This is probably one of those ‘Doh!’ moments - I am trying to automate the news but cannot mute/unmute the mixer channels using acions on v3.1 or v4.1.
I originally tried this on a PC with a 1010LT soundcard without success but, knowing that there have been some issues with this card, I moved on to trying to control the on-board mixer. When that didn’t work either I went on to a laptop (1 mic and 1 speaker – what could be simpler!) but I can’t even get that working so I must be doing something fundamentally wrong.
In the config program I am setting up two action (mixer – mute and mixer - unmute) with settings for Device: (either Microphone or Speakers), Destination: Master Volume (no other choice) and Source: All Channels. The options page is left with defaults.
When I run up mAirList (3.1 or 4.1) and trigger the actions nothing seems to happen.
Can someone please point out the (probably obvious) thing I am doing wrong?
The aim is to ‘switch’ the audio from an external audio source (the news) from within a playlist - using actions was just a way to prove it works before moving on to the next part.
Unmuting/Muting the aux input to the soundcard has been the traditional way to do this for many years and the functionality is there so I am just trying to work out what I am doing wrong.
Yes we use this facility successfully. You could use it from the event scheduler, or I created a 2minute .mp3 file of silence using audacity. This is the first fixed file of any database playlist. If you add the file to the database you can then modify it’s properties. The mute/unmute goes in the playback section. Action on start would be un-mute and action on stop would be mute.
So the “silence” file plays whilst the news goes out.
I’ve used this on a simple creative soundblaster and an very upmarket optimod sound card. Both are giving me far more control of the windows mixer in mairlist though. Section 7.5.2 in the manual would be my first port of call for output/input problems.
Hope that helps.
Good to hear that you use this facility and it works for you. I have re-read section 7.5.2 of CAD’s excelent manual but all the mAirlist generated audio is fine - it is just the switching on/off of an external source.
In order to try to recreate what you have I created a short audio file and put unmute/mute actions at the start and end as you described.
Still working on a laptop (to keep things simple) I have 2 options in the Device dection of the ‘Configure Action - mixer’ section - Speakers and Microphone and I have attached cropped screenshots of both below.
If I select ‘Speakers’ then the mute/unmute actions work but on the mAirlist output (circled) so I lose all audio from the program. If I select ‘Microphone’ then nothing changes.
I still think that the penny will drop with me soon but unfortunately no signs as yet!
I don’t know whether your odd-looking mixer panel is because of the Conexant or whether it’s because you in Vista (or Win7?); but on my plain PC here, with on-board Realtek, my options in the Device dropdown are audio output and audio input.
When I select audio input as Device, the only Destination is (as I would expect) Recording Control, and as Source, I can choose from (All channels), Mic volume, Aux volume, Stereo mix, Rear Green In, and Rear Blue In.
Does your Conexant Windows mixer (when opened by right-clicking the Windows volume control) have an Options menu item from which you can click Properties, and then select a Mixer device like audio output and audio input?
It looks to me as though you are controlling the just the “playback” section of the mixer. Surely the news would come into the line input section, so you would need to control the “recording” section.
I am using Win7 on a 3 year old laptop but that is only to try to keep it simple and not bring in complexities of the 1010LT card on my other PC.
The screenshots were the best way of showing the mute/unmute icons for each channel - the screenshots of the recording and playback sections are below.
Hi Ron,
We at Victoria Infirmary Hospital Radio in Glasgow do have a card fitted in our music playout pc that automatically takes the news from the news channel. This card comes with software which helps keep it’s time correct and is set up to take the news on the news fader on our mixing desk.
It works by using a relay to open the news fader channel to take the news and after the news has finished it shuts the news fader channel. The station’s news jingle has a code imbedded in it that tell the relay to open and shut., the news jingle would be played via M-Airlist on your pc.
This means that your radio station will take the news when your not there. Hope this is of help.
But, if you can control the master (recording) volume can you not use that as your mute/unmute action?
You would have to go into the windows mixer settings and manually unmute the input you want for your news source. If there are any others, I’d be inclined to manually mute those. You would only need to do this once as windows should retain them.
We have 2 mairlist installations. One in the studio as a player. The second one is in the “control area” which is just 1 pc in reality. This runs the station 24 hours using hourly database templates. So, over night it is a simple mini-scheduler juke box.
The event scheduler has 1 line - to load & play that hour database playlist.
The news comes in on the digital input from a technomate satellite receiver. It is controlled by the 2 minute “silence” mp3 file.
For a live broadcast I would insert into that hour a silence of 58minutes (we are non profit making, so no ads). The silence would then mute and unmute the analog input from the studio. Similarly if I wanted to do a show live from home it would be to insert a stream.
The other poster mentions you need to keep the pc time in sync with reality; there are loads of free software to do that.
[quote=“Ron Stanley, post:12, topic:7940”]That could be the problem - the only choice I have in the ‘Destination’ box is ‘Master Volume’
I guess you have more?[/quote]
Well, on my XP machine here, once I select Realtek HD Audio input as Device, the only choice I get for Destination is Recording control; and I can select a Source of any of the possible inputs like Microphone, Line in, etc.
So, either this is YET ANOTHER perfectly good thing in XP that M$ changed and royally screwed up in Vista and/or Win7 (don’t get me started on that!), or your Conexant really doesn’t have any more inputs than Microphone. If it does have a Line In or Aux input of some sort, you’ll need to find out how to enable that in the Windows Mixer first, so that mAirList can ‘see’ it.
If Microphone is your only option, I agree with Allan that you should turn your ‘mic boost’ down to 0dB, at least to start with, then adjust to suit later.
Hi Ron, we use mute/unmute functions on an Asus soundcard for providing news, however we are not using mAirList for automation (using mAirList for live assist only). The mute function opens/closes the line in under recording devices at the desired times.
To this problem though.
Line-in should be umuted (open) under output devices. Inside mAirList settings assign this a s Player 1 (allow automation in settings).
Hopefully now audio will now be heard on this player (just leave the fader open edit to allow news during automation or as edit in our case bypass the desk so it can be used for recording purposes).
For news during live shows we have split the news feed to a seperate fader so presenters can fade in/out as needed.
Try this: open the Recording Devices dialog in your Windows Mixer, then right-click and select BOTH Show disabled devices AND Show disconnected devices. After you’ve done that, you ahould see ALL possible Recording devices listed. If any device is Disabled, right-click its entry and click Enable.
Once all devices are Enabled, right-click the one you want to use (e.g. Aux in) it and click Set as Default Device.
Once you’ve done all that, ALL your Recording devices should show up in the mAirList mute/unmute mixer Actions dialog.
Note that you might also need/wish to do the same for your Playback devices in the Windows Mixer. This would allow you to use Tony’s suggestions above.
Please do let us all know if this does the trick for you.
(So yes, it IS something else M$ stuffed up in Win7!)
LATER… And if all else fails, you might find this useful: http://www.actualsolution.com/power_mixer/.
I know nothing about this software, just kind of found it by accident two minutes ago online. Seems quite inexpensive but fairly powerful.
