In working with computer-based digital audio systems, musicians commonly encounter DC offset, in which a file contains a static, nonperiodic waveform. This constant-voltage, DC waveform can cause audio artifacts - such as pops and clicks - and often appears during A/D conversion (among other operations). The shareware plug-in DCOffset from AnalogX (www .analogx.com) can correct DC-offset problems and serves as a good addition to a Windows-based audio engineer's toolbox.

AnalogX claims that DCOffset is the only DirectX plug-in capable of detecting and analyzing DC occurrences in real time. The plug-in can recognize DC offset after processing less than ten seconds of audio, so you don't need a separate program to scan the entire file.

DCOffset requires an application that supports DirectX audio plug-ins. It works with either real-time or non-real-time applications. In addition, you can employ this useful plug-in on mono or stereo files and with 16- and 32-bit data types.