Getting crackling distorted sound

[nickoh-821]

I am currently getting a crackling effect whenever I play an audio file. This occurs for both .mp3 and .wav formats. I have tested multiple files. Curiously, this seems more pronounced for shorter sound files (1 second length) than longer ones (music files). I also think it's more pronounced in .wav files than .mp3s so maybe it's a buffer issue.

I am using default parameters for the MiniAudioEngine with matching sample rates.

I have tried CompressorModifier, NoiseReductionModifier and EqualizerBands to smooth out the distortion but have had no luck.

Runtime: osx-arm64
CPU Chip: M3

[LSXPrime]

I've never observed any playback distortions since the package's prototyping phase.

• Are the file's PCM data format and the AudioEngine format (F32-S32-S24-S16-U8) identical?
• Was it recording that made using the package's recorder component in F32 format or another format?
• Could you please share some sample files along example of code and parameters you're using?

Note that the NoiseReductionModifier is still a work-in-progress, buggy, and has been moved to the Experimental namespace, so its effectiveness is limited.

Out of curiosity, are you using the outdated NuGet package or referencing the source repository directly? If the latter, are you encountering the macOS warning mentioned in this comment?

[nickoh-821]

1. The PCM data and AudioEngine formats seem to be matching.

Some header info of an mp3 file I'm using:

Duration: 00:00:00.63, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 255 kb/s Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3 (mp3float), 44100 Hz, mono, fltp, 256 kb/s

and this the engine that I construct:

private MiniAudioEngine _engine = new(44100, Capability.Playback, SampleFormat.F32, 1);

2. I do not have this information at the moment.

3. I made a simple repository to showcase the files I'm having trouble with: https://github.com/combstraight/sound-test/tree/main/SoundTest

If you'd simply like the sound files: https://github.com/combstraight/sound-test/tree/main/SoundTest/Assets

You should notice that check.mp3 is barely audible in the app compared to a media player.

chips.mp3 should sound much shorter.

I am using the NuGet package version 1.0.2.

[LSXPrime]

I've tested the files and found that chips.mp3 plays without distortion in both the app and media player, even at a volume of 20x. In contrast, check.mp3 has a clear distortion in both the media player (QQPlayer) and the app, which becomes even more noticeable when making the audio louder. I suspect that the parts in check.mp3 may be interpolated or incomplete, resulting in lower quality. Additionally, the app is unable to play check.mp3 because StreamDataProvider discards the initial frames during decoder initialization.

As an alternative, you can use either AssetDataProvider or ChunkedDataProvider (recommended for audio files over 3 minutes as it discards chunks on the fly), as both decode the entire file to memory without discarding frames and work well with files less than 1 second, disposing of them after playback finishes, as demonstrated in the example below.

    private void AddSoundPlayer(string fileName, string name)
    {
        if (_players.Count == 0 || _players.Any(player => player.Name != name))
        {
            var file = File.OpenRead($"Assets/{fileName}");
            var provider = new AssetDataProvider(file);
            var player = new SoundPlayer(provider)
            {
                Name = name,
            };
            player.PlaybackEnded += (sender, args) => { CleanUpPlayer(player, provider); };
            _players.Add(player);
            Mixer.Master.AddComponent(player);
            player.Play();
        }
    }

    private void CleanUpPlayer(SoundPlayer player, AssetDataProvider provider)
    {
        Dispatcher.UIThread.InvokeAsync(() => { Mixer.Master.RemoveComponent(player); });
        _players.Remove(player);
        provider.Dispose();
    }

You can close the issue if it's been resolved, or feel free to reply with any further observations or samples.

[nickoh-821]

Using AssetDataProvider has resolved the issue. Thank you!

[voidray]

I still have issues with cracking sound even when using AssetDataProvider. I tried different .wav files.
Code:

 using var audioEngine = new MiniAudioEngine(44100, Capability.Playback);

 var file = File.OpenRead(@"c:\temp\test.wav");

 var provider = new AssetDataProvider(file);
 var player = new SoundPlayer(provider);

 player.PlaybackEnded += (sender, args) => {
     Mixer.Master.RemoveComponent(player);
     provider.Dispose();
 };

 // Add the player to the master mixer
 Mixer.Master.AddComponent(player);

 player.Play();

 Console.WriteLine("Playing audio... Press any key to stop.");
 Console.ReadKey();

 player.Stop();

[LSXPrime]

I still have issues with cracking

@voidray I assume you're the same person with a different account? If that's the case, let's try to isolate the issue more.

