Capt Ike Posted December 2, 2020 Share Posted December 2, 2020 So, the last two years I’ve been having a problem with the volume coming out of my FM transmitter (Whole House FM Transmitter 3.0) being extremely low compared to other FM stations. I think I figured out that the problem was a bad cable going between the computer and the transmitter. When I play an audio file from Windows Explorer the volume is decent and it sounds good on an FM radio However, when I open the same audio file in the sequence editor and play it from there, it’s remarkably lower than playing it from Explorer, which causes the user to have to turn the radio up an obscene amount just to be able to hear it. I’m using a Sound Blaster Z sound card and the computer sounds sound fine through the radio, it’s just audio coming from the SE. Anyone else have this problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilMassey Posted December 3, 2020 Share Posted December 3, 2020 Open the Windows mixer. Adjust the sliders for the lormonitor to get the volume you want. You can also turn down system sounds so Windows does intrude over your audio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt Ike Posted December 4, 2020 Author Share Posted December 4, 2020 I'll give that a look. I've been to the mixer before, but don't remember seeing a slider that is labeled LOR Monitor. Do you have to do something to get it to appear? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilMassey Posted December 4, 2020 Share Posted December 4, 2020 Control Panel needs to be running and shows enabled or a show on demand running. Once set though, it should remember it's setting. I have mine set about 67% so as not overload my FM transmitter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt Ike Posted December 4, 2020 Author Share Posted December 4, 2020 Ok, I was able to get the LOR slider to show up and it was at 100%, but still had very low volume coming out of the radio. That was with all sliders (LOR and the master) set to their max. I now feel like I have a defective fm transmitter. As a test, I connected my phone to the transmitter and it too was very low as compared to other stations on the same radio. I have a new transmitter coming and it should be here in the next few days. I’m guessing your transmitter has the same volume (or close to it) as compared to other “real” fm stations? Thanks for your continued help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilMassey Posted December 4, 2020 Share Posted December 4, 2020 Probably a little lower than commercial FM, but that's probably due to the compression they use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDucks Posted December 4, 2020 Share Posted December 4, 2020 1 hour ago, Capt Ike said: Ok, I was able to get the LOR slider to show up and it was at 100%, but still had very low volume coming out of the radio. That was with all sliders (LOR and the master) set to their max. I now feel like I have a defective fm transmitter. As a test, I connected my phone to the transmitter and it too was very low as compared to other stations on the same radio. I have a new transmitter coming and it should be here in the next few days. I’m guessing your transmitter has the same volume (or close to it) as compared to other “real” fm stations? Thanks for your continued help. Does you transmitter have a input level adjustment (it might be a screwdriver pot in a hole near the input) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfuller8400 Posted December 4, 2020 Share Posted December 4, 2020 I'm having the same issue and was just about to ask this same question. My show PC has two audio outputs. I've got one going to my FM transmitter and one going to an amplifier that drives my outside speakers. I too have notice that if an audio file is played via the Show Player, it's volume (output) is much lower on both my FM and outside speakers than if I play that same audio file via Zara, Groove, etc. (it's much louder). So I know it's not my FM transmitter and the LOR monitor is set to the same volume level in the Windows Mixer as all of the other outputs. So I'm thinking this has to be something in LOR....? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt Ike Posted December 4, 2020 Author Share Posted December 4, 2020 2 hours ago, PhilMassey said: Probably a little lower than commercial FM, but that's probably due to the compression they use. Mine is significant. For instance, if I adjust the volume of a normal FM station to a comfortable listening level and then change stations to mine you wouldn't be able to hear mine at all. You would have to turn up the radio volume significantly in order to hear my music. Then, if you switched to any other FM station, your eardrums would instantly explode. 1 hour ago, TheDucks said: Does you transmitter have a input level adjustment (it might be a screwdriver pot in a hole near the input) It does. It's done through some buttons on the front and side. However, when doing that, it overdrives the input and I end up with severely distorted audio. I am using the Whole House FM Transmitter 3.0. Which transmitter do you use? 54 minutes ago, jfuller8400 said: I'm having the same issue and was just about to ask this same question. My show PC has two audio outputs. I've got one going to my FM transmitter and one going to an amplifier that drives my outside speakers. I too have notice that if an audio file is played via the Show Player, it's volume (output) is much lower on both my FM and outside speakers than if I play that same audio file via Zara, Groove, etc. (it's much louder). So I know it's not my FM transmitter and the LOR monitor is set to the same volume level in the Windows Mixer as all of the other outputs. So I'm thinking this has to be something in LOR....? It's possible. I'll let you know for sure when my new one gets here. Out of curiosity, which FM transmitter do you use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilMassey Posted December 4, 2020 Share Posted December 4, 2020 4 minutes ago, Capt Ike said: t does. It's done through some buttons on the front and side. However, when doing that, it overdrives the input and I end up with severely distorted audio. I am using the Whole House FM Transmitter 3.0. Which transmitter do you use? 1 hour ago, jfuller8400 said: Affectionally known as the Whole Room Transmitter by some. I use an EDM but many use the generic Chinese transmitters like the Signstek. Incidentally, a word of caution, it is not usually a a good idea to run your transmitter with no antenna attached. It may do no harm, then again..