audio playback quality

My mac bk plays back audio fine but when I record a file internally from a file in order to edit it or record from the www it plays back in a weird sound like a phaser the programme I use is audacity. the programme is fine and set up correctly and as far as I can see so is my mac in system preferences. I have no idea what is causing this tinny sound so any help would be appreciated.

Well don't seem like a lot of people know much about audio on a mac bk

Can you describe the sound a little better? What do you mean like a phaser? Do you mean it sounds like a literal phaser gun sound effect or like you have applied a phaser plugin to the recording? Then you say it's a tinny sound at the end? People here usually don't respond at all unless they can be helpful which is difficult when we have two contradicting descriptions one of which could be two different things.

If it sounds like a phaser sound effect then that usually happens when you are using a free trial of something. The program will insert beeps and bloops every 5 seconds or so to make the audio recording unusable while still allowing you to experiment with the program.

If it sounds like a phaser plugin then that could be either you have mistakenly applied a phaser to the track or it could be a sample rate issue in the recording. I'm assuming you are using something like soundflower to route the system audio internally for recording? Try checking your settings there to make sure everything is in order (16 or 24 bit should be fine and 44.1, 48, or 92 kHz will work on most things).

If it's sounding tinny (as in like it's coming from a tin can) then I have no idea what that could be. That shouldn't happen unless you literally recorded from a tin can or if you have messed with the EQ.

All in all, I'm betting you're recording at a very low sample rate which can make for some terrible audio quality. At the very least, you should be recording @ 44.1kHz which is CD quality.

Thank you very much for your welcome reply. I am recording at 44.1kHz. I have not touched the EQ it is set on preset and I have now previewed all the presets and they do not interfere with the sound I am describing which really is hard to define exactly.Example I have a pre-recorded wav commercial track which I play and record when I play the new recorded file back it sounds completely different. I have checked all the settings also there are no effects applied so I am at a loss as to think what could be wrong if anything. I have tried to record a different file and that is the same. The only thing I have not tried is to play the file back on some different kit which I will do to try and see if the scource is the record or playback in my mac. If I may ask another question here concerning itunes. In itunes I turn repeat and shuffle off. When I select a file to play in itunes it plays once and stops but when I play a file saved on the desktop when it stops the next file on itunes begins to play. How do I select for the desktop file to play then when it stops another file is not played. Thank you for your patience

Same symptoms

Evening all - First time I have posted here. I wanted to add to the original post just to confirm that Joca is not the only person with the problem. On my old MacBookPro, audio recording with Wiretap Studio or Audacity was perfect. On my new one (August 2012 vintage) all recordings from streamed internet sources playback with very "tinny" sound, slightly distorted and a loss of bass (the sound heard while recording is fine).
I have tried Wiretap Studio, Audacity and a freshly downloaded copy of Amadeus. There are no filters in place and recording the same clip sounds pretty much the same on playback with all 3 apps. I have not tried recording from a CD source. Playback of older recordings is perfect. I am aware that my copies of Wiretap and Audacity are old - but Amadeus is brand new. Only other change tried, was to remove ambient noise reduction on microphone preferences - to no effect. Hoping there will be a genius out there or an imminent patch.

So strange!

Are you guys using an internal audio router such as Soundflower? If not then download it.

Soundflower (Mac) - Download

Once it's downloaded and installed, launch it and you should see a little flower icon appear on your taskbar next to your battery indicator.

Then go into system prefrences, select sound, then under output select "Soundflower 2ch".

Now open audacity and before you go to record, make sure and select "Soundflower 2ch" under the input source tab (toward the top of the Audacity window next to the microphone icon). Under output (just to the left of the input tab) select internal speakers or if you are using an audio interface, select it.

Now try recording and see what happens. This is exactly what I do when recording direct sources and I've never experienced these issues.

As for the iTunes question, I'm not sure. I use iTunes very casually so I don't experiment too much there unfortunately.

Thank you Adric for your reply and advice. I am glad that James has also experienced the same problem as me which makes me think that there is a problem with recording/playback on a mac bk pro. I will try your idea of sunflower and see what happens although in an attempt to investigate I downloaded another Audacity and changed the version I had (no difference) so I uninstalled it to try something else to no avail. I will see what happens next although I am not holding my breath.

You know what, I bet I know what's going on...

What's happening I think is that you're using your internal microphone on the macbook to record the speakers on the macbook. That would come out sounding exactly like what you guys are describing. Tinny, distorted, and terrible.

To fix it, you need to follow the instructions I posted just above here regarding Soundflower.

Oh dear I have followed completely your instructions and it is not as though there are a lot of things that have to be set with install and how to use instructions recording only works with internal mic. Now I am not the greatest of knowledgable mac users but I am finding it difficult to make the thing work. I am sorry to be a pain particularly as you are trying to solve this issue for me. The settings I have in audacity are:-
core audio-------- built-in output----------soundflower (2ch)-------------2 (stereo) input channels
using these settings there is no activity in the recording window

Ok just hang tight. When I get home tonight, I'll make a quick video showing you what to do. It is a bit complicated trying to explain it through text.

Thank you I look forward to seeing it

Audio playback - Sorted - Thank you.

Following Adrics excellent advice, I have installed the SoundFlower app and configured the i/o channels as suggested. initially, the newly available channels did not show as options, but a reboot and adding to the run on startup in login items seemed to do the trick. I am now able to record from any source without the deeply unpleasant results I was getting. I had to add the Soundflower to the sound - output in System preferences as the first time I tried recording something the recording quality was fine but I had no sound from the speakers.
I understand the suggested reason for the problem as recording speaker playback on an internal mic could only ever end in tears - but why was this never a problem on the old MBP running Snow Leopard or Lion ? - it always seemed to me to behave like a "direct internal connection". I doubt I will ever have time to investigate further as I have handed down my old MBP but thank you again for the solution.

^ no problem! That is a mystery about the old computer. I wish I had an answer for you.

Anyway, the video will be live here:

Soundflower / Audacity Help Video - Youtube

The video is still uploading and will be live in about 6 or 8 hours (so tomorrow morning). I had to scale down to 1080p uncompressed (you need to be able to see the screen clearly right?) combined with it being 5 1/2 minutes long - video file ended up being over 7 gigs.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any further questions.

I should note that this video is listed as private on youtube so only users following this link can see it. Also, I had to use Voice Memo on my iPhone to record my voice because my computer was obviously tied up recording the demonstration so the audio quality on the narration here is not a benchmark to go by lol

Dear Adric.Thank you very much indeed for your invaluable help on this and for the lengths that you have gone to,to make sure that I can follow your video instructions to solve this issue. The audio record/playback is now perfect. I have saved your video for the future.

I'm glad we were able to get it resolved.

Adric said:

I'm glad we were able to get it resolved.

Click to expand...

sorry that I am reviving this thread but my latest issue is I think related.
When playing back audio files other than have been created in this mac (commercial) they play back with a very very low volume I have checked all the volumes known to me and they are all at full. When in system pref I return the output to internal speakers everything is fine. Does this mean I have to perform this switch over procedure everytime I want to play back some music or am I missing some settings

I've always just switched back over to my default settings in system prefs when I'm done recording system audio with soundflower which might be what you will have to do too.

The only adjustable setting in soundflower is the buffer size which has nothing to do with volume so if soundflower is giving you a problem on other audio files in say iTunes, you might just want to exit out of soundflower and revert back to default settings when you don't need it.

Thanks a lot. At least I know I have to switch & not wonder whether I am missing a setting.