Audible Pop When Changing Key Up

[bernie]

I have installed Keyright on a second computer... and it produces the identical problem. How bizarre is that?

I've have read only one other post where someone complained of the audible pop at the beginning of a song which has had the key changed upwards, and I end up with the problem on two entirely different installations.

The two computers have very different CPU's (generations apart), hard drives, memory, video cards, etc. They are both, however, DELL computers and both came with the Creative SB Live! series soundcard.

A little more background. Although I am now running XP, the problem existed with 98SE. And, the problem also existed in the previous version of Keyright. For grins, I tried a different version of soundcard drivers on one of the pc's and it made no difference. Nor do any changes in dxdiag have any affect.

At this point the only thing common between the two installations appears to be the soundcard. For what it's worth, I believe the SB Live! cards that DELL installs are unique, i.e., not the same as retail version. I suspect that to be true because when I checked for updated drivers there was a warning that the drivers were *only* for card that came with the DELL.

The other individual that reported this audible pop problem may not see this update. I would love to know, however, if he by chance has a DELL also equipped with their version of SB Live! soundcard.

Short of replacing the soundcard, anyone have a comment or suggestion at this point? Thanks in advance for your feedback.

bernie

[MTUSUPPORT]

Is this Pop actually Written to the .cdg or .wav file? Do you only hear the pop under Keyrite, or can you try to listen to the file through another program, such as Microstudio for .cdg or Media Player for .wav. Does the pop occur in these other programs?

[bernie]

In the case of a .cdg file, yes, the pop is indeed written to the new file. It is heard when played back in Microstudio. I've even had a karaoke host complain of the pop at the beginning of those tracks when I take one of my custom assembled discs to the bar.

I had not used Keyright on .wav files until you asked the question, so I just evaluated it. The pop does NOT occur with .wav files. I can raise the key and hear no pop in either Keyright or the saved new file when played in another application.

We've now narrowed down the conditions for the pop to occur to the following:

1) .cdg files only
2) Only if key is raised

bernie

[bernie]

It's not the sound card.

I removed the existing SoundBlaster Live! sound card and replaced it with an Audiotrak Maya44 MKII. The new card is about as different from the original as one could get (different drivers, different on-board clock speed, etc.).

Unfortunately, the card replacement had no affect on the audible pop. At least I know what isn't the root cause. The search continues.

bernie

[George]

Thought I'd try to help you guys out. Took a cdg track up three steps. Did the same with the same track on both pc's, and no audible click when playing back on either system.

I'll dink around some more and see if I can duplicate this anomaly.

George

Here's my system info for both boxes.

[George]

Here's another possibility we can eliminate.

I know when there's insufficient dead space at the end of a track it has cause problems with KHP(clipping of tracks), so wondering if KHP would have a conflict loading the title page, I tried clipping off all the dead space at the beginning of the same .wav file used in the cdg used in the prior post, and created a new cdg, took it up the same three steps in Keyrite. No luck...no pop.

Back to the drawing board.

George

[bernie]

Thanks George for trying to duplicate the problem.

By the way, I don't need to actually write the new file to hear the pop. It's there immediately if I initiate Preview Play when any upward key change is selected. The pop occurs when the graphics on the button change from "Preview Play" to "Stop Preview" (whether I've used the mouse or keyboard navigation to click the button).

Since there's no pop when I initiate Preview Play in either 0 or any downward key, I've tried to circumvent the pop by waiting until playback starts before selecting the desired upward key change. Doing that results in no pop being heard during Preview Play, but it is recorded to the new file.

George, on what may be totally unrelated, could you check the file size and/or playing time of the track you ran your test on (original vs. key changed)? In my case, a new track written by Keyright is slightly larger than the original. Not much, but I'd like to confirm this what everyone else experiences as well. For example, original track play time reported by MicroStudio is 04:15:30 whereas the new track created by Keyright is 04:15:37.

Thanks,

bernie