Ableton Forum

When I listen to an exported song through Media Player or VLC with Ableton closed, it sounds ridiculously bassy and the lead instrument is swamped in the background (EQ is off in the media players). But this is the weird bit.... when I re-open Ableton, and then listen again through a media player, it sounds normal. Somehow, having Ableton open makes the wav file sound normal through a media player, but having Ableton closed makes the wav file sound totally wrong through a media player. Ableton must be using or opening computer resources somehow. Can you help? TIA.

my guess is that the media player is set to use a different sample rate than ableton. 48khz is standard for movies so most media players default to that.

if you open ableton after the media player it's most likely changing the sample rate back to what you used originally so it sounds normal

check the audio preferences in both programs and make sure they are the same

But I've exported it from Ableton to a 16bit wav file. And just having Ableton open in the background makes the wav sound normal through a media player but having Ableton closed makes the wav sound bad through a media player. When I listen to the wav file on another computer without Ableton, it sounds normal.

Bump. Can anyone help?

I've found some more info. When I open Sound in Control Panel while a media player is playing a song, and I click on the headings, it changes the sound drastically. When I click on Playback, it sounds ridiculously bassy and muffled. When I click on Recording, it sounds like it should sound but lower volume. Weird, huh? It might be because it's a cheap laptop and there's only one jack to serve both mic and headphones?