Is it good practise, to run mAirList the following way ?
When I create a playlist ( mlp file ), it consists of audio files with varying specifications.
Some audio files are wave, some are mp3. Some audio files have sample rates of 44.1 khz, others 48 khz.
Some mp3 audio files are CBR, some are VBR. Still others are mono, 320kbps, 160kbps…128 kbps mp3.
With all this audio swapping and changing in the software/ hardware, are there instability issues for mAirList, and for the sound card, one needs to be aware of ?
Of major concern is any drop out of the audio, during playback.
Three real examples :
some times, a pop sound can be heard when mAirList plays between two audio files, which have different specifications.
In other words, say when mAirList plays a wave 1411 kbps stereo file, then next plays a mp3 128kbps file,
a low level click sound can be heard at the start of the second track.
Two times, mAirList, or maybe the sound card, has decided to just Stop and output a continuous Chirp sound.
The second track, spikes by playing louder at the start of the first few seconds, then normalises.
Anything in the mAirList config, that needs attention ?
Runing mAirList version 3.0.10 build 636, Windows Vista.
Most of the time, the issues you’re reporting are related to faulty sound cards or drivers.
Click sounds are often encountered with cheap sound cards, and when the “Effects” feature isn’t turned off for the card in the Windows Control Panel. What kind of sound card are you using anyway?
Generally, mixing files with different sample rates (44.1 and 48) is not a good idea. Most soundcards will be able to handle that, but some don’t. It actually depends on the hardware. If you encounter any strange behaviour or dropouts, you can try to enable “application-level software mixing” in mAirListConfig -> Modules -> WDM Output. mAirList will then maintain a single fixed-rated connection to the soundcard, and if any resampling is necessary for a paticular file, this will be done in software. CPU load will be a little higher, and you should also consider to decrease the “buffer size” value on the Modules -> BASS page, which will give you lower latency.
VBR files will play fine, however mAirList might not be able to determine the exact duration unless you enable the option “High precision cueing for VBR files (BASS_STREAM_PRESCAN)” on the WDM Output page. This will slow down the loading process a little.
The broadcast station runs mAirList with a Innes Corporation Auricon 2.2 soundcard, Windows XP.
At times I run mAirList on an ACER Aspire 5920 laptop, feeding digital audio into the radio studio panel.
I haven’t heard of this “Auricon” card, so I cannot tell if there are any known issues with it. It might just have a broken driver that doesn’t deal well with varying sampling rates. As mentioned about, you might be able to work around it by enabling application-based software mixing in mAirListConfig.
Regarding your laptop, I have a similar one (Thinkpad T400), and the onboard soundcard tends to crackle and pop very often when the CPU load gets high for a moment, e.g. when fading between two songs. The crackling got better when I disabled the “Audio Effects” in the Windows Control Panel (it’s somewhere in the advanced settings of the card, don’t know where exactly right now.)