Is Clipping being addressed??

[jahern]

Just purchased a new cdg disc and when I play it in Microstudio, it clips some of the songs.

In the MTU news, I read of things being corrected by updates, but clipping is not mentioned. I think I read a post that it would be addressed. Has it been addressed by a recent version??

I know that some clipping happens when things are played in KHP, but this is just a matter of splicing in time.

I imagine that people doing shows with Hoster will clip on the same songs that Microstudio clips on since they have the same playing system (from what I understand, could be wrong, always possible)

[mlepine]

Microstudio clips some songs before it ends but not many people are reporting this problem.

I've tested these songs on another software or played on my home cd player & it doesn't clip!

I guess the beta tester most of reported this problem before & it will be fix???

Regards

[admin]

Clipping normally refers to the audio peaks being clipped, causing audio distortion. Microstudio only plays the file. There is no control over the audio loudness. If this is your problem, please look to your Windows audio volume controls.

Or, do you mean, as mlepine indicates, that the songs are not playing to the end, or audio peaks are being clipped?

[jahern]

The songs are not playing to the end.

I've talked for years about the fact that Microstudio Play will play some songs and the music will not play to the end. I maintain, and have said this several times in these forums, that Microstudio cuts all songs short. Only the songs without an extended silence at the end, like the logo, will notice a sacrifice of music.

I assume that Hoster exhibits this same problem.

MTU respondents have usually indicated that they were unaware of the problem or denied the problem or tried to make me check my equipment. When I have sent them demos, etc. They have indicated that they did indeed see the problem and it would probably be handled in a future upgrade.

Then time goes by and nothing. I assume from the investigative nature of your post, Admin, that noone is working on the problem.

That is discouraging since I thought you were going to address it.

[jahern]

Found a previous response from admin dated August 2003.

Status of clipping problem

Thank you for reporting this problem. We would like to remove this clipping before the end of a song is finished. I don't know how difficult it will be to track down the problem.

We have to fix the 8-bit play mode, which will likely involve the same play code as this clipping problem. Thus, I'll schedule both to be worked on by our programmer after KPro 5 and Hoster 2.01x are released.

...

_________________
Making Karaoke the best it can be!
http://mtu.com/

I apologize for getting impatient. I jumped the gun.

[mlepine]

What's surprising is that not many people reported this problem?

I'm not a Beta tester for Microstudio but I'm sure it was reported by the Beta team???

I have one song which I enjoy singing Suspicion from Elvis KC006 and you should listen the way it ends!!

Regards

[jahern]

If a company shows their logo for any decent amount of silent time, then we get to hear all the music. It is rare when a company doesn't self-promote, as we can well imagine.

The reason I get a little testy on this issue is because the clipping occurs so rarely, that it is easy for many to assume that the problem exists only with those who report it.

Admittedly, most of my stuff that clips is in Spanish, so I imagine the low number of reports about those songs is due to less frequent usage. (And the forum is in English after all)

I'm curious about your Elvis song. Does the singer stop singing well before the song is over. (This would give the company the chance to show their logo over the last part of instrumental music. If they stop showing their logo as the music ends, it would explain the clip)

Hasta la vista Baby

[George]

MLEPINE and JAHERN:

I 'm glad to see you're exploring the isolation of this problem. I held back from posting as it seems we always wind up in a confrontation, when I come forward and say I don't experience what you are, but honestly I've never had the clipping on commercial cdg's when played in Microstudio.

That doesn't mean that the next one I buy won't have a track or two that clips in Microstudio, but it hasn't happened to date.

That may explain why so few reports of this incident, it's just the "luck of the draw"..

If you want to post a few tracks by MFG, disc# and track#, I'd be glad to see if I may have one, and just never played it.

My first thought was that the manufacturer might be producing tracks that do not have sufficient blank space at the end for the graphics to draw, just like we occassionally encounter when producing a KHP track. If that were the case though, one would think they should clip no matter what they are played on, which is not the case with you.

This may be one of those cases when we do get into Beta again we might suggest to MTU that they have you send in a disc copy to them so's they can see the problem, as the testers/and or MTU staff might not be able to encounter it, as isolated as it is. Dunno, just thinking out loud. I'll sure keep it in mind.

Take care,

George

[mlepine]

Tonight I will try to go over the songs that are not ending properly on Microstudio and I will identify them by brand & track.

Perhaps you might have some of them in your library for you to test?

The Elvis album KC006 is in fact an album that's really a perfect example, the song will play to the end but it's the way it cuts! After the last note on Suspicion and I know there's also another one it just cuts & goes directly to the next one. That's with direct play from the cd or the imported file. The problem is in the import because I did try the file that was imported in my hard drive (cdg)with Micro & I converted it to bin to test in another software & it did the same.

