clicks and dropouts playing Soundflower recordings

[kozikowski]

In that case I don't see why updating Soundflower should help

Punch line to the old joke. "So to make my wife happy, I changed the domelight bulb. Not only did the car start, but the radio which hasn't worked in six months came to life."

Soundflower's job is to produce abnormal, unusual sound pathways. I don't know that I'd be using it for day-to-day jobs.

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.

And I would go back. Changing an environment variable for no reason can pollute further troubleshooting.

Koz

[Rikki127]

Yes, that is exactly what I was doing -- using Soundflower as both my input and playback device with Audacity and yes with Soundflowerbed on. I wasn't aware there was any other way to set it up. In fact I thought that's what Soundflower was for, to be the go-between for all audio sources so everything gets sent to Audacity for recording and playback. It just never occurred to me to update Soundflower until I saw it mentioned (here or during the re-downloading process for Audacity, I can't recall where).

Thanks for the reminder to change my buffer back to 100 ms. It worked at 200, too, but best to be "normal" for future issues as Koz said.

Feeing huge relief here... thanks again, guys!

Rikki

[kozikowski]

Macs have no native provision for Self Recording. Soundflower provides those special pathways. Macs have all other normal sound pathways pretty much licked without Soundflower.

You can get some lovely feedback and distortion by using Soundflower inappropriately.

Koz

[Gale Andrews]

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.

And I would go back. Changing an environment variable for no reason can pollute further troubleshooting.

The reasons for doing it Koz is to stop crackling playback on Mac. We've heard many times that this works, usually by reducing "Audio to buffer".

I have to reduce "Audio to buffer" on my Mac Mini to stop crackling when choosing Soundflower (with Soundlowerbed running) as Audacity playback device. Soundflowerbed has a Buffer Size setting, but it does not stop the crackling for me. Obviously if changing "Audio to buffer" does not help, yes - go back.

If you do have to reduce Audio to buffer for playback this is a risk in principle for getting recording dropouts, but reducing buffer for playback on affected Macs seems to not harm recordings on those Macs. Do you have evidence it does?


Gale

[Gale Andrews]

Yes, that is exactly what I was doing -- using Soundflower as both my input and playback device with Audacity and yes with Soundflowerbed on. I wasn't aware there was any other way to set it up. In fact I thought that's what Soundflower was for, to be the go-between for all audio sources so everything gets sent to Audacity for recording and playback.

It's not necessary for Audacity to record computer playback to set the Audacity playback device to Soundflower, only to set the recording device to Soundflower.

If after recording you want to listen to sound on the Mac without changing the system audio device back to built-in audio, then yes you will have to turn Soundflowerbed on.


Gale

[Rikki127]

IT WASN'T SOUNDFLOWER AFTER ALL!

Or at least I don't think so. It's hard to tell now since I've tried so many things. What happened was, after not using Audacity for a couple of days when I tried it again the dropout problem suddenly reappeared!! So of course I'm like all, sunuva -- @#$!%$! So I started from scratch with a new copy of Audacity 2.0.6 for Mac (I think I was last using the beta based on previous suggestions). No love. Then I tried changing the buffer again, only this time I REDUCED it from 100 to 50 -- and it worked!!! This seemed strange to me because I thought the whole point of a larger buffer was to ease the workload on the CPU. Doesn't lowering it make it harder?

Another interesting note, I played around with different buffer values to see if I could hear an optimal point of clarity. 25 caused an entirely new kind of distortion or clipping or something (though it would only appear after a period of time of good sound, not right away) and 75 was the same dropout as before. So it would seem 50 is the perfect Goldilocks number.

I have no idea how or why the problem went away earlier, but this seems to be the ticket. You guys might want to delete Soundflower from the topic now?

By the way, thanks for making me aware I don't have to use Soundflower for Audacity's output device.

And thanks for your responses and this forum in general!

Rikki

[Gale Andrews]

IT WASN'T SOUNDFLOWER AFTER ALL!