1. If it persists on macOS, can you try it on Android or Windows? Something that doesn't use the CoreAudio backend.
2. Have you tried different engine formats? Initialize the engine with F32, S32, S24, S16, U8. While developing, using the wrong formats actually caused me some serious distortions because of the buffers.
3. Have you tried playing the same files using the backend library and comparing it against SoundFlow? You might want to give this a try: miniaudio playback example

[voidray]

I'm a different person... I tried it on Windows 10 and Linux (Endeavour OS) with .NET 9.0. I have tried all the SampleFormat values (F32, ...).
With simple_playback.c the output works as expected.

[lyj1122]

I encountered the same issue on the window, where all audio files would have this problem. The audio file I uploaded would have a noticeable crackling sound within 8-10 seconds, but it wouldn't have this problem when playing with the window media player.
Using .NET Core 8.0, SoundFlow 1.0.3。
Minimum Example

MiniAudioEngine audioEngine = new MiniAudioEngine(44100, Capability.Playback, SampleFormat.S16, 2);
SoundPlayer player = new SoundPlayer(new AssetDataProvider(File.OpenRead(path)));
Mixer.Master.AddComponent(player);
player.Play();

test.zip

[LSXPrime]

The cracking sounds were unclear to me due to the screen speakers. I suspect this is an issue with the SoundPlayerBase component, possibly related to the array pool and frame interpolation.

I tested a simplified sound player component and couldn't detect any further distortion. Can anyone else try it and confirm?

using SoundFlow.Abstracts;
using SoundFlow.Enums;
using SoundFlow.Interfaces;

public sealed class SimpleSoundPlayer(ISoundDataProvider dataProvider) : SoundComponent, ISoundPlayer
{
    private readonly ISoundDataProvider _dataProvider = dataProvider ?? throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(dataProvider));
    private PlaybackState _state = PlaybackState.Stopped;
    private int _samplePosition;

    public PlaybackState State => _state;
    public bool IsLooping { get; set; }
    public float PlaybackSpeed { get; set; } = 1.0f;
    public float Time => (float)_samplePosition / AudioEngine.Channels / AudioEngine.Instance.SampleRate;
    public float Duration => (float)_dataProvider.Length / AudioEngine.Channels / AudioEngine.Instance.SampleRate;
    public int LoopStartSamples => 0;
    public int LoopEndSamples => -1;
    public float LoopStartSeconds => 0f;
    public float LoopEndSeconds => -1f;


    public event EventHandler<EventArgs>? PlaybackEnded;

    protected override void GenerateAudio(Span<float> output)
    {
        if (_state != PlaybackState.Playing)
        {
            output.Clear(); // Ensure silence when not playing
            return;
        }

        int samplesRead = _dataProvider.ReadBytes(output);
        _samplePosition += samplesRead;

        if (samplesRead == 0)
        {
            _state = PlaybackState.Stopped;
            PlaybackEnded?.Invoke(this, EventArgs.Empty);
        }
    }

    public void Play()
    {
        _state = PlaybackState.Playing;
        Enabled = true;
    }

    public void Pause()
    {
        _state = PlaybackState.Paused;
        Enabled = false;
    }

    public void Stop()
    {
        _state = PlaybackState.Stopped;
        Enabled = false;
        Seek(0);
    }

    public bool Seek(TimeSpan time, SeekOrigin seekOrigin = SeekOrigin.Begin)
    {
        return Seek((float)time.TotalSeconds);
    }

    public bool Seek(float time)
    {
        if (Duration <= 0) return Seek(0);
        var sampleOffset = (int)(time / Duration * _dataProvider.Length);
        return Seek(sampleOffset);
    }

    public bool Seek(int sampleOffset)
    {
        if (!_dataProvider.CanSeek) return false;
        _dataProvider.Seek(sampleOffset);
        _samplePosition = sampleOffset;
        return true;
    }

    public void SetLoopPoints(float startTime, float? endTime = -1f) { }
    public void SetLoopPoints(int startSample, int endSample = -1) { }
    public void SetLoopPoints(TimeSpan startTime, TimeSpan? endTime = null) { }
}

[lyj1122]

After repeated testing, I found that there is no cracking sound when playing with SimpleSoundPlayer

[LSXPrime]

Noted, should be fixed after finishing the WASM support.