Set Volume

Overview

With the introduction of Automatic Gain Control (AGC) in Unity 3.1(1), the problems with varying incoming recording levels should be greatly reduced. The system will install with a target dB level of –26 for all new recordings which should closely match the “quite prompt” sets (which are the default prompt sets starting in 3.1(1)) and should provide a consistent playback volume within +- 5 dB or so.

However, any existing greetings and voice names for subscribers, call handlers and interviewers will be at a different dB level depending on system settings prior to upgrading to 3.1(1). As such these greetings will likely sound much louder than newly recorded messages and greetings. The Set Volume tool is intended as a quick and easy way to adjust the volume of all greetings and voice names to a target dB level using the same leveling engine Unity 3.1(1) is using for setting records.

Requirements/Special Notes

Set Volume will only run on a server with Unity 3.1(1) or later installed on it. Simply run Setup.exe and go. No reboot is required

NOTE: This utility interacts with WAV drivers and, as such, will not operate properly over Windows Terminal Services. A check is made at startup for a WTS session and the utility will exit if that’s the case.

Using Set Volume

Before running through and adjusting all greetings and voice names, I strongly suggest taking a test user and adjusting one of their greetings and testing it over the phone until you’re happy with the level. You can adjust the dB level multiple times, of course, but the more you change the volume level the more chances there are to introduce distortion, hiss and the like. Also, I strongly recommend sticking with the –26 default. While extreme settings such as –5 dB and –50 dB are allowed, they are really there more for testing purposes. Having greetings that loud or quiet is not a good idea and attempting to force volume levels to change so dramatically will definitely introduce distortion.

Before setting the volume level, close the SA. It may cache a greeting or voice name in memory via the Media Master control and closing the SA will ensure it releases them.

It is strongly recommended that you backup your greetings and voice names before adjusting their volume. If the WAV files are damaged or don’t sound good you can then recover some or all of them. The Set Volume tool has a built in backup and restore mechanism for all greetings and voice names. Simply select a directory to copy greetings to using the “browse…” button and check the “Save original files to” option. Before modifying the WAV Files, the tool will copy all greetings and voice names to the target directory. To restore these greetings, select the “Restore backed up greetings and voice names” option from the File menu.

By default when you run Set Volume it selects all voice names and greeting files in the system and pre selects –26 dB as the default. If this is acceptable, simply hit the “set dB level” button and watch the progress bar go. When it’s done you will get a message indicating if there were any errors encountered in the process and you’ll be given the opportunity to review the resulting log file if you wish.

To test it, open the SA again and play a greeting or voice name via the media master. I recommend using TRAP (Telephone Record and Playback) since this will more accurately depict what outside callers will hear when accessing your system. You can, of course, simply call in over the phone conversation as well.

Choosing a Language Interface

This tool comes with built in support for several languages including US English, French, German and Japanese. By default it will display the language the Windows operating system is set for. If that language is not supported it will default to US English.

To manually force the tool to show a different language than the default, you can select the Help | About menu option and click the “Change Language” hyperlink on the About box. The languages installed will be presented in a drop down list and the display will update into that language immediately when you select it.

NOTE: If you select Japanese as a display language and you are not running on a version of Windows that has the Japanese code page installed, the display will show all “?” characters. This is expected.

Obtaining Updates

To check for updates to this tool, visit http://www.CiscoUnityTools.com

Revision History

Version 1.0.35 – 3/21/2007

Updated version check for Unity 5.0 release

Version 1.0.34 – 4/16/2004

Added support for localized help files in Unity 4.0(4)

Version 1.0.33 – 9/11/2003

Added option to set all prompt volume levels. This requires you run the tool with the “/SetPrompts” command line option
Included option to view output log automatically at end of run

Version 1.0.31 – 8/29/2003

Updated resource strings and copyright information
Updated TDRT.EXE included in setup package

Version 1.0.30

Forced application to run at low priority

Version 1.0.29

Updated localization files for Unity 4.0(2) release

Version 1.0.28

Updated version of AGCUtil.exe at the core of the application

Version 1.0.27

Fixed some problems with the Japanese localization

Version 1.0.26

Updated localization files
Updated help

Version 1.0.25

Added updated AGCUtil.exe for 3.1(5) libraries

Version 1.0.23

Added note to help file about backing up greetings and voice names before beginning.

Version 1.0.22

Fixed problem where “0” for the target dB value was not being allowed. A value of 0 here indicates that AGC is disabled entirely.

Version 1.0.20

Changed to populate all 4 AGC values with defaults from registry and to write any updated values through to the registry.
Fixed problem when no files are selected for update causing app to hang

Version 1.0.18

Added support for updated AgcUtil.exe engine for 3.1(4). This allows the input of the gain threshold, minimum db level to adjust and sample size values. Versions of Unity prior to 3.1(4) wont support this so those options are grayed out if this version of Set Volume is run on them.

Version 1.0.17

Added check for Windows Terminal Services session. Utility will not run properly via WTS.
Added option to backup and restore original greetings file
Added Tools Depot integration into setup. Updated tool will automatically appear in the Tools Depot regardless of where it’s installed

Version 1.0.12

Changed default registry value for AGC Gain Threshold to 5
Changed default registry value for AGC sample size to 8000

Version 1.0.11

Updated AGCutil.exe used to convert set the dB level of the WAV files. The sample size was set to 8000ms and the gain threshold was set to 5. This greatly improved the sound quality of the converted files in the field.

Version 1.0.10

Revamped help file
Added syncher logic to force voice names to write through to directory after volume has been adjusted
Fixed problem where some default object WAV files were not being updated

Version 1.0.4

First release of tool