Crackle in Winamp 5 (fixed)

[OMFG]

When I play an MP3 (or OGG) in Winamp 5, I get a crackle. When I play the same MP3 in WMP 8 (standard XP one), it is fine. In fact, it sounds brighter in WMP. If I EQ the track, it is OK, but I don't want to have to resort to EQing. How do I solve this? I have NO DSP on, it is ALL standard free winamp, default settings, as is WMP. The crackle is clipping on the mid bands. Please don't suggest turning the volume down, this doesn't stop the clipping and I can play it at full volume in WMP (which actually sounds louder than in Winamp). I have looked at other suggestions, none work (e.g. using directsound already)

Also, how do I turn off the gay fade in thing that happens whenever you pause, or move to another section of the track, or go to another track?

[DJ Egg]

A bit better... still a slight hint of attitude, but better


Prefs (Ctrl+P) -> Plugins -> Output -> DirectSound -> config


Device tab:

1) Change the device in the drop down menu from Primary Sound Driver to match the name of your soundcard driver.

2) Checkmark "enable hardware acceleration"

If this is grayed out, then it means your sound card/chip drivers don't support this feature. You might be able to fix this by going to the pc or motherboard manufacturer's website and installing the latest chipset and onboard audio drivers. If it's a pci sound card (as opposed to onboard), then install the mobo chipset drivers (as above) and also visit the soundcard manufacturer's site for the latest sound drivers. DirectX v8.0 or higher is also required, though v9.0c is recommended.

3) If your sound card/chip is old (pre year ~2000/1999 model) or of poor quality
then it is recommended that you checkmark "create primary buffer"
(fixes sound quality problems for old soundcards)


Buffering tab:

1) Checkmark: Enable cpu usage

2) Add some value to the "Buffer Ahead on Track Change" slider,
eg. anything between 300ms and 1200ms

This will smooth out the transition between track changes. The higher the value, the smaller the gap. This feature is ostensibly used to enable gapless playback.

Default main buffer length = 2000ms
Default prebuffer length = 500ms


Fading tab:

1) Hi-lite "on pause/stop" and uncheck "enabled"

This will get rid of your second problem.

2) To disable all other fades/crossfades, repeat for all other entries, although the top three options should already be disabled by default.


Other tab:

(Optional)
1) Checkmark: Remove silence at beginning/end of track
Default "Cut Off" value = -40dB

If you find that the gaps between tracks are now too small, you can either disable this feature, or increase the value (to eg. -50dB or -100dB)

Note: this feature is required for gapless mp3 playback, eg. on mix cd's ripped to mp3.



Re: WMP 8/9
afaik, it uses the SRS Wow Effect by default.

The equivalent plugin for Winamp can be found here.
Note, you need to register it online, but registration is currently free.
Though there's plenty of other excellent free DSP/FX plugins available.
My current fave is the Jammix Enhancer


Let's see if this helps.
btw, you're a very lucky person, hehe
Let us know how it goes...


If the problem persists, then please supply all relevant system specs:
pc or motherboard make/model, cpu/ram, graphics & sound cards, windows os, directx version.

[OMFG]

Well, its 2am so I can't turn the sound up very loud, but all seems ok

Many, many thanks for your help

Sorry for ranting and hurling abuse, I know its not nice to hear unnecessary criticism of a product you spent time producing. I know it doesn't justify it, but there's been an upset in the family that's kinda hit us for six. I guess I was rather *!$£ed off that when I wanted to chill to some music, the music sounded worse than a bowl of Rice Krispies!

If it helps anyone with similar problems, my spec is a P4 2.4GHz on an Asus P4S8X Deluxe, 512Mb DDR333 Samsung RAM, Seagate 120Gb SATA HDD as master, 2x Maxtor 80 UDMA133 as slaves, GeForce 4 Ti4200 128Mb GFX card. (AC97 on board sound, not using my Terratec in this machine).

