Random Distortion After Upgrade

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1

I’ve been using audacity for my podcasting for quite some time. Love it. However recently I’ve been experiencing some issues.

When Mavericks was released, I ran a upgrade install and continued to use Audacity with no issues. It was when I decided to do a fully reinstall from a Mavericks install thumb drive that things got messed up. The install went through fine, and I then installed the latest Audacity from the website.

Now, with a fresh installed Mavericks, fully upgraded OS, and latest version of Audacity; I run into some issues. When recording, at seemingly random times, the audio becomes extremely clicky. You can still hear the recording which is clear, but it’s interrupted by a clicking noise that happens very often.

An example is a recent podcast recording I did that has been unfortunately plagued by this clicking. You can hear the issue in question at about the 36:00-37:30 mark. I can upload a snippet later when I’m at my main system.
http://godring.net/data/tg/43-AnimePix2013.mp3

To note, it sounds exactly like what another user is facing: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/odd-distortion-occurring-halfway-through-a-recording/32115/1

Troubleshooting I’ve taken. Thinking it was my sound mixer, I borrowed a friends and ran into the same issue. I then tried running audio to both my iMac and Macbook Pro (both with same OS, updated, and latest Audacity 2.0.5), both systems had the same clicking. Tried two different cables.

After all this, I turned to one of the only variables that wasn’t present when I did a standard upgrade to Mavericks, and it’s possibly that the older version of Audacity may not have had this conflict with Mavericks, where as 2.0.5 may have one. I’m not entirely sure, that’s why I’ve come here. While I wait for a response, I’ll be trying an older version of audacity later tonight to see if that changes anything.

All help is greatly appreciated.


Details:
Audacity 2.0.5
OS: Mavericks
Machine: Late 2011 iMac and a Late 2008 Macbook Pro

2

What make and model number is the mixer? Does it have a firmware upgrade for Mavericks? What microphone are you using?

It’s interesting that the problem only started with a full reinstall of Mavericks. Some people report non-audio issues with Mavericks like slowness and program crashes after an upgrade install that are solved by a reinstall of Mavericks.

Can you choose Help > Audio Device Info… then copy and paste the information here.

Then can you quit Audacity, open Finder, Go > Go to Folder and type:

~/Library/Application Support/audacity/

Please attach the audacity.cfg settings file from that “audacity” folder as it is now (please see here for how to attach files: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to-attach-files-to-forum-posts/24026/1 ). Then open audacity.cfg in TextEdit. Select all the text and delete it. Then type the following at the top of the file:

NewPrefsInitialized=1

This gives you factory fresh settings. Save audacity.cfg and restart Audacity.


Gale

3

It’s indeed a weird issue. As I said, the only thing I can think of was that before, when I just did an upgrade, Audacity wasn’t fully updated to 2.0.5. However now with the full install, I’m now at 2.0.5. But I’d figure there would be more people with this issue if so.

Sound Mixer: Yamaha MG102c
I don’t believe it has a firmware upgradable.

Microphone: Two V63M Condenser Studio Microphones

I connect from mixer to machines via Line-In, does it need to be plugged in for this log to be useful? If so, let me know.


Default capture device number: 0

Default playback device number: 2

==============================

Device ID: 0

Device name: Built-in Microph

Host name: Core Audio

Input channels: 2

Output channels: 0

Low Input Latency: 0.001995

Low Output Latency: 0.010000

High Input Latency: 0.012154

High Output Latency: 0.100000

Supported Rates:

==============================

Device ID: 1

Device name: Built-in Input

Host name: Core Audio

Input channels: 2

Output channels: 0

Low Input Latency: 0.001995

Low Output Latency: 0.010000

High Input Latency: 0.012154

High Output Latency: 0.100000

Supported Rates:

==============================

Device ID: 2

Device name: Built-in Output

Host name: Core Audio

Input channels: 0

Output channels: 2

Low Input Latency: 0.010000

Low Output Latency: 0.002562

High Input Latency: 0.100000

High Output Latency: 0.012721

Supported Rates:

    8000

    9600

    11025

    12000

    15000

    16000

    22050

    24000

    32000

    44100

    48000

    88200

    96000

    176400

    192000

    352800

    384000

==============================

Selected capture device: 1 - Built-in Input

Selected playback device: 2 - Built-in Output

Supported Rates:

    8000

    9600

    11025

    12000

    15000

    16000

    22050

    24000

    32000

    44100

    48000

    88200

    96000

    176400

    192000

    352800

    384000

==============================

Available mixers:

==============================

Available capture sources:

0 - Line In

==============================

Available playback volumes:

0 - PCM

==============================

Capture volume is native

Playback volume is native

Thanks for your time Gale.
audacity.txt (1.79 KB)

4

Audacity is independent of the OS X version upgrade, however you make it.

Thanks for the audacity.cfg file and device info. No, the mixer doesn’t need to be connected to line in for the Audio Device Info purposes.

I see nothing unusual in the .cfg. It seems you use 44100 Hz project rate and 32-bit float which is recommended. Do I assume quitting Audacity, resetting .cfg to “NewPrefsInitialized=1” then restarting Audacity did not stop the clicking?

I think you should ask Yamaha for advice. They say nothing about operating system support at all that I can find.

You can otherwise experiment. Shut down as many programs as you can before recording.

Are recordings in GarageBand OK?

If you use Audacity 2.0.4 or Audacity 2.0.3 does it make any difference?

If you use 2.0.6-alpha ( http://www.audacity.homerow.net/index.php?dir=mac%2Faudacity-nightly-2013.12.10-03.15%2F ) does it make any difference? There was a fix for a ring buffer problem shortly after 2.0.5 release, but that problem would probably lead to large square spikes which you could see in the waveform.

Can you upload a short WAV file that displays the problem? See here for how to post an audio sample: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to-post-an-audio-sample/29851/1 .


Gale

5

Oh I understand that. What I meant was when I originally just ran an upgraded to Mavericks, I never touched my old version of Audacity that was a year old. However when I did a clean install of Mavericks, I had to reinstall Audacity which was 2.0.5.

I’m not sure why I never thought of trying Garage Band recording. Perhaps I’ll give that a shot and see how it sounds. Whatever comes of it, I’ll also give an older version of Audacity a shot. Sure would hate to give up Audacity because I love it’s tools.

When I get around to testing those, and get a clip recorded, I’ll report back.

Thanks again Gale.

6

Sorry for the delay in getting my results here. Mixture of time constraints in recording and getting enough record sessions in to be sure it’s remedied.

Garage band didn’t show the distortion so I went ahead and downgraded to 2.0.3, which I believe was my previous version before upgrading to Mavericks and upgrading Audacity at same time. Since then I’ve done ten plus recordings for an hour to hour and half. No problems with clicking and distortions.

I also had a laptop with the audio feeding into it as well running 2.0.1 as a backup. While I have not extensively inspected each recording on that machine, the few I have browsed showed no signs of distortion as well.

I’m going to stick with 2.0.3 since it’s now working. Just thought I’d post here my results.

Thanks again for the fantastic software and all of your assistance in helping me with this issue.

7

Thanks, the clicks are clearly in the recording so it is not a playback issue.

The only suggestion that has subsequently come up is to try a different buffer setting in Audacity Recording Preferences . This probably corrects a playback only problem, but if you do try a later release of Audacity I suggest you try a buffer adjustment.

It would be unfortunate to be stuck with 2.0.3 for a long time, but there is no other imminent fix unless the “ring buffer” fix I mentioned (already committed into 2.0.6-alpha) cures it.


Gale