Key change problem with 4.11 - Solution Upgrade to Windows Media Player 11
 

Dell Vostro 1500
XP home ed
Core 2 Duo
1.6ghz
2.5 GB ram

Clicks and pulsing in audio on key change. I saw the other thread on this problem and upgraded from 1gb ram to 2.5gb. The more steps the worse it is. Also some songs are worse than others. My backup computer is fine. It's a desktop HP Pentium 4, XP,3.2 GHZ, 2.5GB ram.

Have you checked the Microsoft "Custom" Updates lately to see if there is anything new?
Check Dell Support and see if there are any driver updates there. I did look and if you have the Nvidia video card there is a Jan 2009 updated driver for it.
Last would be to go to BlackViper.com and see what background services you can turn off.
The biggest problem with laptops and the greatly expanded Hoster version 4.xx series is the video memory on them. Video memory on these laptops is what is called "Shared Memory" and it takes a chunk of your main memory to run the video. This cuts down the memory available for the processor.
Changing the key on the fly has always been somewhat shakey and warbles a bit until it settles down at the new level. I think it just is getting a bit worse because of the demand on the processor by the new features added in.
So try changing the key before they start or take the time to stop the song, set the key , and restart it. You can do this key change by putting the amount in the column for Key by left-clicking twice on the Key block in the playlist line. This is the same way you can change the Singers Name.

i had never changed keys in any of my shows, but last night a kj friend came to my show who had the same problems changing keys on v.411 handed me a list of songs with key changes, when adding a song to the playlist i had to start the song first to changed keys, if you changed keys before you click play it will revert back to the orignal key, my solution was when you do a search of songs and found it click on the key changed first before adding it to the playlist , it worked for me ..

It doesn't matter if it's on the fly or not. Tried it every way I could think of. I used driver detective and updated my nvidia. No help. Do you think if I upgraded another 2GB it would help? I'm at 2.5 now. I can remove the other 512 and add another 2gb for a total of 4gb. But that's an expensive try though. Can I cut down on the amount of ram video uses somehow? I will go to the Dell site and check. I also tried an M-Audio external sound interface. Thanks for your quick response. I'll check back as I eliminate things.

Billy I was not talking about using the immediate change buttons to change it. Left-click twice on the Key block for the song you want to change, type in "-2" for 2 steps down, hit enter, then start the song and it will play 2 down. This is if you forgot to do it before adding it to the playlist.
The problem seems to be showing up with those using the "on the fly" key change. I don't here any clicks, but I do get the warbling until it settles at the new level.

Just found something interesting. I went to Microstudio and got the same results with the key change. I went through the process of marking the audio for the silence option when I upgraded. I tried disabling that function but it made no difference. Could it have altered the files in some way that affected the key operation in general??? I had a show last night and the worst one was New Kid in Town from Sound Choice, key change +1. I went to that same file and played it using MicroStudio with the same results. I'm going to find my CDG and try playing it from that instead of the imported file. Check back later.

Microstudio and Hoster share a lot of the same program code. Thus the Key change will be the same in both.
Are you saying this does it all the time, even if you set the key change before playing the song?
No the only thing the Remove Silence does is add to parameters to the Header (Start Offset and Edn Offset). If you turn off the Remove Silence then the song plays normally with all the silence still in it.
My recommendation is always to use the drivers from the manufacturer, in your case Dell. They have tested them on that specific equipment set-up.
I would pay particular attention to the sound card drivers as this is where the audio is processed.
Also, try going through the BlackViper recommendations for turning off background processes that aren't needed. This frees up not just memory, but Processor time as well.

Yes. It does it all the time no matter what I do. I have a lot of singers that change keys. I like to put the change in the key field so I wont have to make a note or remember it later. I did try the original CDG and it did it too. So, I guess the file being at fault is out. I updated the video driver from Dell. I will also go get the audio driver, even though it has already failed with another audio interface. I think audio driver can probably be ruled out. I upgraded MicroStudio and Hoster at the same time. I don't usually play songs in MicroStudio but I know for sure that I didn't have a problem in Hoster at least until I upgraded. I will also try Blackviper. Do you know if there were any changes made this time to both MicroStudio and Hoster that were in common.

