Chopping sound from mic

[kwoot]

Hi, using the latest OBS (same problem since 30.x) running on Ubuntu 24.04. I am using a Rode NT+USB mic.
For the past few days Every recording I made had a chopping sound in the audio. Unusable.
Now I do the exact same thing, and it just works (tm).

Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Is there some way I can tune this piece of the application?

Really looking forward to a response on this.

Regards,
Jeroen Baten

 

[AaronD]

Most "audio terms" are pretty bad at explaining the actual sound! Can you post a recording?

One possibility that I've seen a flurry of over the past few days in lots of other posts, is a laptop that can't keep itself cool. Most laptops are not meant for continuous loads like live media production is. They don't have adequate cooling systems for that, so they heat up and slow down, and that slowdown kills the stream or recording. They're really meant to load something quickly, and then sit and cool off while the user looks at it.

Desktop towers don't have that problem - they'll run continuously at 100% load if need be, and they'll do that all day - and the "Mobile Workstation" class of laptop can do that too. MW's are thick and heavy because of their cooling systems, and somewhat expensive because there's not as much of a market for a "luggable brick" as there is for something that you can toss in your backpack and forget it's there.

So if you're on a "standard laptop", that's probably your problem. If you can possibly move your rig to a desktop, maybe on a cart or something if it has to be mobile, there's a good chance that'll fix it. Even if it doesn't, it removes a variable that can easily come back to bite you later.
If it MUST be a laptop, look at a Mobile Workstation.