Music signifcantly loud / cuts out every 20 - 40 seconds

[Not One Of Us]

Having some trouble here with the volume that comes through HLDJ, and also with it cutting out/skipping a couple times per minute, though they might be related.

After converting several tracks to the Source format (11,025 Hz, 16-bit, Mono) and testing them out in TF2, I've found the audio levels to be significantly louder than the actual audio files, which are set to peak at less than -6 dB to avoid any audible static. Changing my mic levels (using a mic/line-in 2 port, with TF2 configured to accept it instead of forcing line-in 1) makes no difference in the transmitted volume.

Additionally, at what I'd guesstimate to be every twenty to forty seconds, the audio cuts out for a quick moment (less than a second). I've not been able to tell if it's consistent with the placement in the songs, but it does seem to happen regardless of what I'm playing. I'm thinking it may be related to the over-amped audio, but I'm not sure.

[Renegade]

There should be a "transmit volume" option in the game mic options. If this doesn't work (or even if it does), you can reduce volume at conversion time: Reducing Bass & Volume. There are other volume options you may be able to control in-game; try playing around with the volume vars you see listed in the list generated by entering "cvarlist volume_*".

The other problem sounds like the result of voice fade-out time: make sure voice_fadeouttime is being set to 0 (HLDJ should do this automatically anyways though). If it is, then it may be lag, you can try another server. HLDJ also has network optimizations in options that may help to reduce, but I only recommend using these if you are aware of their effect and know how to tweak them.

[Not One Of Us]

The in-game volume control for transmitting makes no difference, as it only controls the mic/line-in 1, and I use a line-in 2 port on my sound card's drive bay; and that is already quite low. This is just an annoyance, rather, as it seems Source increases the volume whether or not you want it to, so I can just reduce the volume of the sound in the actual audio files to get around this.

voice_fadeouttime is set to "0.0" (and resets itself to 0.0 despite me setting it to just 0, but I don't think this makes a difference) so it doesn't seem to be that. As for lag, well, the primary server I'm testing on is my own created game.

I'm not familiar with the network optimization settings, but if you could give me a run through on their effects I could give it a shot.

[Renegade]

Interesting setup... why not just go in through the mic port?
For quality testing, you may want to test on a good dedicated server.

There are a lot of rumours and tricks to network optimizations, luckily it's a bit easier for Source (first try the above, then this if it's still not working):
1. Start off by taking note of your current values for cl_updaterate and cl_cmdrate (so you can default back to them). If you find online play generally non-laggy and otherwise acceptable, you should keep these values. I think they should be set somewhere between 35 and 45.
2. Go into HLDJ's Options dialog, and select the Optimizations tab, Enable network optimizations.
3. Enter the default values you got in step 1 into the Default box for the corresponding variables.
4. For the Optimized box, you'll want to try something lower (start off with half of default). What you're doing here is minimizing game traffic to allow more voice traffic to get through. Basically, cl_cmdrate controls the rate at which you send the server updates (per second), and updaterate the rate at which you receive them.
5. Once you're satisfied with the values, hit ok and test them out in game. HLDJ will automatically set the optimized values during playback and reset them to default once stopped. You can continue to make adjustments and try them out until you get results you like; but there's no guarantee that it will make a noticeable difference.

Let me know how it goes.

[Not One Of Us]

I use the Line-in 2 port because it's a part of front drive-bay for my soundcard. Rather convenient for plugging in headphones and mics, and also being able to control volume from there.

Ran some tests with different settings for cl_updaterate and cl_cmdrate on a private dedicated server I have access to, but nothing seemed to change. However, while going through console in-game, I did discover something of interest.

Checking the cvarlist, I found various entries for voice commands. I haven't messed with most of them, yet, one did manage catch my eye: "voice_maxgain." The value mine was set at was 10, and after testing lower settings, this seems to be the source for my first issue (transmitted audio being significantly louder). 10 being quite amped up, 0 being muted and 1 being normal.

I wonder now if one of these settings could be the cause of the cutting out problem. Could you go over the list and compare to what I've got here?

[Renegade]

aside from maxgain (and your volume being 0...) here's some other values to try:
voice_overdrive 1
voice_steal 0.5
voice_dsound 1
If these have no effect, make sure to set them back to their defaults.
Also, setting net_graph to 3 will uncover any network problems should they exist (i.e. packet loss/choke).

[Not One Of Us]

The volume being 0 in the cvarlist is only due to it not being able to show point differences (it's actually 0.8).

Anyways, after quite a bit more testing, which included going so far as to remove everything from Steam and doing a fresh install of TF2 (yes, I went this far), I think I'm on track to discovering the cause:

The momentary cut out seems to be tied to my frames per second.

Early on I tested if this was performance related, as I run on very high settings, so I jacked them all down to the lowest. This showed no change at the time; however, I just tried something else recently that I didn't before: disabling Vertical Sync. Before this attempt, the approximate time till the music had its first cut-out was the same, regardless of what settings I adjusted; however, with Vertical Sync turned off, and therefor my frames not capping out at 60 (averaging between 60 - 90 fps), the time till the first instance of the music cutting out was increased, till I estimate about 50 - 70 seconds. Continuing with this, I tried again turning down all the graphical settings, this time also with V-Sync turned off (resulting in frames from 100 - 200) - in standard runs, I found the music to never cut out*.

No packet loss, and any choke that pops up seems to have no relation. As best as I can tell it's tied to my fps in some way, though what is forcing it is beyond me. Any ideas?


*Of Note: while not entirely consistent, I've found that there is another sign it's tied to my fps, regardless of graphical settings, including, or not, V-Sync. In this case, going to the knee-high water section underneath 2fort, looking almost straight down and the water and firing off the scattergun in succession causes my frames to drop to the 20's, even 10's at times, due to the water effects. When doing so, it sometimes forces the music to cut-out for a moment. It is only somewhat consistent, however, but the most I had to go on before the recent test with V-Sync.

[Renegade]

Interesting, that could be another culprit, though I'd assume its affects to be local only (i.e. playback for other players should be unaffected), ask any server mates if they hear the same thing you do.
Other than that, I guess continue to play with lower quality/higher performance settings for now and see if it occurs again.