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Tópico: What could possibly cause this??

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Thursday night, something really weird happened. After about three hours of playing karaoke songs from another karaoke player( always use VDJ for intermission dance music and videos) the sound just stopped during a song and the song immediately jumped to end and shoed the "played" status.

Here is the weird stuff:
1.) The same thing happened last week with the same singer, but different song and it was 1 hour into the night last week. Same venue.

2.). She had mentioned that she remembered last weeks event occurring exactly the same time as her Grandfather walked into the men's room. Men's room door just behind singer and close to the speaker, but no wires touching the door.

3.) Grandfather says he remembered turning on the light just as it happened, both this week and last.

4.) I did notice a light and fan switch together in the room.

5.) Usb sound card (usb mackie mixer) in use.

6.) Nothing errored out, nothing had to be reset or restarted, simply hit play and the next song started fine and sound was there.

Even if this is caused by some type of weird voltage transient, why would the song jump to the end??
New windows 7 64 bit i5 8 gB ram Dell xps 15z . I have had similar things happen before with windows xp laptop while VDJ was playing, but the audio would stop completely and I would have to restart VDJ after it froze and unplug and replug the usb to mixer back, and always noticed the lil volume icon in task bar would go to 1/2 way up on volume bar and would bring it back to max volume.

Any electrical engineer typesout there with anything to comment??
 
Mensajes Fri 07 Sep 12 @ 8:05 am
I seriously doubt if this has ANYTHING to do with the light / fan on the men's room!!! Especially since the soundcard didn't "fail"
Can we say bad luck? Or a ghost on the room? :P
 
It definetly wasn't a ghost... It might have been "PhantomDeejay"
 
It's obviously the grandfather. He can't stand to hear her voice, so he goes Into the bathroom, and beams a high powered electromagnetic, turbo oscillating, nuclear generated, voltage disruptor, at your console.

OK, that was over the top. Do not rule out an electrical malfunction. I have seen weirder things happen. Try to repeat the turning on the light in the bathroom thing. Are you or her standing on carpet?
 
The girl, high school age, is actually one of the better singers in the room; an amazing voice. He usually sings next in the lineup and drinks coffee all night, but anyway, it is a pool hall with carpetting throughout.
 
In one of my clubs, some time when I left the booth and came back in, just as I was about to touch the mouse, the computer crashed. As in, re boot. I could not figure it out. I finally realized that it only happened in the winter, ie when the heat was on. It was static electricity. I actually heard it through the booth monitor, one time. I got a spray bottle of water, sprayed the carpet, problem solved. I also carry the spray bottle for mobile gigs, that have carpet, because I felt the static while setting up at one gig. I also try to avoid using outlets that share refrigeration units. I have had all manner of faulty outlets, a/c units, bad wiring.
 
I had the static issue once as well. That laptop is only good for piddling around in my garage now. I use one of these to combat static http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Anti-Static-Wrist-Adjustable-Grounding/dp/B00004Z5D1 When I step out of my booth, for whatever reason, I always shake hands with the photographer before I step back behind my system. Discharging the build up, and building relationships with other vendors all at once. Now THAT'S multitasking....
 
A Man and His Music wrote :
In one of my clubs, some time when I left the booth and came back in, just as I was about to touch the mouse, the computer crashed. As in, re boot. I could not figure it out. I finally realized that it only happened in the winter, ie when the heat was on. It was static electricity. I actually heard it through the booth monitor, one time. I got a spray bottle of water, sprayed the carpet, problem solved. I also carry the spray bottle for mobile gigs, that have carpet, because I felt the static while setting up at one gig. I also try to avoid using outlets that share refrigeration units. I have had all manner of faulty outlets, a/c units, bad wiring.


I'm thinking it's not static in my case. Most of these events happened in the summer, of which in Maine, USA, in the summer, is quite humid. But who knows, right?
 
Is it possible that these Usb mixer/soundcards can be extremely sensitive to voltage fluctuations, enough to create these type of audio dropouts?
 
TearEmUp wrote :
When I step out of my booth, for whatever reason, I always shake hands with the photographer before I step back behind my system. Discharging the build up, and building relationships with other vendors all at once. Now THAT'S multitasking....


Now, this is what i call a GENIUS approach to everyday DJ problems!!! Thank you TearEmUp for sharing some "out of the box"- thinking with us...
 
I hate to reactivate an old topic but I am having similar issues. My husband and I both have a small clip on fan on our table to help keep us cool. If I turn off the fan the music will stop. If I unplug the fan it the music will stop. I can switch from high to low with no ill effects. This did not happen with any other software we use or have used. So, before VDJ, I could start tearing down a little early.Now I can not take anything down till the last song plays. Not to mention if it gets cold your out of luck you have to leave the fan on or VDJ will stop playing. I disagree with the above people. The fan/light on the same circuit does have an effect of VDJ for some reason. Some 'signal' is coming through the AC line to VDJ. Just so you know I have a degree in electronics engineering. I am going to try to investigate the at a lower level and attempt to fix the issue. I need to find out why first. This is not something getting unplugged. If I simply turn off the fan the music will stop. these small fans use so little energy that it should not cause a big spike of any kind simply being shut off perhaps a small one but it only stops playback. All you have to do is click play to restart it. nothing locks up. Nothing else appears to happen at all. It simply stops playback. It is like VDJ has some "feature" to read some signal sent via the power lines and turning the fan off is close enough to it to stop the music. Fans are inductive so yes there will be a small spike on the line but nothing the PC can not handle why is the software sensitive to it?
 
I'd be suspecting that the usb cables were acting like an ariel. Making, and breaking a switch can send out a electro magnetic wave.
My first action would be to get short good quality usb cables which have an inline choke.

I put my phone quite close to my mixer / controller over the weekend, and I could hear the phone interference on my speakers.
Moving the phone away got rid of the problem.
Interesting.. I was using the phone as a wifi hotspot.
A low voltage usb signal may be vulnerable to electro magnetic waves.
 
Try this. Delete the S and P commands in the keyboard mapper and see if that helps. Maybe the fan is activating these commands, on your keyboard, which is stop and pause. You did not say but is this fan plugged into an outlet or usb?
 
 
A Man and His Music wrote :
beams a high powered electromagnetic, turbo oscillating, nuclear generated, voltage disruptor, at your console.


or you could of said EMP :P
 


I test all plugs with this before I use them as some had ground issues and some had other issues. Bring it everywhere. Being plugged into a line that has a fridge or compressor can cause a phase issue.
 
That device say nothing about what's happening during the gig, of course.
It just verify that line is OK within normal aspects at that specific point of testing.
You never know what equipment is hooked up to the very the same phase you're using that particular evening. Or when the big dishwasher machines start up in the kitchen.
it gives you a brief verification that outlet has proper ground, and a voltage within limits for the time of testing.
 


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