After I imported the same song with CDRWIN for testing, it played longer and had a better ending.

Regards

[mlepine]

Just remember that it's in the Playback that I have the problem not when imported!! Doing to many testing I get confuse.

The back up disk will end correctly when played on any cd player but will cut the ending with Microstudio on some songs of course not all!

[jahern]

About two years ago I purchased a collection of cdg's called SuperCore II

The box was green and there were 16 discs. Two years have passed and the set has since been blue (with a supplementary 2 discs with modern male and female hits 2002) and yellow (with another supplementary set of discs-hits for 2003)

The version in my set, and probably the next sets, has a pretty exciting version of I LOVE ROCK AND ROLL

The last notes and words are..AND DANCE WITH ME!


As Microstudio plays it, the last words are..AND D_ (There are even graphics for these words but they and the music are ignored)

I knew there was some clipping in this set of discs, but it was hard to pin some down for sure, since a lot of the songs simply fade away and the only bad effects are notes not properly decaying etc. or fading away less gradually.

But this is a definite smoking gun.

(Time for my J.B. Fletcher imitation)

I knew it would be. Motivated by George's and Mlpine's entries I decided to try to find some more mainstream occurences. I have a version of Suspicious Minds in this Supercore set, but this song fades away. I feel it ends prematurely, but the effect is pretty harmless.

So I examined all the songs on the disc and other discs using a normal cd player program. Any song where the music stopped less than two seconds before the timed end of the track, the music was always cut off by Microstudio. Like I said, most of the effects were barely perceptible. (Fading away etc.)

When I examined the song I LOVE ROCK AND ROLL, I noticed that the final chord and word ended right on the last second. I knew this effect would be perceptible, and I was right!

It's like Microstudio processes the songs one chunk at a time. If the chunk is not big enough, it's time to end the song.

Well time for me to fix supper.

[mlepine]

I've been testing albums that have very short time between the ending & the track change and notice what seem to be the problem:

Microstudio will remove 2-3 seconds per track, what ever track you play, it will always do it. On most CDG albums the music ends before, so it is difficult to notice the problem but I suggest you try a regular cd music that you know will have a very short period between the ending and the track change and you'll notice that it will be cut before the ending.

I played my Elvis KC0006 album track 11 on my home cd stereo and once the song ends there's 1-2 seconde before it changes the track but Microstudio will cut it at about the same time as the end of the song!

Good luck with your testing!!

[jahern]

In the description for the new Microstudio, this problem doesn't seem to be addressed.

If it is being addressed, please tell me. I am waiting with baited breath (Does that mean I've been eating BAIT??!!)

[George]

I got curious about this clipping, as I've not encountered it. Sheer luck, I'm sure.

Anyway, I took three .wav tracks that had very clear cut endings; no slow fading or anything of that nature. In Goldwave I clipped all the silence off at both the beginnings and endings of the tracks, taking care not to lose any music.

I then burned them to a cd, and then imported them back to the hard drive as cdg's, so's they would play in Microstudio.

There was no clipping at the beginning of the tracks but all three tracks were clipped at the ending. I'd hazard a guess of about 2.5 seconds or so.

It's easy to see that if the recording studio doesn't leave at least three seconds of silence at the end of a track, Microstudio is clipping.

Take care,

George

[Lauraine Graham- with the Lord]

I admit I have not read every word of this thread, but I read George's input in the beta testing forum. Until (or if) MTU design an automatic 2-3 second silence at the end of each track this is what I suggest.

I noticed a long time ago that if one clips all the silence off the end of a wave the last few bars are missing, so I ALWAYS leave 2 seconds at the end of the file when I have finished editing it to my requirements. If you do not have a wave editing program I urge you to get one. A person can do so much in tailoring a track to one's personal requirements to make the track individual.

Forgive me if you have already thought of this, but sometimes the obvious gets overlooked.

best wishes

[George]

I must admit I'd completely forgotten about the problem until Jahern brought it up today.

George

[jahern]

Lauraine Graham:

It sounds like you are telling of a remedy for when you are creating a cdg file using KHPRO

Indeed what you say is valid and I have thought of it and echo your recommendation of using wave editing programs.

I'm talking about already existing cdg songs (whether on disc or as files) that are clipped short by Microstudio Play and I assume by Hoster if the technology is the same.

I even have a solution for that for myself, but not for someone bringing their own cd to a performance. I use a splicing program where I splice a 4 second cdg file onto the existing song. Cool Huh??

Even though I have this solution, out of convenience, I hope it can be fixed in a new Microstudio Version. I don't think I will touch Hoster until I know that this problem is fixed.