Or at least I don't think so. It's hard to tell now since I've tried so many things. What happened was, after not using Audacity for a couple of days when I tried it again the dropout problem suddenly reappeared!! So of course I'm like all, sunuva -- @#$!%$! So I started from scratch with a new copy of Audacity 2.0.6 for Mac (I think I was last using the beta based on previous suggestions).

Beta versions of Audacity are very old, experimental but nonetheless official releases. We have not released Beta versions for several years.

There is a partial fix for certain Mac playback problems in the latest alpha versions at the top of http://www.audacity.homerow.net/index.p ... order=desc. If you want to experiment it is better to use those alpha builds and give us feedback on them.

Then I tried changing the buffer again, only this time I REDUCED it from 100 to 50 -- and it worked!!! This seemed strange to me because I thought the whole point of a larger buffer was to ease the workload on the CPU. Doesn't lowering it make it harder?

Yes it is counter-intuitive but it is what I was suggesting doing. As I said, I have to reduce Audacity's Audio to buffer myself in the alpha builds, but only if if I set Audacity to use Soundflower as the playback device. There is no longer a constant crackle as there used to be before the fix referred to above, but I get a click when I start playback unless I reduce the buffer.

Most people return the Mac playback device to built-in audio after recording with Soundflower, so they may not hear the problem.

Another interesting note, I played around with different buffer values to see if I could hear an optimal point of clarity. 25 caused an entirely new kind of distortion or clipping or something (though it would only appear after a period of time of good sound, not right away)

You can't set the buffer too short or the computer won't be able to get back soon enough to top the buffer up.

You guys might want to delete Soundflower from the topic now?

Are you saying that if you set the Audio to buffer to default value of 100, playback is crackly even if you set the Audacity playback device to built-in audio? If that's the case it would be very useful to let us know if the builds at the top of http://www.audacity.homerow.net/index.p ... order=desc improve that.


Gale

[Rikki127]

First off, I mis-remembered. I meant the alpha version, not beta. 2.1.0, I think it was.

Second, I apologize for not being very scientific in my methods earlier. It now seems it wasn't the buffer after all! Or rather, the buffer was one of two variables that needed changing, hence my confusion.

Earlier, with Soundflower as both input and output, reducing the buffer to 50 solved the issue. (Yes, it was your comment about reducing the buffer that made me try it. I had been increasing it before. I think the FAQ or wherever I got the original suggestion only said change, it didn't say decrease.) So I thought this was what fixed it. Except NOW (in response to your last post) tried it with the buffer at 50 and then at 100 just to prove that's what fixed it but to my surprise it worked both times without dropouts! Then I tried changing the output on Audacity from Built-in Output back to Soundflower where it was originally -- and the dropouts came back! (At buffer = 100)

So the upshot of all this appears to be as follows:

With Audacity set to Soundflower as input and Built-in Output as output, it works fine with the buffer at the default 100.
If some idiot like me sets Soundflower as both input and output device, the dropouts occur.
If, however, that same idiot for whatever reason wants to keep Audacity set to Soundflower as the output device, he can fix it by lowering the buffer to 50.

Whew! Long journey for THAT bit of learning!! I hope this post will save others from my fate!

Thanks again for all your help!

Rikki

[Gale Andrews]

With Audacity set to Soundflower as input and Built-in Output as output, it works fine with the buffer at the default 100.
If some idiot like me sets Soundflower as both input and output device, the dropouts occur.
If, however, that same idiot for whatever reason wants to keep Audacity set to Soundflower as the output device, he can fix it by lowering the buffer to 50.

Was that with 2.0.6? That is pretty much what I find with 2.0.6, although with 2.1.0-alpha after December 21st, I can play Audacity to Soundflower with only some starting clicks at buffer of 100, and I can play to Soundflower without problems at buffer=80.


Gale

[Rikki127]

Yes, it was 2.0.6. The only reason I didn't stick with the alpha version is the VU meter was kinda hard on the eyes (I assume that will be fixed?) and, well, it's alpha, which to my mind always sounds sketchy until it's a "real" release.

Rikki