How to troubleshoot distorted sound

A big challenge when mixing live sound from multiple sources is that it can sometimes be hard to tell where unwanted sounds come from. In JackTrip, you can usually pinpoint the source pretty quickly by just hovering your mouse over each person in the session. If you see their volume meters moving in sync with the unwanted sound, this is likely where it originates from.

If the source of the problem is still not clear, have each person individually follow these steps to help pinpoint the cause:

• Connect to a studio session by yourself.

• Click the "Studio" button to open the sound menu and make set the "Master" volume slider to 100 (percent) and the "Studio Echo" volume slider to zero.

• Make sure that the "Monitor" volume in the JackTrip interface is also set to zero.

• You should not hear anything. If you do, the problem is happening "inside" your audio interface. Some interfaces offer a local monitoring feature that plays back the audio it's receiving from inputs without any involvement from your computer. If this is the problem source, check all your cables and ensure that your gain volume is not clipping.

• If you hear nothing, next try turning up the "Monitor" volume inside the JackTrip interface. You should hear yourself clearly and without any distortion. If something sounds wrong, double-check your levels, audio interface driver and settings. This means that your audio interface and computer's operating system are not working well together.

• If JackTrip's "Monitor" volume sounds good, next turn the "Monitor" back all the way down. You should again hear nothing.
• Turn up the "Studio Echo" volume setting to 100 (percent). You should hear yourself clearly and without any distortion. If something sounds wrong, make sure that the volume meters are all "in the yellow" or at least not maxing out.
• If the volume meters look OK and you still hear distorted sound, the problem lies somewhere in your Internet connection. Try turning up the studio's latency setting by dragging the slider in the upper-right corner of the interface all the way to the right (alternatively, enabling "Auto" should find good balance for you without having to set this manually).
• If you still hear distorted sound, there is something severely wrong with your Internet connection that JackTrip is simply unable to correct. Make sure that your computer is plugged into Ethernet and that you have disabled Wi-Fi. Contact your Internet Service Provider for help, and/or consider switching to an alternative provider.
• If everything sounds good and you haven't found any problems, it means your setup is good and the problem lies elsewhere.