We made some changes to the size of the sound buffer a month or so ago in order to reduce the lag between when a play sound block is triggered and when you hear the sound. However, I'm starting to suspect that this may make playback of songs and stuff kinda slow or stuttery, even if the project isn't doing a lot of hard calculations. At least that's what I'm hearing (although it may have been caused by an update from Adobe - not sure yet.)

Please post here if sound playback of songs - even on simple projects - is slow or choppy. I want to get a sense of how widespread this problem is. Mention your OS and browser as well please! Thanks!

Not for me. I just can't load 4+ mb music…

I did, but it's fixed now. I though you guys did that. Well, it wasn't working, and I'm on a Windows XP with Chrome.

On windows 8 with chrome it still works fine
On windows XP as soon as somthing starts calculating intense chopiness happens, but sound does work better than before this

Not while I am editing, but I have notices sounds get choppy when I’m looking at someone else’s and scroll down to read the comments. (I’m on windows 7 with… internet explorer so I assumed that was the problem XD)

It did for my project, but then I waited a few hours and it went away!

It happens for me all the time. But I guess I'm trying to do a lot of intense calculations and drawing to the screen a lot. To minimize the issue, I generally reduce the frame rate of the screen refreshes, which is fine but it's kind of a bummer because then it doesn't look as good. So I have to find a balance between the visuals and the sound.

The frustrating part is that I know the CPU itself can handle this no problem (i.e. I can play a song in some other program while I watch the animation in Scratch), but I know there's more to it when you are trying to have it all run within the same run time environment. Maybe there are some advanced options for sound in Flash that are being overlooked? Just a guess, and I could be totally wrong.

The other part that is a bit frustrating is that when I save a sound file, I do not know exactly what format it should be rendered in before uploading. I know it can be either WAV or MP3, but there are tons of options to consider even within just those two file formats. Take a look at the screenshot below to see what I mean. (I use Reaper, but any decent audio program has very similar options to this.) What sample rate should it have? What bit depth? Mono or stereo? I have also noticed that the overall volume level seems to affect how much it stutters or not. I know that Scratch is geared towards beginners, and I am all for that (TOTALLY), but it would be nice if there were a bit more guidance and support for people trying to do more advanced stuff with it.

Hope this information helps. I can provide samples of projects that either stutter or not given different frame rates if you are interested.

Audio Options

I can't download ANY music even though my Adobe is updated,and the music is mp3 quality.I only have one song that I can use , but even that one is choppy and slow. PLEASE HELP!!!

Ok! We think we know what's causing the stutter. We're going to be doubling the buffer size in the next version of the player / editor, due to be released tomorrow. So please try it out then, and let us know if things start sounding better!

Sweet! I'll test it out with some current projects tomorrow or the next day. I'll let you know how it goes.

superscripts wrote:

The other part that is a bit frustrating is that when I save a sound file, I do not know exactly what format it should be rendered in before uploading. I know it can be either WAV or MP3, but there are tons of options to consider even within just those two file formats. Take a look at the screenshot below to see what I mean. (I use Reaper, but any decent audio program has very similar options to this.) What sample rate should it have? What bit depth? Mono or stereo? I have also noticed that the overall volume level seems to affect how much it stutters or not. I know that Scratch is geared towards beginners, and I am all for that (TOTALLY), but it would be nice if there were a bit more guidance and support for people trying to do more advanced stuff with it.

Sample rate should be lower to reduce the size.
Use mono, as Scratch converts to Mono anyway.
Normaly Bit Depth doesn't need to be touched.
WAV and MP3 are both good. Experiment.

Sonickyle, I'll try your suggestions, although I think I've tried a higher bit depth (like 24) and it wouldn't upload (maybe the file was too big… but then what is the max size exactly?). Also, I think I tried a lower sample rate which made the whole thing go into slow motion.

I'll definitely play around with what you said, but the main point is that there must be some specific rules around this, and I haven't seen them posted anywhere to date. I keep tweaking things with mixed results. I know it's also a matter of priorities for the Scratch team, but hopefully something official will be shared before launch.

I'm running OSX10.5.8, and I have a decent internet connection. Every sound is drawn out and horrible sounding when I try to play a project on the old site. It used to just be the new site; now apparently it's both. Not really sure why though.

– LockedOn.

Music stutters when the project's framerate is less than 30. In my opinion the audio engine should work asynchronously so that music still sounds correct in intensive projects.

EDIT: Hey, this was just fixed! Awesome job!

I can tell that the site is currently being upgraded, since things are going up and down, but I can already tell that the sound problem is… wait for it… FIXED!

Sorry for the shameless plug, but the project below used to stutter horribly, even when I slowed it down with an artificial frame rate, but now the music plays perfectly without any slow down at all. Thanks guys! Great work!

http://beta.scratch.mit.edu/projects/10065714/

wah since this new version it seems that flash is even more unresponsive
during the intro for serenity (with the swirl) it lags very intensly
(this was on windows 8 on my secondary computer)
specs:
windows 8 64-bit build 9200
4GB ram
Intel core 2 duo @ 1.87 1.86
nvidia Geforce 8500 @500Mhz
(yes i know that it's not great but it worked fine before this update)
although sound works like a charm

superscripts wrote:

I can tell that the site is currently being upgraded, since things are going up and down, but I can already tell that the sound problem is… wait for it… FIXED!

Sorry for the shameless plug, but the project below used to stutter horribly, even when I slowed it down with an artificial frame rate, but now the music plays perfectly without any slow down at all. Thanks guys! Great work!

http://beta.scratch.mit.edu/projects/10065714/

Awesome! I was hoping that would solve the problem in at least some (hopefully the majority) of cases.