMC converter does not recognize it directly. So I used the ripper to rip an MP3 song off that disc into WAV format using the dB ripper. That WAV file also played perfectly using the real Media player.

dB ripper is having no problem converting the WAV stream from the "problem" drive into MP3. It is also having no problem readin an MP3 file from a disc in the "problem drive" and converting it to WAV. The only thing it won't do properly is read a WAV file straight off a CD and play it into my headphones for monitoring the track before ripping.

[dalizard]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

Thanks for all the help. Nobody can even tell me if it is possible to do a re-install of the CMC music converter? It sure would be great if this product had some actual support.

[ChristinaS]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

Thanks for all the help. Nobody can even tell me if it is possible to do a re-install of the CMC music converter? It sure would be great if this product had some actual support.

If I understand correctly you have 2 cd rom drives but dMC is not using the right drive to read your CD - therefore it doesn't find it.

dMC Audio CD input has to be made aware of which is your cd rom drive from which you are reading data. It will default to one of them. You can change that in Options so it points to your actual drive that you're using.

As for re-installing dMC, you can uninstall first all the components (dMC and codecs) from Control Panel, and then re-install all that apply, always in one unique folder.

If this doesn't address your problem, perhaps you should explain again all the circumstances.

[dbample]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

dB ripper is having no problem converting the WAV stream from the "problem" drive into MP3. It is also having no problem readin an MP3 file from a disc in the "problem drive" and converting it to WAV. The only thing it won't do properly is read a WAV file straight off a CD and play it into my headphones for monitoring the track before ripping.

Wait a second, I think it is obvious it will read a WAV file straight off the CD since in your experiment of converting WAV->mp3 it is doing just that.

So your only problem seems to be that the audio does not get into your headphones when you play the CD from dMC and instead you get garbled noise every 5 seconds (but this does not refer to noise from spinning the CD; it is noise that has nothing to do with the physical CD drive). Right?

Since you have two CD drives, it is possible that dMC is defaulting, when attempting to send audio to your headphones, to the other drive. You don't say if you can hear properly the audio from your speakers - if it is a dMC problem of defaulting to the wrong drive you should be able to hear the garbled noises not just from the headphones, but when using your computer speakers as well. Do you?

And chill out with the sarcasm about lack of support - you get a fantastic product essentially free, you get a direct link to the developer who is extremely good at addressing all queries (I speak from personal experience with him addressing my questions/ideas/suggestions).

It actually took me a while to figure out what you are trying to say, and see how you confused Spoon with the garbled noise story. Perhaps you could try to be more explicit/coherent in describing your problem before you start with the sarcasm. Please?

I am not staff; I am just a (very happy) user of dMC and dBpowerAmp.

Cheers!

[dalizard]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

Wait a second, I think it is obvious it will read a WAV file straight off the CD since in your experiment of converting WAV->mp3 it is doing just that.

So your only problem seems to be that the audio does not get into your headphones when you play the CD from dMC and instead you get garbled noise every 5 seconds (but this does not refer to noise from spinning the CD; it is noise that has nothing to do with the physical CD drive). Right?

Since you have two CD drives, it is possible that dMC is defaulting, when attempting to send audio to your headphones, to the other drive. You don't say if you can hear properly the audio from your speakers - if it is a dMC problem of defaulting to the wrong drive you should be able to hear the garbled noises not just from the headphones, but when using your computer speakers as well. Do you?

And chill out with the sarcasm about lack of support - you get a fantastic product essentially free, you get a direct link to the developer who is extremely good at addressing all queries (I speak from personal experience with him addressing my questions/ideas/suggestions).

It actually took me a while to figure out what you are trying to say, and see how you confused Spoon with the garbled noise story. Perhaps you could try to be more explicit/coherent in describing your problem before you start with the sarcasm. Please?

"And chill out with the sarcasm about lack of support - you get a fantastic product essentially free, "

EXCUSE ME? I paid $18 for a software package that only does a few things more than the audio ripper that came with the computer does. The only advantage the dBX software has is adaptive normalization and it usually isn't usable because the volume level fluctuates noticably in the track.

"It actually took me a while to figure out what you are trying to say, and see how you confused Spoon with the garbled noise story. Perhaps you could try to be more explicit/coherent in describing your problem before you start with the sarcasm."

Exactly how hard is this to understand (first post):

"Later, I noticed that when I tried to play the CD track before ripping (play straight from the disc to check the song) the DMC audio player was making a garble noise about every five seconds repeatedly as I played the track."

You can't understand "play the CD track before ripping to check the song" and "makes a garbled noise every five seconds as I played the track"?

The point is, the dB software took a dump while ripping a CD into MP3 and sent up a bizarre error message. Then, it would not play WAV tracks off my "play only" drive. Period. Three other software packages play WAV files off that drive. dB does rip WAV tracks into MP3 from the drive, it just will not play them straight into the audio.

