Hello, this is my feedback to this program that I have been using. I discovered DiskClick early this year and it was exciting because it is the sort of thing I've wanted, so I gave it a try.
This software is really great! Emulating old disk noise is fun and adds a lot to a modern computer. There are so many different real HDD sounds included and even Floppy disquette. They are all very distinctive and unique like some ambience feel like you are in a wide environment and others sound like your ear is right next to the internal drive inside a case. The clicking also differ a lot between them. This variety of sound choices is a real strength of this software and suits different tastes. I use this on Windows 11 by the way.
I want to thank the developer for his/her efforts at creating this and hope it receives further developments. However there are a few issues I have come across in DiskClick:
Ambience sounds
Some of the HDD sounds need to be fixed because they have a clear cut-off 'noise' (for example 1991 Seagate ST-157N, 1991 Seagate ST-325N, Seagate ST-125). You hear it every few seconds as the sound loops and it makes it is not pleasing to hear.
Also the volume output of the HDD sound files is very unbalanced. Some are pretty loud and others are very quiet (like 1994 WD Caviar 1270). (I'm not talking about real life sound of the disks but the recorded files used by DiskClick) I know a very great audio leveling software I use called MP3GAIN but I don't think that one works for WAV files so I can't help you there.
Bad sector sound glitch
Sometimes when loading a different drive sound (especially after changing it several times), the bad sector noise (bad_sector.wav) becomes repetitive constantly and will not be fixed until the program is reset.
Resetting bug
As of version 0.1.6 I cannot reset the program. When clicking Reset it gives Failed to execute script error due to unhandled exception. Every time is gives a different script fail like for example 'pyi_rth_pkgres' (No module named 'pyexpat') , 'pyi_rth_multiprocessing_ (No module named '_socket'), and No such file base_library.zip (Failed to obtain/convert traceback!). This is then followed by Failed to remove temporary directory C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Temp\_MEI314362 (or a different numbered folder in Temp). When opening up the program again, I have to re-choose my chosen drive sound and everything and the theme also resets.
Other than these problems the program works pretty good on my PC so long as a good drive sound is chosen! (But I have not really figured out what effect the Disk Sensitivity and Disk Age has?). I have some other suggestions for the developer to improve further:
- Pause function (on the UI and in Tray icon) would be very useful so that there is no need to quit and launch app again if we temporarily need to quiet it.
- Option to disable the 'bad sector' sound please! On my PC sometimes it becomes so frequent sometimes.
- UI font (not the buttons) is very light gray and I find it difficult to read with my eyes. It's best if it's normal black like the buttons are. (Also this is made worse by the default Segoe UI font which is made to be very 'light', consider a different default like Tahoma probably the ideal choice here).
- Changing UI font is a nice touch but the Font Family list should probably have a scrollbar because currently it needs lots of clicks to go up or down the list (not even keyboard letters or PgDown/PgUp/Home/End work in this list currently).
Finally I think this program has great potential because it's very simple yet fun to have for modern computers. I think there can be more awareness of this program if it was also on a non-gaming place because this program would be interesting for a general public overall. Like me I am not a gamer (and I didn't know itch!) and I would not have discovered this program without someone else mentioning DiskClick on a different site. Also Deervo: I am happy to test this program in the future for bugs and glitches. I hope good development goes further.
Salut!