ST3 Buzzes on Playback - No Sound/Audio

joeguam

I’ve used ST3 for several gigs successfully, love the app. Tonight while adding some songs, something has happened and all the multitrack songs now do not playback, and only a buzzing sound is produced.

Here are the steps I completed on the iPad to try and troubleshoot:

Played music from the Spotify & YouTube apps, audio plays normally as expected through iPad speakers - this rules out the possibility of it being a iPad hardware issue, the buzzing issue is isolated to the ST3 app.
Fully backed up ST3, deleted ST3 app, reinstalled, restored purchases to full unlocked version, restored from full backup - did not resolve issue, all songs still just play a buzzing sound from the iPad speakers (Bluetooth disabled, no accessories plugged into the iPad).
Played several multitrack WAV files directly using the iPad media player, audio plays normally as expected through iPad speakers. This rules out any issues with the multitrack WAV files themselves.
Deleted ST3 app, reinstalled, restored purchases, created a new multitrack file, configured and imported multitracks using same WAV files - did not resolve issue, there’s no more buzzing but now there’s no sound playing at all. I tried playing the multitracks in the “Edit Audio Regions”, “Configure Multitrack Playback”, and “Playback & Trim” menus and still no sound is played (also ensured the volume on both the iPad and the ST3 app were at 100%).
For all steps above, all outputs in the Audio Routing menu were set to “Speaker”.
Deleted all midi assignments in the “Assign Action” menu - did not resolve buzzing.

Some things discovered:

When all tracks are unmuted, the buzzing stops but there’s just no sound at all. When you mute the tracks one by one the buzzing gets louder and louder.
When I change the buffer size, the buzzing pitch changes, the lower the buffer size the higher the buzzing pitch.
Changing the Internal Sample Rate does nothing, buzzes on both options.

Can anyone help? What am I doing wrong?

@peter

peter

Do you have a master effect inserted?

When no playback is running, Stage Traxx does not output any sound, regardless of the mute status of your tracks. The only thing that could cause a buzzing sound would be an active master effect.

joeguam

peter Confirmed no master effects were added, issue still occurred.

@Damir - thanks for your reply to try and help, really appreciate it.

ISSUE RESOLVED:
This iPad was running on an old iOS version, 15.x, as I am always hesitant to upgrade versions for concerns of functionality issues occurring during gigs. As a last resort, I upgraded the version to the latest 18.1, reinstalled ST3, restored the full backup and playback is now normal and as expected once again.

One very critical thing I learned in this process is that ST3 stores its backup files in the same app directory as all the other files (eg. multitrack, PDF, etc). So, when you delete the app to reinstall, all the backup files are deleted as well. I’m sure this is how the iOS architecture is designed so no residual files remain after apps are deleted, but it’s important to know that you must move/copy-paste the backup files to a separate folder outside of the ST3 app directory before deleting the app or else it will be deleted along with it. Thankfully I duplicated the latest backup file outside the ST3 app directory before deleting, but I lost all previous backups. A good lesson learned here for me.

Thanks again!

Damir

@"joeguam"#p18561here are some thoughts.
is this happening on multitrack songs only or is it also on stereo songs?
Have you double checked your settings on export to suit ST3 required settings as the media player might play everything but ST3 is fussy.

peter

I have 2 test devices running on iOS15 and I don't get any buzzing sound. Very strange.