Recording scrambled and speeding up - when changes spaces?

Hey there! Just started podcasting so I’m relatively new to Audacity, although have been using it for 3-4 months now on a personal podcast.

We’ve started recording with 2 USB mics - a Yeti and a Rode - for a business podcast. I’m using Loopback to create the aggregate device and recording onto a stereo track.

The first few times I did this it worked great. No issues. So I proceeded to setup the next podcast in the same way.

However, in the podcast we just recorded, I’m hearing random times when the track becomes suddenly jittery with noise/scramble as it speeds up for no apparent reason. I’m also hearing a few times when it skips, completely cutting out a second or two. It’ll then calm down and go back to normal, again for no apparent reason.

Aside from my extreme disappointment and embarrassment from feeling JV, I can’t figure out the issue. The ONLY thing I can think of is that I was switching between my notes for the podcast and Audacity during recording, which were in two mac desktop Spaces. I can’t recall if these noisy blips were happening at those same times, but I think they could line up. Not sure, but otherwise, I literally have no ideas here.

Anyone else experience similar issues? Any way to fix this now? How can I prevent this from happening in the future? Thanks for your help.

We don’t generally recommend using aggregate devices as they are frequently unreliable. However, we know that some users are able to use aggregate devices successfully, so it’s one of those “your mileage may vary” situations.

A couple of things that “may” help:

1. Completely close any programs that are not essential to your workflow.
2. Try adjusting the “buffer” setting in “Preferences > Devices” (the default is 100 ms. Try it both smaller and larger to see what works best).