Garbled recordings on new Mac

[mac_audio]

Twilight-Zone condition

I think I still have a login over on the Final Cut forum. If anything, the video people have even more sticky problems than we do.

Each time either the OS or the program went to an upgrade to improve stability with better data management, there was a tiny cadre that would pop up bitterly complaining of show damage. In almost every case, it turned out they were using a mistake in the old software to produce a show. When the mistake got fixed, it put their production into the bin.

There is also the possibility of a no known solution. Full stop. That's rare, but it does happen.

Koz

You know I was on another forum about year ago, and the memebrs there were bugging me to post audio sampels online so they could hear them.

So I went and set up a webserver so I could post any audio samples, yet keep things restricted in who could listen to them.

Why are you and Steve being so shy with my offer to let you listen to my audio issues??

As far as your comments above...

My life is the Twilight Zone!!

I am *always* the guy who finds issues/problems/bugs/exceptions that NO ONE eles has even thought of let alone seen in real life. (I must be in Hell for sins in a former lifetime?!)

I lost my whole weekend because of a problem with FireFox Addons being disabled. (Fortunately, half of the Internet discovered the same issue about 4 hours after I did, and scared the hell out of the Mozilla developers and they has since fixed it.)

My point?

I feel like I spend all of my time trying to get my computer working versus actually using it!! (That is why it is 2019 and I still do not have my late 2015 Retina MBP entirely still set up...)

[mac_audio]

I'm beginning to see the wisdom of another fuzzy rule. If you spend more than about two or three weeks flogging your computer to record sound, stop using your computer to record sound.

My life is complicated and no one seems to appreciate the palce I am in...

Everything in my life is broken.

Much of this is due to the fact that pretty much everything made in the last 30 years is total SH*T, but a good amount of it must also be my personal curse...

And during this, everyone blames the "operator" when it is NOT my fault!!

I could write several books on this, but that is another topic?

What I do know is this...

I have used Audacity since circa 2005 and it has been a dream come true. (There was a 4-5 year stretch in Windows where Audacity would crash a lot, but that has since been fixed.) And since I staretd using Audacity after switching to Mac's, it has run like a dream until I installed it last fall on my Retina MBP running Sierra, and discovered - by accident - that my recordings on my Retina were garbage.

(I'm mostly too busy to *listen* to shows, so I record thousands of hours of audio each year, and some day I will have a nice treat to listen to when I retire!)

There are a number of stand-alone sound recorders out there and they have few if any of the problems computers do. They make zero noise, natively produce WAV sound files, they're completely portable, and the operating system doesn't try to second-guess or time share your job.

Screen Shot 2018-12-21 at 14.23.13.png

One of the posters gave up and is using a Zoom H2n to record their work.

Koz

I own some expensive Zoom recorder, and yeah, I could use that, but it seems silly to me when you can do it all on your computer.

Giving up on your own software package?

You have a VERY valid point in this post, but so do I - that being that there is no reason that Audacity can't work on my newer Mac.

If you and Steve would take a listen to my garbled audio samples, it would make treating the patient much easier...

Thanks.

[steve]

For some problems, an audio sample can be very useful or even essential for diagnosing the cause of the problem. For other problems, other approaches are more helpful. In this case, it would be useful to know if the problem only occurs when you use "loopback", or if the problem occurs when recording from a real (rather than a "virtual") audio device.

[steve]

Why not listen to the audio samples I provided?

I did. It's garbled as you described.

[mac_audio]

Why not listen to the audio samples I provided?

I did. It's garbled as you described.

Were you gonna tell me you listened?!

I don't know what a "long microphone recording"

Recording from a microphone for a long (several hours) duration.

Not sure if that applies to both internal and external mics?

Also, it sounds like there are some stability issues with 2.3.1.

I don't know of any large programs that are 100% bug free, but Audacity 2.3.1 is very stable for the vast majority of users, and is the recommended version.

So, I guess that is my next logical step then...

[mac_audio]

For some problems, an audio sample can be very useful or even essential for diagnosing the cause of the problem. For other problems, other approaches are more helpful. In this case, it would be useful to know if the problem only occurs when you use "loopback", or if the problem occurs when recording from a real (rather than a "virtual") audio device.

Here is what I (unfortunately) am going to have to do... (Like I have time to do more while I try and bail out the ocean?!)

I'm going to have to strip out as much on my new Mac as possible, and rebuild all of my audio related stuff from scratch. (And that is going to be a real bitch!!)

And to further complicate things...

I have other monumental tasks like trying to finally get 20 years of emails migrated away from Yahoo, migrating (and organizing) 15 years of bookmarks on my old Mac to my Retina, and so on. And don't even get me started about my VoIP and Podcasting ambitions.

Another option - which will still be painful - is to take an identical Retina that I bought, and try to get Audacity working on that. (Of course that involves building it up from scratch since it has a blank HDD.)

This is why I can *never* seem to get my business started - I waste all of my time with computer issues!