# Audio Crackles with Big Sur 11.3.1



## pr0ject (May 24, 2021)

I've tried recording on two different Macs, both running Big Sur 11.3.1 and both are recording audio crackles. This is NOT a streaming issue for me (I do local recordings), but the crackling just recently presented itself and none of my other audio capture applications (Zoom, Teams, Webex) seem to have this issue. Did something change with OBS on Big Sur that I'm not aware of?


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## mg922 (May 24, 2021)

Same issue here. It was working fine until I downloaded the latest Mac OS update a couple days ago. Now it's completely unusable for recording. I can record into Zoom using the exact same setup with no crackles. I don't know if it's a streaming issue, I only use it for recording video. This is driving me nuts. Is there another option similar to OBS? I could use Quicktime, but I am using the chromakey background which doesn't work in Quicktime so it would meaning add an extra step in iMovie to replace the green screen.


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## Gus123 (May 25, 2021)

Same here :( I'm using OBS for recording with a Blue Snowball...


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## Gus123 (May 25, 2021)

Gus123 said:


> Same here :( I'm using OBS for recording with a Blue Snowball...


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## JennaGem (May 26, 2021)

I'm having the same problem - recordings unusable since upgrade...


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## DuaneHabecker (May 28, 2021)

Same here.  Check your mkv file. There is no crackle with the mkv. The crackle only happens after I remux and listen to the mp4.



pr0ject said:


> I've tried recording on two different Macs, both running Big Sur 11.3.1 and both are recording audio crackles. This is NOT a streaming issue for me (I do local recordings), but the crackling just recently presented itself and none of my other audio capture applications (Zoom, Teams, Webex) seem to have this issue. Did something change with OBS on Big Sur that I'm not aware of?


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## trappster (May 30, 2021)

Aloha everyone. YES! Same issue here. Local recording files remuxed to MP4 are crackling and clicking and popping and with OBS bad audio quality all around (those terms were to help folks googling this to find our thread here). THANK YOU DUANE HABECKER! You are exactly right. The mkv files are fine. You just saved me because at least I can remux them some other way after finishing the recording session. As everyone else said, this was introduced just recently, alongside the macOS Big Sur 11.3.1 update.


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## trappster (May 30, 2021)

By the way! I tried recording in Streamlabs OBS and the MP4 audio recording sounds fine. So it seems to be an OBS STUDIO problem in the remux.


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## DuaneHabecker (Jun 2, 2021)

Brief update: Using Handbrake to convert the mkv to mp4 works just fine. No crackling.
https://handbrake.fr/

Another option is to use DaVinci Resolve 17, which now imports mkv directly. No need to convert to mp4 BEFORE importing into Resolve.


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## Bodote (Jun 3, 2021)

same here! see  https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/issues/4740
downgrade to 26.x did not help either for me!


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## trappster (Jun 3, 2021)

Updated to version 27.0.0 on my MacMini M1 (2020) - remuxing to mp4 still introducing noise and clicking. Thanks DuaneH for the mention of Handbrake to convert for now.


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## keithlancaster (Jun 4, 2021)

Exactly the same for me, and downgrading does nothing to fix the issue. Thanks @DuaneHabecker for the tip on HandBrake! After a bit more testing, if you record directly to mp4, there is no glitch, so there is some issue in the transcoder that generates the mp4 from the mkv file. 

On a side note, I had tried previously importing mkv files directly into DaVinci and found that the program lost data or crashed. I think that was with 17.0, so maybe it is working better now with 17.2.


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## BATKAKO (Jun 4, 2021)

Oi, gente. Eu atualizei meu Macbook air para Bigsur e agora não consigo capturar o áudio da área de trabalho.
Já vi vários vídeos sobre como consertar o erro, mas sem sucesso. 
Existe uma solução para este problema? 
Obrigado pela atenção.


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## cognitiaclaeves (Jun 16, 2021)

I experienced this as well, with OBS 27.0.1. I eventually found that it was Apple Quicktime that was having issues playing audio in mp4 files muxed by OBS. These files played fine in Audacity and VLC. And files generated by Davinci Resolve which included the mp4 media muxed by OBS, played fine in Apple QT.  https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252705782?answerId=255092218022#255092218022


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## DerekDowney (Jun 17, 2021)

I also am experiencing this exact issue. Some additional points:


While playing the remuxed mp4 crackles in Quicktime, it does not in VLC as is similar to what @cognitiaclaeves mentions.
Using handbrake also allows Quicktime to play the converted mp4 without audio crackles for me.
 If I try to import the .mp4 into Camtasia 2020, it won't accept the file. It just removes it after a few seconds of 'processing'. 
This is true for the OBS-remuxed file, as well as the Handbrake converted file.
I'm still debugging this to identify if it's a format issue of the converted file from OBS, or an issue with Camtasia 2020 on Big Sur.

This is where I'm at after a long line of debugging the audio issues. Prior debugging indicated other mic inputs were _not_ crackling when converted. So I'm going to retest that to confirm.
But overall, OBS remuxed files have audio crackle for my cheap Shure MK5 mic on Mac OSX Big Sur. The same mic does not crackle on Windows running the same OBS Version (27.0.1). I tested with the mic hooked directly via USB to the MacbookPro, and then directly to the Windows pc.


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## DerekDowney (Jun 17, 2021)

DerekDowney said:


> If I try to import the .mp4 into Camtasia 2020, it won't accept the file. It just removes it after a few seconds of 'processing'.
> This is true for the OBS-remuxed file, as well as the Handbrake converted file.
> I'm still debugging this to identify if it's a format issue of the converted file from OBS, or an issue with Camtasia 2020 on Big Sur.
> 
> This is where I'm at after a long line of debugging the audio issues. Prior debugging indicated other mic inputs were _not_ crackling when converted. So I'm going to retest that to confirm.




