Headphone volume control

BeatBuddy Help, Questions and Bugs
1

Helo,
every time i start a song or switch to a fill the display shows the message “Headphone volume control 0 %”
and this message takes the whole beat before it dissapear.

Is it a bug?

Werner

2

Please consider using forum search to quickly find out the answer for this (and, probably, many other questions as well).
This was discussed many times.
TLDR: this effect is likely to disappear after some time you twist your headphones volume.

3

sorry i was searching but maybe not the right term?

To your answer, no it was not after twisting the headphone volume! After i unplugged it from power and started the bb again the same problem appeared. After unplugging again and waiting for as long as 1 minute the problem was not there anymore!

My question again, Is it a bug?

Werner

4

The headphone volume wheel is very sensitive and is held on by a tiny screw and may need tightening some have also used a dab of glue to keep the screw in place. I removed mine but am thinking of re-attaching it.

5

okay i will look after it

Werner

6

I believe updated firmware resolved this.

7

i have already firmware version 1.29 installed!

Werner

8

I thought I was having this issue and then realized that the footswitch cable was occasionally rubbing the wheel while I was pressing the pedal or the footswitch.

9

Yeah, the plastic disk is probably overly sensitive.

10

I also just realized that the headphone volume knob actually ‘clicks’ to an off position. I never read that anywhere…

11

I had a similar problem this week with Headhone Volume:0% message on screen. This message is displayed every 32 beats/bars in any Genre or song whilst the song is playing. It stays on screen for several bars before returning to the song. The song still plays in the background though. I tried powering off/on but the problem persisted over several days. In the end I deleted everything from the SD card and reloaded the backup folders. The problem seems to have gone now.

12

This problem tends to go away if you twist your headphones volume up and down.
Though if you twist your headphone volume a little bit too much, the plastic disk (that is itself headphone volume) tends to fall away as the tiny screw that holds it in place gets unscrewed :slight_smile:

That problem is also very easy to be fixed, but if you screw the disk overly tight, you might get back to headphone volume bug again!
So take care! :slight_smile:

13

Hi,
my problem was the same and i made a copy of the sd card and pluged the new one in sice this time my problem is gone away also!

Werner

14

Hi Werner. I’m curios if your volume issue has returned after reformatting your SD Card?

While I recognize there’s is mechanical issue with the Volume knob itself, I’m not convinced it’s the only reason for the Volume issue.

I agreed with Myles, the Volume display pops up on the display after about every 8 measures - in my case. My Headphone volume switch is turned off completely. In fact, I rarely used the Headphone volume and it’s very secure.

I’m on my second BB since support replaced my first one for a different reason. But the issue started occurring right after I plugged the new one in and started playing. I have the latest firmware.

I’ve read the other threads about this and I wonder, Daefecator, do you know if the development team recognizes this as an issue and they are working on it. Or, should I email them?

Thanks,

Jeff

15

I have finally detected the code for the headphones volume and can now comment with being 100% sure of why this happens.

  1. The headphones volume knob gives a nonlinear value across the board. When the knob is clicked off, it gives a value of 0. When at a maximum it gives at about 3600. But when it is about halfway up it gives a value of 400!
  2. When you ask for a value, there is a significant hardware error - for example, let’s say you know the volume should give you 400 (it’s halfway up) - assume you are asking for a value 10 times. You can easily get 346, 425, 376, 368, 436, 431, 404, 437, 380, 397.
  3. The value is currently extrapolated poorly so you have at about 30% volume halfway up the knob instead of 50%.

Combining the two issues - any hardware error when close to 0% sound will give a huge error in a result percentage sound due to non-linearity of the scale! That’s why headphones volume dialog tends to constantly show up.
I still have no idea why my pedal tends to give the least hardware error when close to 50% sound.

I am now attempting the solution of fixing it via the ring buffer to smooth the point 2, and approximate the result volume from point 1 through volume = 50*pow(value/400, log(2)/log(9)) function to get better results for point 3. But this might give some strange results closer to 0%, like minimal sound will be at about 14%, then you click it off to get 0%. On the positive side, you will get a very smooth volume increment going through all the twist, as currently it is close to impossible to get like 75% sound - you twist a bit, and get 67%, twist up a bit - 81%, down a bit - 63%. Check it out :slight_smile:

As far as I know, the official dev team already applied some workaround solution for the issue in the most recent firmwares up to 1.2.9, as I only have the code for 1.2.5.

16

Hi Daefecator.

Thanks for digging into this. Good find.

Given your explanation, it sounds like the preferred setting for now, is 50 percent?

Also, since the focus has been on the Headphone volume, If i understand you correctly I will see this issue even when I have the Headphone clicked in the off position. Because even at Zero, the values are incorrect.

Do we know if this issue occurs with the Main volume?

Don’t take this as conclusive. But last night my BB was going crazy with the volume issue. I was using the L/R outs. And, for the heck of it I switched to the Headphone Out jack and the problem went away. I do not know whether this was something random but since this is still under investigation I thought I would put it out there as an FYI. Perhaps without knowing it I had the Headphone volume at 50 %!

I know some other folks have mentioned reformatting the SD Card. So perhaps we think we’re fixing something, but not.

Thanks again for the informative update, I’ll be watching this thread.

Jeff

17

Main volume is very easy to handle as it gives a totally linear inverted scale. 0% is 4095, 100% is 0, 50% is 2047. So while it also gives slightly inaccurate values, it is handled correctly giving no significant issues with sound.

18

Thanks. A slightly related question, perhaps.

Is the BB supposed to be outputting any sound when the Volumes are at Zero? When listening, I can still faintly here the output sound. Or should the unit be dead quiet when set to zero.

19

I cannot tell you how it is supposed to be, but you already know how it acts now :slight_smile:

I’ll pay attention to this when I’ll be hacking into the sound encoder.

20

Hi Daefecator… some more info about why I asked…

I own a VoiceLive 3, and in TC Helicon’s Forum, a bunch of us BB users have been working with TC Helicon on a fix for some looper issues. However, one thing we noticed and worth mentioning here, has to do with BB’s volume. I’ll let you be the judge if you think what I describe can be fixed, and is related to what you found so far with the volume values.

BB connects to the VL3’s Aux input. When using BB’s L/R 1/4 Jacks, and the Volume is a Zero, and BB is playing, you can still hear BB on the VL3 side. For now, we’re calling this ‘bleed-over’, and it’s a faint sound. Not very loud, but definitely noticeable.

I was able to reproduce this same issue with other devices including a very simple amp setup.
When I turn up the Amp volume to about 25 percent and higher, I can hear BB.

This is why I had the question earlier about whether BB should be dead quiet when the Volume is at Zero.

Now, the Headphone out is a little better, but also there’s some sound coming out. It might be because there’s the two controls to make it more quiet.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks, Jeff