My point is there is nothing wrong with my hardware. It works fine with all the other players. My question was could dB be uninstalled or "clean installed" to get it back to it's original form... where it actually would play audio directly from the WAV file for monitoring.

"And chill out with the sarcasm about lack of support "

Well, funny you should bring that up: I happen to work in customer support for a major semiconductor manufacturer. Why don't you chill out with the free psychological advice? There is nothing more infuriating than having software with NHC (no human contact) to be followed by people telling you it must be your hardware and stop getting upset. I would be fired for giving this level of non-service and I would deserve it.

Since no one has yet answered the question as to whether the software can be re-installed, I guess I give up. At least it was only $18.

[dalizard]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

If I understand correctly you have 2 cd rom drives but dMC is not using the right drive to read your CD - therefore it doesn't find it.

dMC Audio CD input has to be made aware of which is your cd rom drive from which you are reading data. It will default to one of them. You can change that in Options so it points to your actual drive that you're using.

I realize that. The read only drive is set to be the default drive. The CMC converter does read from the drive, it just screws up when playing a WAV file directly into audio (headphones or speakers) straight from the CD. There is a repetitive garbled noise about every five seconds which is time dependent only, not location dependent. If you slide back across the same section just played, the garble spots will not be in the same place, they will be at the same time intervals.

As for re-installing dMC, you can uninstall first all the components (dMC and codecs) from Control Panel, and then re-install all that apply, always in one unique folder.

My question was this: I paid for and received the Power pack, which is installed. Is there a way to re-install the dB program to fix the software problem and still retain the power pack or will I just have the basic free program without the upgrade?

If this doesn't address your problem, perhaps you should explain again all the circumstances.

1) Install freeware. Buy Power Pack. All good, all working.

2) Ripping CD's using the read-only drive. Have ripped at least 20, no problems. One is ripping about the twelfth track and stops and says something like "insufficient memory available on drive". Ridiculous, new computer with 160 GB of drive and only about 3 GB used.

3) Go back and rip the tracks it missed, seems to create the MP3 files no problem.

4) NEXT DISC: play WAV file straight to listen to track, hear music with a garbled noise about every five seconds. Change disk, same thing.

5) Use Pyro, Roxio, and Real Media players to play WAV files direct to headphones from RO drive: no problems at all.

6) Change CMC defauly drive to second (RW) drive. Now the CMC software can play WAV files direct to audio with no garble sound.

No clue why after the CMC ripper crashed, the software is distorting the audio player only with one drive. The MP3 files created from that drive using the CMC ripper have no distortions or problems, so it is reading the data stream. It is just screwing something up when converting it to audio.

[xoas]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

If I understand what you are saying, your problems/issues seem to be as follows:

1. On at least 1 (out of at least 20) cd's you have ripped with dBpowerAMP Music Converter (dMC), you got this error message about there being insufficient memory on your drive even though there was plenty of disk space.

2. When you listen to a WAV file to listen to a track (apparently any track) on dMC Audio Input there is a garbled noise about every 5 seconds. However, the cd presents no such problems when played in a regular player and files when converted to mp3 are free of this gargle.

3. You want to know whether you retain all the rights, powers and priviliges associated with the Power Pack if you reinstall dMC to fix this problem.

The (relatively) easy question is #3, so let's start with that. You can uninstall and reinstall dMC and/or any of its components and you will still retain Power Pack and you will not have to reinstall Power Pack. This is also true of upgrades. And an uninstall/reinstall will sometimes fix problems. I must say that I am not yet convinced this procedure will fix any of the problems you mentionned, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to try.

With respect to the first problem, I would be hard put to tell you what might be wrong without knowing more about this problem. Did this occur in the process of a large batch of conversions or will this problem occur if you try to rip this one track by itself? Does this error message always occur or does it only sometimes occur? Is there anything unusual about this track? Have you run into this problem with any other tracks? If you try to convert your problem track from cd to wav, will you experience the error message? If you convert the resulting wav file to mp3 do you experience this problem then? Are you attempting to apply any DSP effects from the Power Pack during your conversion? If so, if you turn off the DSP effects can you rip the "problem track" successfully? The answers to these questions should help us isolate why you ran into this error message.

I am going to skip problem #2 for now except to reaffirm my understanding that this garble occurs when you preview a track through dMC Audio CD Input. If you are talking about a problem with playing some other file, please let me know. I will share that I do not recall having run into this problem with dMC Audio CD Input, so what you are experiencing is definitely not right. You do note that this problem with gargled playback is only experienced with one drive (your RW drive). But let's focus on your other problem first.

