KVR Audio

blobofblob · Post by **blobofblob** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 8:26 am

Hi,

Does anyone know what could be causing this?! It's driving me crazy.

When I play any MIDI instrument in Ableton Live or any audio clip and there is also an effect on that track, whether internal or external, that prolongs the sound e.g. reverb, delay etc, then when I stop playback there is a faint, distorted ringing from that channel which continues regardless, and then cuts off after about 6 seconds. It's totally weird. Other than that, Ableton behaves totally fine and there's no problem with the sound.

I'm on Mac, with no external interface, no MIDI controller, just the basic set up. Is something wrong with my soundcard maybe?

Any help would mean a lot as this is driving me crazy!

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 11:26 am

Daws usually have settings for
a) reverb tails length
b) if to reset controllers in midi instruments at stop

You could try and insert a AllNotesOff midi event as last in a clip - and test running past that at playback and then stop.
That is often what Panic button on external hardware send, if stuck notes etc. It often shuts all effects off as well.

There are a couple of midi CC#120 and above that do similar shut downs. Test those too.

Then look at mentioned settings for midi, and the rest too.

Probably an effect within instrument that rings.

If a sampler, it happends to me loading own samples, I had wrong playback mode on sample to be OneShot - meaning it plays until the end disregarding note off event. One shot is common for drums, but not playable notes.

It's common on samplers to show number of voices/samples used at all times, so passing a note you can often see how long it lasts. If a long tail that stays at "1" until the end.

A few ideas maybe....

blobofblob · Post by **blobofblob** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 4:55 pm

Thank you for the ideas... unfortunately I don't think it's those, as it happens even if I have a single audio track with just one audio file e.g. of a crash cymbal, and then an Ableton reverb on that audio track.

If that's all there is, and I press play and then stop even a half second into the crash cymbal, the very faint distorted sound will come from there and last a few seconds. It's so low it's almost inaudible but it is there.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 5:00 pm

Could be the most unexpected thing, and not necessarily in the box. Ive got a set of 4" Edirol speakers connected to my TV, with a 'bass enhancement' button on them. If its switched on, and the sound cuts off, there's a faint garbled glitch for a few seconds while that 'bass enhancement' thing shuts off.

If you can, try and isolate it by swapping and checking one thing at a time.

mcbpete · Post by **mcbpete** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 5:12 pm

whyterabbyt wrote:Ive got a set of 4" Edirol speakers connected to my TV, with a 'bass enhancement' button on them. If its switched on, and the sound cuts off, there's a faint garbled glitch for a few seconds while that 'bass enhancement' thing shuts off.

I remember as a teenager having some crappy speakers (the thought being 'cos they've got a big subwoofer they'll be awesome!') that had a slow acting noise gate on them, so when it perceived silence they'd cut out and then when the audio coming into it hit the threshold it'd take a split second to turn back on again

Fine when there was constant music playing but I remember at the time being a fan of the game Delta Force (a sniper-based FPS) which was quiet for ages, would be a slight gun bullet noise from you or the enemy, then quiet again - The speakers had no idea how to react to this so all you'd get throughout the game was: Silence, weird crackle of it turning on but being so slow that it missed the audio of the bullet, then silence !

blobofblob · Post by **blobofblob** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 6:50 pm

whyterabbyt wrote:Could be the most unexpected thing, and not necessarily in the box. Ive got a set of 4" Edirol speakers connected to my TV, with a 'bass enhancement' button on them. If its switched on, and the sound cuts off, there's a faint garbled glitch for a few seconds while that 'bass enhancement' thing shuts off.

If you can, try and isolate it by swapping and checking one thing at a time.

Thanks for this too. I agree it could be something very unexpected. I have Sennheiser HD25 headphones plugged directly into my mac laptop so there aren't too many steps in the process. I think it occurs regardless of using speakers or headphones.

I'm going to try and see if it happens outside of Ableton as I have a suspicion it is to do with Live, possibly interacting with some other software.

blobofblob · Post by **blobofblob** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 7:38 pm

Ok, I tried an instance of Kontakt 5 in Ableton with a single celesta instrument and no effects except the built in ones, and the faint distorted ringing was there.

I tried kontakt 5 on its own outside Ableton and the same result.

So maybe it's not to do with Ableton...

blobofblob · Post by **blobofblob** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 7:43 pm

I've also tried another set of earphones and it's happening still.

Also it happens with Massive loaded on its own outside any DAW.

Now I'm thinking maybe it's to do with my Mac's soundcard. I thought Mac's were supposed to be good at sound?

blobofblob · Post by **blobofblob** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 7:47 pm

One last reply - sorry for all this:

I just tried listening through only my Mac laptop's speakers, and I don't think I can hear the strange lingering sound. This is very mysterious.

Maybe it's only when connecting something through my laptop headphone socket?!

larm · Post by **larm** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 7:53 pm

I ran into a similar phenomenon and I am mostly sure it was due to a sample rate mismatch between recording and playback - I recorded with one USB interface and played back with another USB interface. Somehow the computer began to do some realtime resampling and I got some nasty ringing effect because of this. So might check for that..

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 8:04 pm

Do you have a cat?

blobofblob · Post by **blobofblob** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 8:32 pm

larm wrote:I ran into a similar phenomenon and I am mostly sure it was due to a sample rate mismatch between recording and playback - I recorded with one USB interface and played back with another USB interface. Somehow the computer began to do some realtime resampling and I got some nasty ringing effect because of this. So might check for that..

Interesting.. if I don't have an audio / USB interface, is this a possibility? And it only seems to happen when listening through the headphone socket (I think). Also it happens outside of any DAW.

blobofblob · Post by **blobofblob** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 8:32 pm

Aloysius wrote:Do you have a cat?

Haha, no, just dogs, and their noises are far more noticeable.

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 9:09 pm

blobofblob · Post by **blobofblob** » Fri Apr 13, 2018 10:01 pm

It's really getting to me this strange sound.

I've noticed that when it's ringing faintly in the background after stopping playback, if I just play any note on any instrument on any track in Ableton, it immediately is cut and when I release that note, it's immediately back, like the kind of behavior you'd get from a side chain compressor. Which is so, so strange.

A Strange Faint Sound Continues When Playback is Stopped in Ableton Live