clicks and dropouts playing Soundflower recordings

[Rikki127]

I'm running OS X 10.9.5 on an iMac 23.5 inch and using Audacity 2.0.6. I obtained it from the dmg installer.

I'm getting major stutter-like dropouts during playback after recording sound off the Internet, plus some clicking noise. Sounds fine during record, though I think I can hear some clicking, though very faintly. I thought it might be a latency issue so I tried doubling the buffer time to 200 in preferences but it didn't help. Used to run 1.3.14 beta on my old mac pro desktop for years and never had a problem. Now I'm experiencing all sorts of issues (see my other post on input levels being too low). Ah, progress... :/

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Rikki

[kozikowski]

Ah, progress... :/

Don't do the Yosemite upgrade. There was a recent Safari and Security patch. Those seem to be OK.

What else are you doing while you're recording off the internet, and how are you doing it? Soundflower? Also on Skype and playing games?

If you blow up your capture, do you see little portions where the blue waves are missing, or do you see a series of flat blue waves?

Or is there no apparent damage and your machine just can't handle the playback?

Put the buffer back. You can get in trouble messing with that value.

Koz

[kozikowski]

If you play the same short segment over and over, is the damage always in exactly the same place?
Koz

[kozikowski]

There is an odd duck noise problem possible if you have a sound track that doesn't start at zero on the timeline. How many tracks do you have and do they all start at Time Zero?

Koz

[Rikki127]

Hi,

Thanks for such quick response!

I'm not doing anything while recording, really. I may have a bunch of programs running like MS Office stuff but nothing that uses sound.

However, thanks to your suggestion I zoomed in to the waveform and didn't see any dropouts, neither flat blue lines nor blank spots. Also, the damage appears to be in different places with each playback rather that occurring at the same place. So I guess the audio was recorded intact and it is just sounding horrifically bad on playback for some reason.

I am recording in stereo and as far as I can tell both waveforms start on the timeline at zero. I have no other tracks.

Thanks for warning me about Yosemite. That was going to be my next step but experience has made me reluctant to upgrade to a new OS for at least a year.

Thoughts?

[Gale Andrews]

Close as many other applications as you can when recording.

I disagree with Koz, changing Audio to buffer often does help Mac playback problems on Mavericks. Just remember that 100 milliseconds is the default value if you do need to go back.

How long is it since you rebooted? Try rebooting more often.

You could try the latest 2.1.0-alpha build from the top of the following page:
http://www.audacity.homerow.net/index.p ... order=desc. Those latest builds have a fix targeted at a playback problem where you have a track at the top that does not start at time zero but tracks underneath that do. It might or might not help your issues.

Be aware that alpha builds may have bugs and may not be as stable as release builds. The latest builds should be quite close to release ready for Mavericks, but bear it in mind. Otherwise wait for the next 2.0.7 release towards the end of the month and let us know if it helped.


Gale

[Rikki127]

Thanks, Gale,

Still no luck.

I tried recording with nothing else running other than Audacity and Safari and I recorded at 16 bit and in mono. Still the same problem.

I just now tried your suggestion and downloaded the beta but when I tried to open it I got an error message saying it could not open "because the identity of the developer could not be confirmed." Any suggestions?

[Rikki127]

Ah. Security preferences. Got it.

Anyway, tried the beta. Same problem with dropouts. I'll try updating Soundflower.

[Rikki127]

YAY!!!!

Updating Soundflower did the trick! No more dropouts! In fact my input levels look healthier, too, so it solved both my problems!

I can't remember where I got the idea to update Soundflower, either it was mentioned when I downloaded a new copy of Audacity (thinking mine was corrupted) or when I downloaded the beta, but glad I spotted that suggestion! Hopefully this thread will help others with the same problem.

This problem was a killer for me so I'm thrilled. Thanks for all your attempts to help earlier!

[Gale Andrews]

I'm glad you made some progress.

Do you mean when you tried the Beta that you tried http://www.audacity.homerow.net/index.p ... order=desc?

Updating Soundflower did the trick! No more dropouts! In fact my input levels look healthier, too, so it solved both my problems!

I can't remember where I got the idea to update Soundflower

Well I mentioned it, for one. But what device were you using for playback? If the glitches sounded in different places each time, then it was a playback problem. In that case I don't see why updating Soundflower should help, unless you were using Soundflower for Audacity playback, with Soundflowerbed switched on. Was that what you were doing?


Gale