Of course, I do like winamp! That's why I've been using it since the early days. And I never had Winamp 2 on this machine, which is why I never had the problem before I guess. I had a SB Live Platinum in the other machine.

On the other problem, its kinda growing on me I guess, but I have 2 questions:

What's the default setting for the fade?

Would it be possible to suggest a possible feature for a future update? Separate the pause/stop option - I don't mind a stop fade too much, but its the pause that gets on my nerves!!!

[Kado]

The default fade lenght will make all enabled fades to have that lenght (in ms) unless you "use custom fade time" that will force a specific fade (like the fade on pause/stop") to have a custom time value!

[lordstryker]

tried that

I've had similar problems and i've tried all above recommendations. increasing buffer, enabling cpu control, enabling hardware acceleration, have tried increasing cpu priority as well. Mp3's continue to skip and give buzzes for most songs.

Abit Vb-7 mb
DUAL PIII 800mhz
756mb ram
Sound blaster Live! value
directx9.0b
Radeon 9600 graphics card
Windows XP pro

Cpu usage runs between 5-15% when running mp3's, with more then plenty memory free as well. Will skip whether or not im running other applications in the background

[DJ Egg]

afaik, SB Live's weren't designed to run with dual processors.
See this thread where in this post a Creative Labs representative said:

QUOTE:
"We do not support systems with multi-processors"


Everything else we know about SB Live/Audigy cards is covered here


Also make sure you've installed the 5.03a update patch


The only other thing I can suggest for now is that you look for and install all chipset driver updates for your motherboard... however, I can't seem to find any info about Abit Vb-7 anywhere. Are you sure that's the correct model # ?


Also note that this thread says "(Fixed)" in the topic title

[bklynboy20]

These are my specs ... and I've got the crackle issue...

pc or motherboard make/model - SOYO KV7EM pro - DA1
cpu - AMD Duron Processor
ram - 122,352 kb
soundcard - VIA AC'97 Audio (WAVE)
windows os - 2000 pro
directx version - 9.0b

I didn't have this problem when I first started using winamp with win 2000, but then the other day it simply started and none of the tweaks listed in the forum help ... setting it to my soundcard instead of generic just seems to make it worse. The easy answer may be that my computer is a generic piece of crap, but hopefully there's another solution.

Thanks.

[brokenticker]

Have been reading through the threads looking for a solution to the pops and crackles I get in my music tracks. I have tried everything you guy's have mentioned but I don't think it's a problem with the player I having, I think that the player is ripping the noise from the cd's themselves. Can you recommend a "good" and simple noise filter plug-in to remove the unwanted noise in audio tracks?

Win XP SP1
Intel D875PBZ(no onboard audio)
P4 3.2ghz
SB Audigy2 ZS Platinum
2048mb PC3200 400mhz
DirectX 9.0b
Creative Soundworks Playworks 5.1 speakers

All the drivers are up to date, but I don't think it's a driver issue anyway.

The Audigy2 apps have a built-in filter for this kind of noise but alas it only wil work with their DVD player program(go figure).

Personally, if I can still hear myself think, then it's not loud enough, but I would perfer to not blow my speakers with the excess noise. Any suggestion would be appreciated. Thx.

[gaekwad2]

EAC includes a tool to remove pops and glitches (and a secure ripping mode that prevents them from happening in the first place).

A noise filter will only remove constant noise.

[Grantley]

Digital '0' crackle

Here's another suggestion for crackle problem solving.
I am using an AUDACITY 7.1 PCI soundcard with digital OPTICAL outputs into a Sony Multichannel Home theatre amplifier. I was getting the same crackling from Winamp but also other audio editing & replay applications.What I found was that the soundcard was being overdriven in the SPDIF output section at the digital zero level and causing the signal to clip which results in a crackle or audio 'splat' where the signal reaches the limit. If you are using a similar setup, goto the mixer level control section for your soundcard & back off the 'PCM SPDIF' level a notch or two. Cheers.

