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Thread: CrewChief keeps resetting mic level

  1. #1

    CrewChief keeps resetting mic level

    CrewChief seems to be resetting my mic's input level (visible under settings > sound > device properties as 'volume', or in the 'levels' tab of the microphone properties dialog box) to 4 every time it starts listening out for something. When I hit "start application", the mic level drops to 4. When it recognizes me saying the trigger word ("Chief"), the mic level drops to 4.

    I mostly use iRacing but I've tried running the application for a few different sims and the same thing happens with each.

    I can't see anything in my CrewChief profile that seems like it could be responsible for changing the input level.

    The mic seems to work fine (no unexpected level change) when accessed by other programmes. I've tried disabling the "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" and "Enable audio enhancements" options in the microphone properties, and the behaviour is the same.

    My mic is part of a gaming headset, operating as a USB microphone with default windows drivers.

    I'm using Windows 10 Home. It's a fresh installation - I reinstalled Windows last week - and fully updated. On the previous installation CrewChief had been working fine (although I only installed for the first time a few days before deciding to reinstall Windows).

    I've copied an excerpt from the console at the bottom of this post. My mic level was at 100 when starting the application. As described above, it reset to 4 when the application was started, then again after recognizing the trigger word (at 15:24:02.225 in log), and again after recognizing command (15:24:05.776). The level was not reset when the keyword was heard but confidence below threshold.

    Does anybody have any idea what could be causing this, or advice on further troubleshooting? It seems to be relating to CrewChief opening the input channel.

    Code:
    15:23:52.853 : Pausing console scrolling
    15:23:52.853 : Using game definition iRacing
    15:23:52.853 : Loading user-configured command macros from Documents/CrewChiefV4/ folder
    15:23:52.854 : Loading default command macros from installation folder
    15:23:52.855 : Free text action macro, text = "Sorry, my bad" key presses to send = KEY_S, KEY_O, KEY_R, KEY_R, KEY_Y, OEM_COMMA, SPACE_BAR, KEY_M, KEY_Y, SPACE_BAR, KEY_B, KEY_A, KEY_D
    15:23:52.855 : Free text action macro, text = "Good pass" key presses to send = KEY_G, KEY_O, KEY_O, KEY_D, SPACE_BAR, KEY_P, KEY_A, KEY_S, KEY_S
    15:23:52.858 : Loaded 111 default car class definitions and 0 user defined car class definitions
    15:23:52.878 : No user defined landmarks found
    15:23:52.879 : ThreadManager: Wating for root threads to start...
    15:23:52.879 : ThreadManager: Root threads started
    15:23:52.881 : Starting queue monitor
    15:23:52.881 : Monitor starting
    15:23:52.881 : Loading all voice command alternatives from speech_recognition_config.txt
    15:23:52.881 : Loading shared SRE commands
    15:23:52.882 : PlaybackModerator: Opening radio channel as Chief
    15:23:52.883 : Loading spotter speech recognition commands
    15:23:52.883 : Loading basic circuit racing speech recognition commands
    15:23:52.886 : Loading iRacing speech recognition commands
    15:23:52.910 : Loaded 18 macro voice triggers into the speech recogniser
    15:23:52.910 : Running speech recognition in 'always on' mode
    15:23:52.922 : waiting for trigger word Chief
    15:23:53.304 : Playing sounds, events: COMPOUND_smoke_test_chief
    15:23:53.304 : (radio_check/test)
    15:23:53.686 : Playing test sounds for drivers #Chris Hengler
    15:23:53.686 : Using unmapped driver last name hengler for raw driver name #Chris Hengler
    15:23:53.686 : No sound file for driver #Chris Hengler - unable to play test sounds
    15:23:53.686 : Loading user-configured chart subscriptions from Documents/CrewChiefV4/ folder
    15:23:53.686 : Added 4 common subs to 30 game-specific subs
    15:23:53.686 : Polling for shared data every 16ms
    15:23:54.146 : There are 1 more events in the queue, playing them...
    15:23:54.146 : Playing sounds, events: COMPOUND_smoke_test_spotter
    15:23:54.146 : (radio_check_Clare/test)
    15:23:55.586 : PlaybackModerator: Closing radio channel as Spotter
    15:23:58.186 : System recogniser heard keyword "Chief" but confidence (0.742) below threshold (0.850)
    15:24:02.225 : System recogniser heard keyword "Chief", waiting for command, confidence 0.934
    15:24:02.295 : Opened channel - waiting for speech
    15:24:02.295 : Getting audio from default device
    15:24:05.776 : System recogniser recognised : "can you hear me", Confidence = 0.858
    15:24:05.776 : Waiting for trigger word Chief
    15:24:05.776 : PlaybackModerator: Opening radio channel as Chief
    15:24:06.215 : Playing sounds, events: acknowledge/radio_check
    15:24:06.215 : (acknowledge/radio_check)
    15:24:06.946 : PlaybackModerator: Closing radio channel as Chief

  2. #2
    Crew Chief Mega Corp CEO mr_belowski's Avatar
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    CC isn't doing this, we make no attempt to change the microphone gain

  3. #3
    Do you not have any ideas of where I might want to look for further troubleshooting?

    I'm sure it's not something that CrewChief is intentionally causing, but I'm sure you can understand how it looks that way from here: It happens every time CC opens my mic, and (at least as far as I can tell so far) only when CC opens my mic. It doesn't happen with voice recognition disabled, if the push/hold button to talk modes are selected it doesn't happen until the button is pushed, if either always on or trigger word mode is active it happens as soon as the application is started. Other apps (eg Discord) can use the mic and nothing happens to the level. I guess it could be something related to the speech recognition functions in Windows, I don't have any other apps which attempt to use that.

  4. #4
    Crew Chief Mega Corp CEO mr_belowski's Avatar
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    it may be the windows speech recognition that's doing it - maybe try installing the Microsoft speech recognition runtime and language pack if you haven't already, and switch CC to use that (untick the "Prefer Windows speech recognition"). Then test again - if the mic level isn't being changed, then it's probably the windows SRE

  5. #5
    I had pretty much all communication apps modify mike volume: Discord, Skype, Teams, IIRC even SteamVR has setting for that. So I'd start by making sure no other apps are running, but it could be change in Windows as well, not CC itself though as Jim said.

  6. #6
    It seems like it was something funny going on with the speech recognition. After installing the runtime and language pack, everything's behaving normally. Thanks for the tip.

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