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfuller8400 Posted December 4, 2020 Share Posted December 4, 2020 26 minutes ago, Capt Ike said: Mine is significant. For instance, if I adjust the volume of a normal FM station to a comfortable listening level and then change stations to mine you wouldn't be able to hear mine at all. You would have to turn up the radio volume significantly in order to hear my music. Then, if you switched to any other FM station, your eardrums would instantly explode. It does. It's done through some buttons on the front and side. However, when doing that, it overdrives the input and I end up with severely distorted audio. I am using the Whole House FM Transmitter 3.0. Which transmitter do you use? It's possible. I'll let you know for sure when my new one gets here. Out of curiosity, which FM transmitter do you use? I'm using a Rangestar. This year I built a dipole antenna(How to Build a DiPole Antenna). That makes a whole world of difference (although not in audio levels). I'll probably open a ticket with LOR and see what the help desk has to say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDucks Posted December 4, 2020 Share Posted December 4, 2020 Capt Ike If you can drive it into clipping, then LOR is putting out enough Audio signal. 100% Modulation is what makes FM loudest (maximum deviation from center frequency) Whole House (with a decent antenna. Which is NOT usually a rubber ducky). A FM Yagi (tuned to the freq) directs the minuscule power (FCC limits) in one direction. Sever over modulation will splatter outside the guard band and might get you a visit from the MAN if it interferes wit adjacent stations or other Radio services (below 88 or above 108) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted December 4, 2020 Share Posted December 4, 2020 Actually to be a little picky, with these radios, they will happily and cleanly transmit at substantially excessive modulation without distortion. The distortion is in the receiver. I have access to RF test equipment that let's me see and measure the RF performance of transmitters. The maximum deviation (modulation) for a FM broadcast transmitter is 75 KHz. I was surprised to find that my CZE-05b would go up to about 135 KHz of deviation before it started to distort. Even at that level, the RF signal was still clean (not splattering), but the modulation was no longer linear. However long before that level, any proper FM receiver would turn that much deviation into massive distortion. As for differences between different sound players within your computer - yep, it happens. Windows (starting with Vista) allows setting the level for each audio source in the Windows sound mixer. This level set will remain as set through a reboot. That is one of the reasons that I replaced my show computer a few years ago - get away from Windows XP which did not do this because I had the same issue between Zara Radio and the LOR Show Player. Zara was quite a bit louder when playing the same .mp3 file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Steele Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 Saw this thread when searching for Zara. I was running my shows for years on an old XP machine and was using the DTMF tones to start/stop my announcements in between shows. I switched to one of my more current Win 10 machines and thought I was good to go when I downloaded Zara version 1.6.2. But I soon found out this was a crippled version and I had to purchase their studio version to get the DTMF feature. I searched for my old downloads on my XP and Win7 machines for the original install file, but I must have cleaned those folders up for space. I was wondering if anyone happens to have an old Zara download that has the DTMF feature. Thanks for your attention.. thanks, Mark Steele FLChristmas.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle Posted July 25, 2021 Share Posted July 25, 2021 I am having the exact same issue. My audio file, when played through SE is significantly lower in volume than the when the same track is played through Windows Media Player or Audacity. I have checked my windows audio mixer - it is at 100%. I have also save my file with a 128K constant bit rate. This issue occurs without a FM transmitter (I'm sequencing songs mid-summer). While this occurs with all of my audio tracks, this issue was more pronounced when I downloaded a track from SoundCloud. Could this be an audio quality issue? I'm trying to sequence a song produced by a youtuber. Have any of you found that the audio just wasn't good enough for a sequence? I can't use it if people can't hear it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted July 25, 2021 Share Posted July 25, 2021 On 12/27/2020 at 4:50 AM, Mark Steele said: I was wondering if anyone happens to have an old Zara download that has the DTMF feature. Thanks for your attention.. Software piracy is not appreciated on this (or most) forums. However with that said, as I understand it, the pro versions require a dongle to run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted July 25, 2021 Share Posted July 25, 2021 10 minutes ago, Michelle said: I am having the exact same issue. My audio file, when played through SE is significantly lower in volume than the when the same track is played through Windows Media Player or Audacity. I have checked my windows audio mixer - it is at 100%. I have also save my file with a 128K constant bit rate. This issue occurs without a FM transmitter (I'm sequencing songs mid-summer). While this occurs with all of my audio tracks, this issue was more pronounced when I downloaded a track from SoundCloud. Could this be an audio quality issue? I'm trying to sequence a song produced by a youtuber. Have any of you found that the audio just wasn't good enough for a sequence? I can't use it if people can't hear it. You can turn other software down some so that LOR can match it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilMassey Posted July 25, 2021 Share Posted July 25, 2021 You can use the Amplify effect in Audacity to adjust the level of the song but if it is poorly recorded, or encoded it may start to sound noisy or distorted. You might also look into MP3Gain, a piece of software to normalize the levels of all your songs but again it may affect the quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. P Posted July 25, 2021 Share Posted July 25, 2021 You van use MP3 Gain to level out the volume of all your music: http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/download.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexasLights Posted July 25, 2021 Share Posted July 25, 2021 10 hours ago, Michelle said: I am having the exact same issue. My audio file, when played through SE is significantly lower in volume than the when the same track is played through Windows Media Player or Audacity. i notice that too, in my case, when I switch from SE to SuperStar to edit the same sequence and audio. I have just been dealing with it, but always wondered why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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