steve.neal
Australia
Asked
— Edited
I seem to be having some trouble with the ends of sound files being cut off when played via the EZB Soundboard. Doesn't happen every time though. I have my files playing out through the un-amplified terminal on the EZB, through an external amplifier to a larger speaker. Has anybody else had this issue? I did try adding a couple of seconds silence to the end of the files in the program "Audacity" which does seem fix the problem but that doesn't explain why the problem exists in the first place. Any Thoughts?
Steve
Ron R
Hopefully the update will be released also so I can try that out also. I'm going to wait to see the results of the file edit first before I update. Just to keep the testing environment unchanged.
Remember, I had a loud pop at both the start and end of each sound file played (almost the same volume as the sound it's self). Sometimes the starting pop would bleed into the sound it's self.
Just to show my environment; I'm useing an older Dell laptop upgraded to Windows 10. I have a very strong WiFi signal from an access point attached to a new router.
I tried DJ's "fixed" file and had no change. The pop was still there. In fact the audio quality was degraded. I edited a couple files of my own and tried them. No change. I even tried a few generic MP3 sound files and a song in MP3 format. No change. Still had a loud pop at start and end.
I then uploaded my project to a newer and faster computer to see if there were any differences. After attaching to the same network with this newer and faster laptop I found that the pop was now sporadic. The pops would happen at start or end or not at all. However they happened often. I'd say about 75% of the time.
I was a little discouraged. *tired*
Next I found that the update DJ mentioned was ready to download. After installing it on the older Dell laptop I loaded my project, connected to the EZB and played a sound file. I was not supersized when I heard the pop at the start of the file. However it was now very quiet! Then when the file stopped there was NO POP! Wow! OK, my shaking finger clicked a different file on the control's list. NO POP! The file stopped. NO POP! I tried this again and again with different files and found each has a clean and clear start and finish. In fact I'd go as far as saying that the sound files even sounded better. However that could have been because I was so happy that even a good fart would have sounded wonderful.
OK, Now was this just an anomaly? I shut down both the laptop and robot and rebooted both. I found the same behavior. The very first file played has a faint pop at the start but as long as I remain connected to ARC there are no other pops when I play any of the files. The only time I hear any distortion is when I play several files very fast and sometimes start one before the other ends. Then sometimes I'll hear that faint pop between files but what else could I expect under such torture.
So, My conclusion; I'm not sure why but something with my newer computer improved the popping issue about 25%. Then Something in DJ's ARC update enabled files to be played without the pop at all "After" the first file is played. The first file played after ARC is started and connected always has a faint pop at the start of the file. After that no pops will be heard. If I disconnect ARC, close it, then restart and connect to the robot the first file played will always have that first faint pop. I can live with this and am very happy. I now see this as a non-issue. Fixed. Thanks DJ for the voodoo you do so well.
Dave, you sir, are da man! We are not worthy.
And of course, thanks also to DJ and the EZ Robot team for all their tireless work in providing a first class product.
Steve
On their own my troubleshooting steps may not have fixed anything. I'm still not really sure about that. In the end, I'm pleased and I also learned something.
I bought a Line Leveler, installed it, Updated to the latest ARC and all is good. I was able to match the sound from the EZB to the CF sound system, I had no clipping and no pops. Life is wonderful
I then sorted out, after much head scratching, how to monitor ADC ports via contacts in the CF sound system, so I could pause and un-pause the Personality Generator and the Voice Activation controls in my project so when I pulled out the robots "Power Pack" he would "appear" dead. Life is Wonderful Still
Today, Life stopped being so wonderful. I installed a small Audio amplifier in parallel to the main voice amplifier to separately control the level of volume feeding the interface that controls the flashing of the chest neon regardless of the volume of the main Amp. I don't even have the neon connected to the small amp yet. I was just mounting it and wired the 12 volt feed to it and the un-amplified audio to it. later when retesting and tweaking the power pack pull scripts, I had a problem with the audio files played from the EZB Soundboard, for want of a better word, "Stuttering". It would play a file for a bit then jump back a bit replay the word or two or three, jump further up the file and back again and sometimes it would even play a small piece of another file that shouldn't be plying at all. Seems to happen more with the longer files. I cant imagine that it has anything to do with the new amp. Its like the file is sent garbled from my laptop. The files played from the CF sound system play fine, its only the EZB soundboard file that are affected. This is so weird as everything has been working fine. I thought the scripts that loop and watch the ADC ports may be overwhelming the EZB, but I only have two of them and they each have a 1 second sleep before looping back to the start. I made up leads for connection from the EZB to the AUX contacts on the CF sound system with 10k pull down resistors built in and I connected all 8 ADC ports to the normally open contacts on the CF sound. At this point only two of them are in use by the EZB.
Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this "stuttering"
Nothing is easy *tired*
Steve
I found a running ARC ADC port monitoring control I had installed that I had forgotten about. It was hidden behind some other controls on in my cluttered project. It was watching one of the ADC ports I was using in the same way you are (with the same pull down resistors that should be making things more stable). I clicked the pause box and saved the project. I then turned off both the robot and laptop and let it sit for a little and then rebooted the laptop.
After Windows 10 loaded I let everything finish loading and settle down. I then disabled my virus program, checked I had a good strong Wifi signal that was connected to the network I usually use and then started the robot. After the robot and his EZB's were up and running and connected to the network I then started ARC and connected it to the robot's EZB's. Everything was better.
The only causes I can think of could have been any or all of these; a bad wifi connection, cluttered comm channel between the laptop and ezb or something running on the laptop that was chopping up the delivery of the sound file or slowing down it's system. The issue could have also been enhanced by the Aux input of the CF sound system. It has a sensor that opens and closes (for want of a better understanding of how it works) when it scenes a signal coming in. Could be the signal was caught in a buffer and only parts were let through (wild guess).
Anyway, I haven't really had the robot running and using the sound functions a lot since I did the testing and work above. I have not installed the latest ARC upgrade. There has been one more with Audio Enhancements since I did this work and you may be running if you upgraded within the last couple days.
I do not have this extra amp installed in my system for the neon and I don't know if this could be a problem. I do know that sometimes adding extra equipment in a sound system sometimes causes problems. You can introduce polarity, timing, level and signal problems. I'm no expert in that stuff and I always need to study and ask questions when I want to modify my sound systems.
Till now my fix was to make sure nothing was running that would suck down system performance like virus software, unneeded computer software, ARC ADC monitoring, strong and clean Wifi connection, and a fresh reboot of all systems. Good luck and keep me posted.
1) ensure you are running the latest ARC. there have been significant audio performance increases over the last few releases. the most recent release should be used
2) use the benchmark utility and tweak the Data Channel Flood Protection value in the Connection Control if you are performing many read commands to the EZ-B v4.x/0 or EZ-B v4.x/1
DJ, I am using the latest ARC. What is and where do I find the benchmark utility? I haven't heard of that one.
1) ensure you are running the latest ARC. there have been significant audio performance increases over the last few releases. the most recent release should be used
2) use the benchmark utility and tweak the Data Channel Flood Protection value in the Connection Control settings if you are performing many read commands to the EZ-B v4.x/0 or EZ-B v4.x/1
I was wondering, if you increased the "Interval" value in the ADC Value controls to 1000 ms, does it help the situation? The default 500 ms should be fine, but you never know. It's odd that putting them in pause didn't clear it up just doing that. Apparently there is still something going on with them even when paused.
Also, do you have other controls like that going as well? The combination of several controls of that type could cause problems, since they all run all the time, and by getting rid of a couple, you took just enough load off the computer to smooth things out for now.
And like DJ says, you really need to the run the latest and greatest version of ARC.
Oh, and one more thing. Do you have other programs running on the laptop at the same time you are running ARC? Sorry if that's already been asked.
I mentioned a few posts above that you should look for these controls and pause them. I've been experiencing this same thing and commenting on it for years now. It's not new and not odd. The ADC reads from these monitors are overwhelming your system and flooding the comm signal. I've never been able to have one running all the time and not have it drag down my performance.
WB is correct however, you can go into the control and adjust how often the thing reads the adc port. I've done this a few times and it helps. The latest updates as DJ just stated has gone a long way to aid in this issue. Hopefully the new EZB coming soon will also help this issue.
As long as you don't have these monitors running you should be OK.
I am using the latest ARC. I had a look at the "Benchmark Utility" but I couldn't figure out what to do with it. I clicked the ADC button and changed the figure at the top but I wasn't sure what it was telling me. Sorry I'm terrible with this stuff
WBS00001,
I had already changed the Sleep value to 1000ms when I was experiencing these problems. I dont have any other scripts looping other than the two monitoring ADC0 and ADC1. As far as I'm aware, I didn't have any other programs running at the time, I might double check that though to make sure there wasn't something running in the background.
I'm still leaning towards the suspicion there is an issue with my laptop. Its definitely not right at the moment and I'm thinking it may be causing or at least amplifying this problem. although the problem seems to have gone away since I deleted the ADC Value controls.
2) start a new blank project
3) connect ARC to your robot
4) add the Bench Mark Utility
5) Leave the value of 30 in the benchmark utility and press the READ ADC button
6) Write down the number that it presents (X Number Pr Second)
7) Now click on the CONNECTION Control GEAR to open the settings
8) Change the EZ-B Board #1 Throttle Setting to a 1
9) Go to #6 and repeat
Here's a link to the benchmark utility manual page: http://www.ez-robot.com/Tutorials/Help.aspx?id=144
There are question marks to assist. Hover your mouse over the question mark in the connection control settings of the flood control to find out what it is does.