I just spent an hour putting together a detailed note to the group only to lose it when trying to post. What the hell happened to it!
Deep Breath
I am using:
Audacity 2.4.2
Windows 10 2004
Tascam US-366 AI
Rode NT2-A Mic
Problem: Getting static on playback of Audio we recorded. Very little on first listen but gets worse and worse on subsequent listenings.
Only recent changes: Windows update 9WZDNCRFHVQM
Any assistance is greatly appreciated, as always,
Mike Pickwick
Does switching to MME on playback clean it up?
gets worse and worse on subsequent listenings.
You have one show played back on Audacity and it gets worse every time you play it? The good-ish news may be the show is OK and the playback is damaged. Can you export WAV (or even MP3) and play it on something else to check?
I just spent an hour putting together a detailed note … What the hell happened to it!
Could you have answered your own question? No, the forum isn’t in the habit of flushing long postings. Could you be experiencing an unstable Windows machine?
Note: If you have a solid-state drive, defragmentation either doesn’t do anything, or can cause problems. SSDs do native data shuffling in the background all on their own.
There’s first-layer troubleshooting, too. How full is your hard drive? How much stuff is running on your machine? Do you have a browser, notifications, and Zoom in the background? Games? The machine may have troubles managing all that at once.
How long is the show? For some filters or effects, Audacity has to make a copy of the whole show as UNDO. If you have a multi-hour show that can add up in a hurry.
Management or speed problems can appear as clicks or pops. Clean Shutdown the machine. Shift+Shutdown, not regular Shutdown and not Restart. Pay particular attention if the machine appears to have troubles shutting down.
Koz
Thank you for responding, and I apologize for the inappropriate language.
About the note, I’ve been reading and posting on this forum since 2015. I’d like to move past that temper tantrum, chalking it up to missed deadlines and old man-itus. It was obviously a finger fault.
Note: If you have a solid-state drive, defragmentation either doesn’t do anything or can cause problems. SSDs do native data shuffling in the background all on their own.
There’s first-layer troubleshooting, too. How full is your hard drive? How much stuff is running on your machine? Do you have a browser, notifications, and Zoom in the background? Games? The machine may have trouble managing all that at once.
I don’t have an SSD in this machine, and I have never defragged the HD. That is something to look at also.
The HP tower we’re using is meant to be a single-purpose machine. So no games, or other applications unrelated to audiobook narration.
My wife has Chrome up because she edits and marks up text with Google Docs. She also narrates from that text so, there are two windows running. Of course, Audacity is running in one of those windows, and the machine is connected wirelessly to the router in our home. These are the only things that are supposed to be running. I will check to see if this is true.
The chapters tend to be around 30 minutes.
I will perform the shutdown as you suggested. I may not get this done today, but I will respond with the results ASAP.
Thank you,
Mike Pickwick
She also narrates from that text so, there are two windows running.
So there are two sound programs running at the same time? Audacity is not fond of that. Or did I misunderstand?
I’m not suggesting that any one of those things could be causing the problem, but it’s best not to skip any steps or ignore “the obvious.”
I followed a nationally famous engineer around once as he did a survey. With his permission. Everybody was frightened of approaching him while he was working and it was pretty lonely. He was doing everything I would be doing, except he didn’t leaving anything out. No assumptions or intuitive leaps. I wrote that down.
When Windows does an update, they try to make it as unobtrusive as possible. They already have a reputation for interrupting process and destroying work. But that also means that even if your machine recovers quickly, it may be limping along instead of fully updated and stable.
Koz
She also narrates from that text so, there are two windows running.
So there are two sound programs running at the same time? Audacity is not fond of that. Or did I misunderstand?
No, I wasn’t clear. The text she is reading is stored in the Cloud (Google Drive). She accesses the text in a Chrome window. Google Docs does not perform any audio functions that I am aware of.
I’m very familiar with Windows not giving a great deal of thought to what their updates are doing. Except for a few years working on OS/2 (IBM) I have been using Windows something or other since Win 2.1 running on top of DOS.
BUT, I’m leaving out the best part (I hope). I brought up an Audacity Track that we recorded that just sounds terrible. I exported it as a .wav and then an .mp3 file. Both sound fine. No Static. I’ve stopped doing the rest of the things on our list until I hear from you.
Needless to say, this is quite a relief.
Thanks very much,
Mike
I patched your post. Drag-select a quote and click the quotation mark button at the top of the text frame. It makes it much easier to keep up with who said what to whom if they are a different color.
You had all the symptoms of a playback problem and I took a wild stab. And this may be a good time to turn this over to a Windows elf which I am not. I have no idea why Audacity would be damaging playback sound. Is it still doing that after all the restarting and clearing out in my post?
Google sound problems in the last Windows Update. The updates are numbered, right? Someone said that. They may have changes their sound driver manager. Who knows?
One other note. Ordinary Users don’t think so, but it’s insanely valuable to know if you can make the problem worse. Any change is good to know.
Koz
Thanks
I don’t Know. I stopped right after the export. I will get going on the remaining suggestions and try recording after each one.
Are you saying that Windows 10 computers changed the Windows Sound Driver Manager to accommodate some problem with Google? I’m pretty sure that Chrome OS or Google native apps are not involved in our process. There is a Google Window open, but it is only used to display text. I don’t believe that there is any communication between the Google Window and the Audacity Application. But then again, if I’m so smart why can’t I fix the problem?
Now we’re talking. I can nearly always make a problem worse.
Thank you very much for spending all of this time working with me. I don’t remember if you and I have worked together in the past, but I have often seen your responses to other people’s questions. Always solid analysis, and nearly always patient.
Thanks so much for the advice. I probably won’t have time to do each item thoroughly tonight, so I will probably not have any more information for you until morning. Have a good evening.
Mike Pickwick
Are you saying that Windows 10 computers changed the Windows Sound Driver Manager to accommodate some problem with Google?
No. I’m saying Windows may have changed something to patch an Operating System Vulnerability which might allow evil software to break in and end life on earth as we know it.
Do you have all your valuable data backed up to a drive that never goes on-line or touches the internet?
Just asking.
Koz
Just a stab in the dark: See this post: Crackling with all Input devices - #6 by DRCMTA
Good afternoon Koz,
I did the clean shut down last night. I checked HD utilization and found: I am using 119 of 920 Gb. I performed a disk clean up on all categories, clearing about 6 Gb of unnecessary files as defined by Windows. Defrag is not indicated at this time.
As to the post you referred me to, I don’t own Bluetooth Headphones. Listening through My wired headphones (Sennheiser 380 pro) reduces static present on the Audacity track, but does not eliminate it. On subsequent playings, the sound not does appear to deteriorate as it did using the monitors (M-Audio BX5). Have I made the problem worse yet? This doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would the sound deteriorate on Monitors but not on Headphones?
Side note: Meg (my wife), or as she prefers to be called (The Talent) has been notified that she has a new contract and that she will be getting the script in a few days. Given that, I am tempted to reinstall Audacity, and if necessary, wipe the machine and start over. Do you think we are nearing that point?
Thank you, Koz for your knowledge and patience.
Mike