I hope this might save someone...

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Tyrone Blue

Tyrone Blue

DMX professional & Retired Police Officer
Oct 31, 2006
250
266
Central - Northern MN
I had a mishap tonight that has never happened. I hope my experience helps one of you sometime.

I tried to fire up the music for the bar gig tonight, and there was no sound. I have a desktop mounted under my gig bench. It stays with the gig bench... in fact I have it padlocked in, since it's always out where the public can touch it. I used the gig bench last night at a wedding in the same building. All was perfect then. All I did was to roll it three floors down to the bar. So, at the normal start time... I hit "play" and nothing...

I got my laptop, and was able to get the music going. Then, I started to trace the problem with my desktop. I knew my mixer was fine, because my laptop was producing sound on channel 2. I checked the inputs and outputs to make sure they were connected... all good. I then checked the "speaker" icon on the lower right of my desktop... and low and behold... the speakers were "muted". I have no idea how that happened... they were perfect last night at the wedding. Having the laptop as a backup saved my butt.

I'm guessing a power spike did something to my system and shut off my speakers... somehow (a circuit needed to be reset last night). No need to painc... double check all of your connections and always check you music source. And, have backups.
 
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I had that happen a few weeks ago. I could not get any sound out of channel one.

After a few hectic minutes of checking equipment, I finally checked the audio device properties and saw the left side was muted.

How that happened I'll never know...
 
I am assuming that you all must be using either your onboard soundcards as the main music source out or your external soundcard as the main one out. My external soundcard that I use is only for Traktor since I need multiple outs. The only place where a mute will apply will be in Traktor itself. In other words, if Windows mute is on, it would not affect my external soundcard since it is assigned only to Traktor.

For Karaoke I do use the onboard soundcard since it is only one stereo channel out and I don't need a headphone to preview that output. I guess that would be the place where a Windows mute may apply.
 
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Canute, be careful. I have an external USB audio box (Presonus) and normally it works fine. One time it was hooked up and lo-and-behold, the mute was set on the device in the Playback Devices menu as well as it not being the default output. Had to click to make it default and click to unmute. I now have a shortcut on the desktop to the device properties (Sound in the control panel) just to check it before I fire up.
 
steve149 said:
Canute, be careful. I have an external USB audio box (Presonus) and normally it works fine. One time it was hooked up and lo-and-behold, the mute was set on the device in the Playback Devices menu as well as it not being the default output. Had to click to make it default and click to unmute. I now have a shortcut on the desktop to the device properties (Sound in the control panel) just to check it before I fire up.
Click to expand...
Steve, I just this minute tried this so in my case I know it is fact. While Traktor was playing I opened the Volume settings for Windows and clicked "Mute", NOTHING HAPPENED. Traktor kept on playing WITH SOUND. Windows will only control the soundcard to which it is assigned. The only device that uses my Gigaport Soundcard is Traktor. Everything else uses the Onboard soundcard. Your laptop may differ!
BTW whenever I do karaoke plus DJ Music, I use both soundcards at the same time but they are separate. I configured things this way so I won't have any issues with any sound from other devices mixing with Traktor.
 
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ahoustondj said:
Steve, I just this minute tried this so in my case I know it is fact. While Traktor was playing I opened the Volume settings for Windows and clicked "Mute", NOTHING HAPPENED. Traktor kept on playing WITH SOUND. Windows will only control the soundcard to which it is assigned. The only device that uses my Gigaport Soundcard is Traktor. Everything else uses the Onboard soundcard. Your laptop may differ!
BTW whenever I do karaoke plus DJ Music, I use both soundcards at the same time but they are separate. I configured things this way so I won't have any issues with any sound from other devices mixing with Traktor.
Click to expand...

Not the Windows volume control or mute .. there is another device specific one that apparently can be set separately. Go to - CONTROL PANEL - HARDWARE & SOUND - MANAGE AUDIO DEVICES - under the PLAYBACK TAB - (select the device - USB audio, etc.) - PROPERTIES - LEVELS - There is a device specific set of volume and mute controls. On mine that mute was set and the default playback device was the built in speakers.

Had to make the USB the default and unmute it .. only happened one time but I now check it every time.
 
Tyrone, this sounds like a windows glitch. Weird things happen with windows all the time. Smart to have a backup ready and waiting. You can't have enough backup IMO. This also illustrates that sometimes it's the simplest things that go haywire and sometimes they're so obvious that they can be overlooked. With windows I've found that after shutting down and powering back up, some things are changed without doing anything. It's not all the time, just once in a while.
 
Rick... can you tell me what buttons those are? It's very possible that either I accedentally hit some keys, or a customer was playing with my keyboard (even though I have it covered and back in a corner). But, this will never happen to me again (22 years, and I'm still learning)... I'll always check.
 
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One of the Windows 7 Desktop I have has muted itself a couple of times. Now, maybe it's time to put together a checklist to go through when something like this pops up (Lighting, audio, electrical, etc.) at times when something like this blindsides you your brain may panic and everything that's logical gets scrambled and one starts sweating. So the list may be helpful just in case.
 
I don't think there's any big mystery. It's not unusual for software to reconfigure itself should the system get powered up without certain devices connected, or should the devices be disconnected prior to a proper close or shutdown. That may be especially true with USB connections since they are so commonly swapped out.

Most of the time when I encounter unexpected setting changes like that it is because the PC was powered up and an application opened without all the proper devices connected or powered up; or because some change was made prior to the last shut down.

Someone also mentioned hot-key combinations;and if your application uses the same keys as windows you could trigger a change anytime your application is not the active window. Programs with layered windows will sometimes leave you out on the desktop when you exit new windows - and it easily goes unnoticed.
 
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