Ableton playback audio issue MBP 2009

[philphil]

Hi everyone,

So I bought this MBP in 2009, Intel Core duo 2, 2.53ghz, 8G ram (added myself) running OSX 10.6 snow leopard (I think).

My issue is that when I playback audio through the headphone jack from software like Ableton Live 8, VLC, iTunes etc the sound sounds horrible: over compressed, super bassy, sounds like it’s ‘playing double’ as I can sort of hear a very short delay. Very bad. I already checked EQs, etc. Same issue for both software. Also It didn’t used to be like that. It kind of just appeared a couple years ago. I have played small gigs straight from the headphone jack and it sounded fine.

However, when I play audio through the headphone jack from internet apps like Youtube, Soundcloud, etc, everything sounds fine. So this tells us that it should not be a hardware issue.

Also on ableton live I playback everything through an external soundcard, no issue there either. The issue happens only when playing audio through headphone jack from software playback only. As a result I never take my MBP out as I can’t take the audio quality from headphones when working on tracks.

I searched about this topic which brought me to the Utilities>Audio midi settings.Everything looks like it should. iTunes and Ableton Live 8 suite are updated to their latest version.

What do you reckon I should do? Reset to factory settings? OS update to Maverick? But then isn’t my MBP too old for the latest update? Also read about a PRAM reset.

Thank you very much for your help and your time!!
Cheers
Le Filou

http://www.soundcloud.com/le-filou

[re:dream]

Um... nice tunes on that soundcloud page

I have an MBP 2009, I run Mavericks without a problem.

And I have no problem with sound through the headphone jack.

What are your audio settings within Live? CoreAudio?

[philphil]

Thanks for your compliments and feedback about Mavericks working on a 09 mbp
I guess I'll just upgrade to Mav. as it's not an Ableton specific issue.
Audio settings in Live are Core Audio indeed.
Cheers!

[re:dream]

Hope it works.

It may make sense to ask Ableton Support if the problem does not get better.

As I said, headphone jack sound should be perfectly fine on a 2009 MBP running Live.

[philphil]

Hmm actually I just found posts on other forums about people having issues with mav/yosemite os upgrades on MBP 09. They have in common a Ram upgrade. Did you upgrade yours?

[re:dream]

Yes, I doubled my RAM some time ago. No problem.

[philphil]

Awesome, I will try that out then
Thanks for your help!

[re:dream]

I very much doubt that an OS upgrade will deal with the problem... But let us know how it goes.

[philphil]

I tried resetting the PRAM, to no avail. I haven't tried the OS update. I did realize that iTunes had the audio enhancer on which didn't do the already mysterious echo-y sound any justice. So i'm back to square one. I guess I'll just leave it like that... Thanks for your help anyway.