LuminAudio question .... yes "LuminAudio" from Randy 10-15 years ago

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16 years ago I purchased a LedWiz and obtained Randy's LuminAudio application to make my LEDs dance to the music coming from my jukebox.  Everything worked great.

10 years ago I had to replace my Jukebox PC.   After replacing the PC, my jukebox was working again but the LuminAudio application no longer flashed the LEDs to the music at all.   I could not figure out what was wrong so I just decided to live without the flashing LEDs and enjoy that my jukebox was finally working again.

Today ...

I was showing a friend my jukebox cabinet and told them the sides of my jukebox were designed with LEDs that used to flash with the music but that they did not currently work.   It was at this time I decided I really should try to determine why the LEDs were not flashing (better late than never)   

Below is my progress so far, which had some good results, but things are still not working properly.   I am hoping someone who used Randy's LedWiz and LuminAudio application 10-15 years ago might be able to help me out.

a) I use 10 ports on the LedWiz (21 thru 30).   Each port is used to connect 4 to 5 blue LEDs which are wired inline to each other.

b) I opened the LedWiz application and entered the "LumaAura Control" page.  I selected each LedWiz port (21 thru 30) and verified that all of my LEDs light up successfully, which was nice to see after 10 years.  I then deselected all of the ports and closed the LedWiz application.

c) I started the "LuminAudio" application, clicked "1" (to enable my one LedWiz board), clicked "Start Output" and started some music on my Jukebox, but no LEDs were blinking.  This is not surprising, as this is what happened 10 years ago.

d) After a quick investigation on BYOAC, I realized the "LuminAudio" application needs the "Stereo Mix" setting, for my integrated audio card, to be enabled.   After enabling "Stereo Mix" and retesting, I discovered 7 of 10 LED ports are now interacting to the music and flashing my blue LEDs, while 3 ports of LEDs never light up at all.  I have tried various songs and none of them seem to result in the 3 ports lighting up at all


Questions:

1) Why does the LuminAudio application only light up 7 of the 10 ports of LEDs when music is playing, even though the LedWiz application confirms all LEDs work successfully?

2) After stopping the music from playing, there are 4 ports of the LEDs that remain dimly(not flashing) lit up even though no music is playing.  I would expect all LEDs to turn off when no music in on.


I am happy that 7 out of 10 LED ports are blinking to the music after 10 years, but since I have come this far, I was hoping to see if I could get the remaining issues resolved as well.   Hopefully someone can help out.

[RandyT]

Nice to see that someone is still using the software besides me

There are a number of things which could be causing this.  The first thing I would do is make sure that you have the latest version and that the control panel app isn't running in the background, just in case it has a function defined for the outputs which aren't responding. 

Second, if you have a USB 2.0 on the machine, and that isn't what you have the LED-Wiz connected to, you should swap it over to that port.  The fallback functionality of many USB 3.(x) ports is sketchy on a lot of machines which is why even new machines typically have both.

Third, see if the software behaves differently when the "turbo" function is disabled,  or if the slider for that function is changed.  There were some USB chipsets in the wild which required a 1-2ms delay between data packets for the data to be unpacked correctly.  If nothing changes when the turbo selection is disabled, it should probably be left on for the best performance.

The rest could be linked to the sliders or the LWA file being used.  Try different modes and/or LWA files to see if the behavior changes.  Changing the input volume in the mixer setting can also affect the lighting algorithms.

*edit*
Also, understand that the software really expects to see RGB LEDs on the ports, in the order of R,G,B,R,G,B,etc...  Some of the algorithms may use certain colors very sparingly, or need the sliders to be cranked up to get them to display more often.  It's possible that the ones which aren't lighting could be on ports meant for a specific color, and adjusting the sliders could wake them up.

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SUCCESS !     Thanks for chiming in Randy.  Much appreciated.   


I actually tested everything you recommended backwards ...

>> Third, see if the software behaves differently when the "turbo" function is disabled,  or if the slider for that function is changed
I unchecked the "turbo" option but that made no difference.    I then moved the slider located under the Turbo checkbox to various settings and that did not make a difference either

>>Second, if you have a USB 2.0 on the machine
I am using an ancient PC with Windows XP SP3 so I doubt USB 2.0 even exists.   I did switch the LedWiz USB port to a different port (just for the heck of it), but that did not make any difference

>> .. [make sure] ... that the control panel app isn't running in the background
I assume by "control panel app" you mean the LedWiz application.   I made sure the LedWiz application was closed.