Ok an update. 

If I record a .mov in Quicktime with the ShureMV5 usb Mic, Camtasia can import the file without issue.
If I record the laptop's built-in mic in OBS and use OBS to remux to mp4, Camtasia can import the file without issue.
If I record the ShureMV5 in OBS and remux to mp4 in either OBS or Handbrake, Camtasia cannot import the file.

This suggests to me there is something wrong with the mkv file that leads to slight corruption in the mp4 file. Camtasia can't handle that corruption, but QuickTime can, depending on how its converted (OBS vs Handbrake).

This is specifically for my USB Shure MV5 microphone within OBS on Big Sure (again, PC works without issue).

Thoughts?


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## ilypge (Jun 17, 2021)

After a couple weeks of searching forums and youtube videos, I'm so glad I found a thread of people experiencing the same issue!

My MacBook was recently repaired and is now running Big Sur v. 11.3.1.
I decided to take the opportunity to switch from SLOBS to OBS/OBS.live (26.1.2) but found horrible robotic-like crackling in audio recordings with my Blue Yeti microphone. I just tested and it also crackled with my MacBook Pro microphone. No problems with desktop audio. Remuxed to mp4 with OBS and playing in Quicktime. Realized it was likely a Mac issue when I uploaded a clip to discord/ran a test stream and both sounded perfectly fine.


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## DerekDowney (Jun 17, 2021)

The comments above about Camtasia are unrelated. I did a clean test and it seems a different issue not with OBS.

Final state is: OBS remux crackles in QuickTime. Converting with Handbrake or even directly with ffmpeg from Homebrew allows it to play in Quicktime without crackling.


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## bluesnoz (Jun 18, 2021)

Hi all, I'm new to OBS but have been trying recording on M1 MacBook Air and having problems with crackling audio from any source.  Was driving me nuts.  Eventually discovered that in the Settings/Output/Recording/Type option, changing this from "Standard" to "Custom Output (FFmpeg)" completely solved the issue.  Audio now records without glitches.  Hope that helps someone.


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## gmangesh (Jul 3, 2021)

So glad to have found this thread - this issue was driving me nuts.
I am new to OBS so my first instinct was that I had messed up somewhere or just didn't know how to set things up :-\

My findings are largely the same as others:
- The audio in the remuxed .mp4 crackles/clicks and is noticeably lower quality (sounds tinny) when played back in QuickTime.
- Audio of remuxed .mp4 sounds fine when played back in VLC.
- Audio of .mkv also sounds fine when played back in VLC.
- I used VLC to export the .mkv file to .m4v:
    - QuickTime had no audio when playing back vlc-exported-m4v file
    - VLC itself had trouble with its own exported .m4v file - it would start playing audio-only for the first 15 or so seconds and then bring up the video after 15 seconds. It's as if the first 15 seconds worth of video frames were dropped by VLC during the conversion.

Haven't tried out @bluesnoz's suggestion of using FFmpeg - will do so tomorrow.


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## flatsick (Jul 3, 2021)

Im also experiencing the problem, The remux omission fixed the problem for me as im now recording directly to mp4 with the sacrifice of losing the data ( i didnt use mkv prior to m1 anyways). Very thankful for this thread!


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## JimF (Jul 9, 2021)

Thanks for addressing this issue.  @bluesnoz suggestion to use FFmpeg solved this for this for me.  Being new to OBS, I spent a day trying all kinds of settings, cable swaps, internet searches, etc. to figure out what I thought I was doing wrong.  Found that there was nothing wrong with my equipment when recording with Quicktime but until finding this thread couldn't eliminate the static.  Thanks, again.  Now I can resume what I was originally trying to do with OBS.....


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## angelica160 (Jul 14, 2021)

bluesnoz said:


> Hi all, I'm new to OBS but have been trying recording on M1 MacBook Air and having problems with crackling audio from any source.  Was driving me nuts.  Eventually discovered that in the Settings/Output/Recording/Type option, changing this from "Standard" to "Custom Output (FFmpeg)" completely solved the issue.  Audio now records without glitches.  Hope that helps someone.


THANK YOU SO SO MUCH, you don’t even understand how helpful this was. I’ve spent 2 weeks trying to figure out what was wrong with my mic not knowing that I needed to do this change. You literally are amazing, tysm


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## scrane (Sep 14, 2021)

similar problem with streamed audio to YouTube.  audio came back 'crackly' if that is a word.  Using 24" M1 Mac, running audio from mixer to PTZ NDI/HX camera, then streaming out to Youtube via OBS.  Eliminated distortion by: audio source/properties/bandwidth...changed 'highest' to 'lowest' or 'Audio only'.


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## elton loh (Dec 10, 2021)

scrane said:


> similar problem with streamed audio to YouTube.  audio came back 'crackly' if that is a word.  Using 24" M1 Mac, running audio from mixer to PTZ NDI/HX camera, then streaming out to Youtube via OBS.  Eliminated distortion by: audio source/properties/bandwidth...changed 'highest' to 'lowest' or 'Audio only'.



Where do you change the audio setting for streaming ?


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## umesh300 (Feb 14, 2022)

bluesnoz said:


> Hi all, I'm new to OBS but have been trying recording on M1 MacBook Air and having problems with crackling audio from any source.  Was driving me nuts.  Eventually discovered that in the Settings/Output/Recording/Type option, changing this from "Standard" to "Custom Output (FFmpeg)" completely solved the issue.  Audio now records without glitches.  Hope that helps someone.


Thanks a lot for this solution. I had same issue on Mac Mini 2018 but once i changed to custom output (FFmpeg) sound is perfect.. My system on Mac os 12.2.1 Monterey


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