Finally, let me address a possible misconception about whom you are dealing with. The whole line of dBpowerAMP programs is almost entirely the work of a single individual, Spoon, essentially on his own time. This is not (last I knew) his day job. He is, to the best of my knowledge, the only person who gets any reimbursement from this endeavor (and he is probably correct in his assertion that he would probably have made more money flipping burgers for McDonald's). Spoon relies on another fellow, Razgo to administrate these forums. This is not Razgo's day job either. Everyone from Razgo on down is essentially a user of the program same as you. Although maybe four months age Razgo designated 4 people (myself included), as "VIP members" and affixed the title "dBpowerAMP Staff" by our names, these titles are honorific. We have no manual. We get no pay. We have no special training. We did not volunteer. So bottom line, except for Spoon himself there are no real staff. We are all users and we all choose to help out by reporting problems, bugs, fixes, offering advice or suggestions for improvements to dMC. By reporting your problems, you are helping us to improve dBpowerAMP. I hope you will continue to help by helping us through the process of addressing your bugs and by letting us know what works and what does not. Welcome to the staff!

Best wishes,
Bill Mikkelsen

[Spoon]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

Firstly install the latest versions of the programs from the Beta section of this forum.

This skipping, sounds alot like the problem you can get when using the 24 bit dsp effect and the output set as DirectX (open dAP Options Menu >> Amp and set output to WaveOut).

[dalizard]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

"Did this occur in the process of a large batch of conversions or will this problem occur if you try to rip this one track by itself? "

It occurred ONE TIME ONLY, ripping all the tracks from a single CD. It stopped at track 11 and displayed an error message. I selected the remaing four tracks (11 through 15) and ripped them again and they went through no problem. The "crash with error message" problem occurred exactly once and never again. However, the WAV player in the CMC has never worked right since it happened that one time.

" Does this error message always occur or does it only sometimes occur?" It occurred once. The "garbled sound" problem occurs everytime I try to play WAV fils from a CD withing the CMC player, however it rips WAV files to MP3 and also plays stored WAV files back OK.

"Is there anything unusual about this track? Have you run into this problem with any other tracks?" NO and NO. In fact, the "problem track" was ripped right after the initial crash that started all the problems.

"If you try to convert your problem track from cd to wav, will you experience the error message?" NO, in fact the converter has worked since with no problems. It just screwed up the WAV player when it crashed.

"If you convert the resulting wav file to mp3 do you experience this problem then?" NO. No problems converting files, it just won't play a WAV file into audio straight off the CD from the RO drive. It does work from the RW drive which makes me wonder why it only has a problem with the drive it was using when it crashed. All my other WAV players (Real Audio, Pyro, Roxio) play WAV files straight to audio from either drive no problem.

"Are you attempting to apply any DSP effects from the Power Pack during your conversion? If so, if you turn off the DSP effects can you rip the "problem track" successfully? The answers to these questions should help us isolate why you ran into this error message." Not doing anything like that. here is the problem: Insert CD into RO drive..... track listings come up... selct a track and hit play. Audio starts OK and after five seconds you hear a short garbled noise burst, then audio OK for five seconds, another garbled burst, ad infinitum. The garbled bursts are probably a half second or so in duration. The location of the garbled patches are not related to specific points of the track. You can slide the position bar and play and you will hear them in different spots, but still always five seconds apart. And, the player always starts playing music OK, and after five seconds makes the garbled sound.

" I am going to skip problem #2 for now except to reaffirm my understanding that this garble occurs when you preview a track through dMC Audio CD Input." Correct, but ONLY when it is a WAV track being played directly from a CD, and ONLY through the RO drive.

" If you are talking about a problem with playing some other file, please let me know. I will share that I do not recall having run into this problem with dMC Audio CD Input, so what you are experiencing is definitely not right. You do note that this problem with gargled playback is only experienced with one drive (your RW drive)." Actually, the garbling occurs with the RO (read only) CD drive. The recordable CD-RW drive does not have the problem.

One of the other engineers here postulated a theory: audio players can use either analog audio or digital stream to reconstruct sound, ie take the digital stream straight from the drive, convert it to analog and feed it to the analog input port on the sound card. Or, a player may simply control the switches on the sound card that connect the hardware from the analog output on the drive to the input port. It's probable the CMC software crash has damaged some part of the digital processing path in the CMC player, but it may be able to correctly control the analog signal path from the CD-RW drive to the audio input port on the sound card. Whatever the problem, I have four software players and only CMC can not play audio from the RO drive straight from the disc.

[dalizard]

Re: HELP: DMC Audio Input Player Screwed Up

" The (relatively) easy question is #3, so let's start with that. You can uninstall and reinstall dMC and/or any of its components and you will still retain Power Pack and you will not have to reinstall Power Pack. This is also true of upgrades. And an uninstall/reinstall will sometimes fix problems. "

Any special procedures that must be followed? I have windows XP.