No, in fact the key change part has not been touched in several upgrades. As you said to begin with your back-up computer is fine, so it can't be in the program. It has to be something with the laptop.
I don't remember exactly which audio card was in it, but I would definately get the Dell driver for it just to be sure.

I did get the Dell driver for the audio. True, my backup is working OK. But, something in the change is not agreeing with the laptop. I use it weekly and use the key change every show. It didn't fail until I did the upgrade. The fact that one will and one wont doesn't necessarily clear the software.

This may sound crazy, but I'm used to the ridicule by now:g
Do have a fingerprint reader on that laptop? The reason I ask is that a DJ friend of mine was having audio glitches. I was just moving backwards through the changes made and the problem was solved when I disabled the fingerprint reader. I later rolled back the driver and it was less frequent, but still an issue.

Not at all crazy. I appreciate any help. I don't have a finger print reader. But that does point to something possibly in the background that might be at fault. I looked at blackviper.com and have yet to go through stopping any processes. I'll be tied up today but I'll try to sift through that as soon as I can. If I do find something I'll let it be known. At this point I'm about ready to back out the upgrade until it's stable.

You keep saying you are going to wait until it is stable. It is stable now. Just that older computers are going to find that it is too much for them unless they are tweaked. Better to find the problem than wait for the next release of Hoster which is going to include even more new features.
One thing Admin has been talking about is giving us the capability of turning off some of the new features so an older computer would be able to run Hoster without them and thus better, because the resource requirement would be less.

I know that dog years and computer years don't compare to human years. But, I don't consider 2 years to be very old. I certainly would like to find it now. But, some customers act as though I've stepped on their favorite kitten when they try to sing with this distraction.

Seriously, try http://www.blackviper.com/
I have always been a cheapskate and been behind the technology curve when it comes to having the fastest processor or graphics card. But with the help of Charles Sparks and his site, I have been able to squeeze everything possible out of a machine. When most were running Hoster 3.xx on a dual core pentium, I was running on a 700Mhz Duron processor.

Just spend a little time reading through the site and making all the changes. Nothing you do in the way of disabling services is permanent. Anything you turn off can be turned back on. I run the bare-bones setup on my show machine with the exception of a couple of items. My recommendation is to start with the "Safe" column and work from there. I would wager that just turning off the items in the "Safe" column will alleviate your issues.

OK. I've tried stopping everything I can do without. Still there. I have now restored everything to before the upgrade. Works fine. I'm going to leave it, at least for now. And that's another thing. The upgrade works OK on my old Pentium 4 desktop. You would think that if it is a slow microprocessor that one would fail, instead of a Core2 Duo. Go figure!! Also during the process of working on this, Hoster got errors and shut down several times, not always but usually on program startup. Nothing significant was going on at the time just routine stuff. Thanks everyone. I'll keep checking back in case anyone has more ideas.

I know we have problems with the Hoster 4x versions not playing nice with certain video cards. It seems to be especially bad for the shared memory cards in notebooks.

I hate for you to give up on this. You seem to be a lot more willing to help nail down this rather elusive issue. The next thing i would try, if I had the machine, is to try and tweak the video memory settings in BIOS. Since you have 2.5 gig, I would go for at least 512 meg set aside for video and work from there.

Oh, I'm not one to give up. I just want to get through the Christmas shows with as little grief as possible. That's a good suggestion. I'll try that when I can. I'm self-employed in electronic repair for the local music stores and things are starting to back up. Plus I do a lot of private shows especially around Christmas and New Years. Thanks for your help. I'll keep checking back.

Go ahead and get through the Christmas and New Years season then with the one that works and hold off until January on this. I agree and would do the same thing. I have been in that position myself.
Thanks for working wiht us and let us know whan you want to get back to it.

I am having the same problem
 

I am having the same problem and I have a new durabook computer purchased from MTU. My old laptop is being repaired, but it worked fine with changing the key in any situation (3.xx version). This new computer that I have been using for less than a month froze up on me last night (only time i have ever had a laptop freeze up on me during a show) and it has the same key change problem, where as the clicking is messing up the audio. Brand new computer, with 2gigs of ram straight from MTU...

Loren