Playground Forums

This is an odd one. Let me start by saying that when I first installed Playground everything worked fine. And nothing has changed on my system since the first run yesterday - not even a logout. Now when I press the keys, I'm just getting low pitched noise through the headphones, which I need to use in my condo. Noise is the same no matter which key I press.

Environment: brand new Alienware m17 laptop, Windows 10, fully updated.

I have 4 audio devices:
- HDMI -> soundbar
- builtin speakers
- headphones - both Bluetooth and Logitech G430 USB headset (I want to use the latter)

Playing MIDI through the headphones - which is a hard requirement - worked fine the first time. Now it just plays a low pitched noise.

Playing MIDI through HDMI or builtin speakers works fine. So I know the keyboard is properly connected and working.

Also, playing the video lesson (yes, in Playground) through the headphones works fine! So it's not that Playground won't work at all with the headphones.

Finally, I downloaded MIDI-OX to test, and that plays MIDI through the headphones without a problem.

So it's just Playground on headphones. I've played with the advanced settings, nothing seems to fix it. What are the next steps to troubleshoot?

I would make sure Bluetooth is not being used on the laptop or the headphones, and then change the sample rate to 44100 under settings.

Thank you. I disabled Bluetooth, but that doesn't seem to affect anything. I'm not sure why it would.

No matter what I do, I can't get it working properly through USB, but I found a workaround and a couple bugs.

Bug #1:
Once the video starts to play, the software makes the current output the permanent selection for video. Changing audio output settings affects MIDI, but not the video. Only restarting the software will change it. This really made my troubleshooting much harder.

Bug #2:
Direct Sound/USB Headset played MIDI keyboard sound, but with INSANE latency. Program reports 12ms latency, but reality is 1-2 seconds, so it's completely unusable. Sample rate is already lowest setting of 44100.

Workaround:
I noticed that when playing through my Realtek Audio output (3/8" jack) I was having trouble getting system sounds. I ran the troubleshooter and it suggested turning off audio enhancements. I didn't set any myself, but when I disabled them in the device settings, audio worked. Video, MIDI, and system sounds all work via the jack. So for now, I can switch from USB to the headphone jack when using Playground. This is inconvenient because the headphone jack doesn't support the mic like USB does, which I also need for work. Would be great to find out how to get USB to work.