[TheShah]

Fixed my crackle pop and hiss sound

After a lot of frustration and performing a serious process of elimination to my hardware I eventually discovered that if I moved my second hard drive from the Secondary to the Primary IDE channel on the motherboard, I no longer had the hissing and crackling problems.

I'm not sure exactly why this is, but I do know that when my second drive was on the secondary IDE channel and it was accessed in any way (it was my temp and paging disk so consequently accessed a lot!), it would cause not just WinAmp and Windows Media Player to crackle but even the mouse would freeze for a fraction of a second every couple of seconds. I would say it's some kind of a fault of my motherboard's (Thanks for selling me your dodgy kit Ed!) , although it's fine reading CDs from the secondary IDE channel.

Anyway, although it's highly unlikely this will be the reason for anyone else's crackles, it's certainly worth a quick try, and also will help other sufferers of this problem to perhaps look down other avenues and try their own process of elimination at a base level.

Another tip for anyone with this problem would be to end each process in the Task Manager one at a time to see if there is any particular program running that is hogging the CPU thus causing glitches in the sound.

[STanger]

I had the same problems but the answer to the problem in my case was my mouse.

I have a Logitech MediaPlay usb wireless mouse ..the software that comes with it lets you open Winamp5 ..WiMP and a few others by a button push on the mouse itself .. well the program detection started getting flaky ..sometimes the media button on the mouse would open winamp and sometimes it wouldn't ..I change and recharge my batteries daily ..but now you might think this couldn't have been the cause but I uninstalled then reinstalled setpoint 2.14( the logitech software and latest version) and the clicks and hisses stopped

<edit>also the EQ in the Realtek AC'97 drivers was turned on and the output gain was jacked up as well .. but the clicks and hisses didn't stop til I uninstalled and reinstalled setpoint</edit>

[muf]

I have also had the same issue ever since Winamp5 came out (I avoided Winamp3 for obvious reasons), and have kept going back to Winamp2, which doesn't have this crackle/pop "feature". Though Winamp2 has its own quirks (most notable of which is the inability to play files with filenames outside the current system ANSI codepage), so I've kept coming back to Winamp5, then getting annoyed with the pops, and then switching back to Winamp2. This time I'd like to just get a solution instead. I know they're not in the original recordings, because a) Winamp2 plays them fine, and b) it happens with both MP3s and generated music, such as MODs, XMs, SIDs, NFS, etc. Generally being a troubleshooter I've tried most settings, the primary buffer thing, all of the other stuff mentioned in here, etc. It's also not my hardware (I think), it's happened across different machines with different (though all in common that the soundchip in question was onboard) motherboards and soundchips.

Current b0rking setup:
SoundMAX Digital Audio
Certified: yes, emulated: no
Supports sample rates from 100 Hz to 48000 Hz (continuous)
Hardware memory: N/A
Hardware mixing: supported, 31 free streams (33 max)
Speaker setup: stereo

In a few weeks/months I'm getting this thing, which will resolve all of the audio issues I'm currently having (most important of which is electromagnetic interference)-- EXCEPT this one. Anyone any ideas left?

[Khruschev]

Hi

I have the same problem. I tried to tweak my DSP settings and it still crackles here and there. By crackle I mean I can hear an actual crackle, or the music would kind of skip a bit, or sometimes even a really fast staccato playback. I recently had to reinstall everything, and this problem has only arisen after my reinstallation of Windows XP. System Specs:

Dell Dimension 4600
P4 2.4 Ghz CPU
1.25 Gb DDR Single Channel RAM
4 Hard drives (2 hooked up by PCI-IDE Adapter)
GeForce FX 5200 128 Mb Video card
DirectX 9.0C
2 DVD drives
SoundMAX (Built in) audio card.

[DJ Egg]

DSP settings? You mean you're using some 3rd-party DSP/Effects plugin?