>>The rest could be linked to the sliders or the LWA file being used
I have never used a LWA file.  Not sure what that is anymore.   I usually just start your application and see LEDs blinking, which is good enough for me. 

>> ...  the software really expects to see RGB LEDs on the port
My LEDs are simple BLUE LEDs only.   Not using any RGB LEDs as my jukebox cabinet is blue-themed (see below).

>>first thing I would do is make sure that you have the latest version
I finally downloaded the latest version (from the link you provided) and after using the newly provided EXE, all the LED lights started blinking now.  I did have to turn the "Stereo Mix" volume level half way down to get the lights to blink nicely though.   Having full volume resulted in solid LED lights always on.

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>>2) After stopping the music from playing, there are 4 ports of the LEDs (2 on each side) that remain dimly(not flashing) lit up even though no music is playing.  I would expect all LEDs to turn off when no music in on.

Any idea how to resolve this one?   When no music is playing on my jukebox then 4 LED ports (2 on each side of the cabinet) remain dimly lit.   The only way to turn off the LED lights is to minimize my jukebox software and close the LuminAudio application, which is not ideal.   Not a huge problem, but since I leave my jukebox on for weeks at a time, it would be nice not to have to keep turning on the LuminAudio before starting some music.

[RandyT]

Any idea how to resolve this one?   When no music is playing on my jukebox then 4 LED ports (2 on each side of the cabinet) remain dimly lit.   The only way to turn off the LED lights is to minimize my jukebox software and close the LuminAudio application, which is not ideal.   Not a huge problem, but since I leave my jukebox on for weeks at a time, it would be nice not to have to keep turning on the LuminAudio before starting some music.

Maybe posting a screenshot of the Luminaudio panel would help.  IIRC, the base animations leave the blue LEDs lit at a low level instead of turning them off completely in the absence of sound.  This was done with the mindset that illuminated stuff should continue to be at least somewhat illuminated in their static state.  I would guess that those which remain lit are those outputs which the algorithm expected to be attached the blue component of an RGB LED, which again, is what the software was really designed for. 

If you want to continue to use the default algorithm, you may need to move the connections from those which are remaining lit to an R or G output, instead of the B they are most likely connected to now.  But if you can provide me a screenshot of your settings and tell me which of the outputs those persistent lights are connected to on the LED-Wiz, I can tell you why with a bit more confidence.

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The first picture (pic1.jpg) shows all 10 LED assignments in the LEDWiz (ports 21 - 30).   After activating all of these 10 ports, I can see all of my 10 BLUE LEDs illuminated(on).

The second picture (pic2.jpg) shows the 4 LED assignments that are related to the 4 LEDs that remain dimly lit when no music is playing (ports 21, 24, 27 and 30).

The third picture (pic3.jpg) shows the Lumin Audio DEF application when it is started.   I keep all of the settings as they currently are and simply click "Start" then start playing music to see the BLUE LEDs flash to the music.

I am assuming you might indicate that I should rewire ports 21/24/27/30 to be on LEDWiz ports 19/20/31/32 instead, but please confirm.

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>>I am assuming you might indicate that I should rewire ports 21/24/27/30 to be on LEDWiz ports 19/20/31/32 instead

I finally had time to try this (see pic4.jpg below for new wiring on the LEDWiz) and it seems to work most of time so I am happy. 

When the current song is PAUSED or FINISHED playing then occasionally some of the LEDs remain fully lit, but this is only occasional though.   When this does occur, then I can simply start/stop another song quickly and the LEDs go out since no music is playing once again.   Basically, at least I can keep the LuminAudio application active when no songs are playing while having a way to ensure the LED lights are no longer lit.

Thanks for your help Randy !

[RandyT]

Basically, the solution you arrived at is mapping the monochrome (blue) LEDs to the outputs normally reserved for the Green and Red LEDs.  The default algorithms maintain only the blue LEDs at a low output level when there is silence, again, to provide some default lighting to RGB buttons when "idling".  This was a deliberate feature.

But what you did was good for your use case.  Tweaking the sliders should still work fine to tune the lighting activity.  You just may need to set them a bit differently than usual to get the desired activity level.

I do find it a bit curious, however, that they remain lit sometimes when there is no sound.  The delay and decay for those colors should eventually turn them off, unless the main sliders are set to be so active that this doesn't occur.  You may wish to tweak the sliders a bit more to see if this behavior persists across all settings.