Score:0

Why is my sound extremely distorted in Ubuntu Studio 21.10?

cn flag

Audio is extremely distorted in Ubuntu Studio 21.10 using JACK on my Lenovo Thinkpad P15v Gen 2, using the built-in Intel Tiger Lake audio hardware.

It appears that all sound on the system is affected; LMMS, Hydrogen, Spotify, and even system sound effects (e.g. the 'blip' sound when adjusting volume) are all hyper-amplified into squelchy static.

Some apps, such as Spotify, become less distorted as I reduce the main volume, but I need to reduce the level to 15% or lower for the distortion to become inaudible.

Other apps, such as LMMS, retain their shrieking squelch no matter how far I pull back sliders in QASMixer.

The problem seems to be caused by some part of Ubuntu Studio's JACK configuration. I experience the same problem on a fresh install of Ubuntu Studio 21.10, and also on a vanilla install of Kubuntu where I have used the Ubuntu Studio installer. The Kubuntu installation did not have this problem before I ran the Ubuntu Studio installer.

I have tried changing JACK sample rate, buffer size, and periods with no noticeable change in the audio quality.

What can I do to fix this problem?

Score:0
vu flag

Have you tried the --sync or -S option on jackd? It somehow resolved the distortion on my Thinkpad E14 Gen2 when using JACK.

Score:0
cn flag

For anyone who finds this, I solved my audio problems by switching to pipewire and disabling pulseaudio.

More info here:

How to replace pulseaudio with pipewire on Ubuntu 21.04?

https://github.com/pipewire-debian/pipewire-debian/wiki

https://wiki.debian.org/PipeWire

mangohost

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.