I just upgraded to 2.0.1, and went back to work on a project. Immediately noticed that Audacity plays back any wav or mp3 file as a heavily distorted roaring sound, amplitude modulated by whatever the waveform is in the sound file I’m trying to play. Sounds like a jet aircraft trying to take off inside a tunnel. It’s volume rises or falls in keeping with the volume of the sound file. I get normal results from those files using other players. Tried uninstalling and reinstaling, no luck. Tips?
Did you actually reinstall, or did you pull the application out and put it back in fresh? Reinstalling Audacity involves editing a config file.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/help/manual/man/faq_installation_and_plug_ins.html#reset
Do you have one of the recursive pathways established like you do when you want to record internet audio? That will give you feedback under the right circumstances. Make sure you’re getting your sound from a simple device like Mic-In or Line-In and you’re set to play to a simple device like Speakers-Out. You should not be using one of the magic devices like Stereo-Mix, WAV-Out or What-U-Hear.
Set these with the Device Toolbar.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/help/manual/man/device_toolbar.html
You can also get into trouble with Audacity > Preferences > Recording > Overdubbing and Playthrough. Both should be off.
Koz
Playthrough was not enabled, but I’ll follow your other suggestions and see if that helps. Details when I find a solution.
OK, I used Revo Uninstaller to pull out everything including Registry references. Then allowed the installer to reset the preferences to install defaults. The result is a reduction in the distortion and I can hear some of the original signal that Audacity is trying to play. Step in the right direction for sure. You described this as a feedback problem (i don’t have any kind of mic installed). I never had such a problem in the years I’ve been using Audacity. After these changes I tried changing all the settings in the Devices Toolbar. The only thing that made any difference was switching from MME to Windows DirectSound. The distortion totally disappeared. Is there a short answer as to why?. I’m out of my depth on this one.