Distorted sound?

(If you can’t hear any audio at all, please see No sound?)

Occasionally, issues can arise with the audio playback of Strum Machine. You might hear various kinds of distortion, crackling, buzzing, or other nasty sounds coming from your speakers. Here’s what to do if that happens:

iPhone or iPad? Turn it off and back on again.

This isn’t the only solution, but it’s the simplest by far, and so far it has been reported to work nearly 100% of the time. Simply power off your device (hold down the power button and then slide to power off), wait for it to fully power down, then turn it back on again.

This issue is thankfully rare enough that, once fixed, you are unlikely to encounter it again.

Using a Bluetooth speaker?

Certain Bluetooth speakers have a hard time with the audio from Strum Machine — most apps simply stream an audio file, while Strum Machine is playing multiple audio files every second to generate the backing track on the fly.

Unfortunately, the steps to resolve this issue are much less clear because there are hundreds of speaker models out there, each with their own quirks and issues.

The first step is to disconnect your speaker and see if it sounds OK on your device’s internal speakers. If it still sounds bad, skip to the next section.

Assuming the speaker is the issue, try plugging it into your device with an audio cable (if possible). Using a wire isn’t ideal for portablity, but it usually solves audio issues and you get the happy side effect of having audio that is always in sync with the visuals (even if you’re not using one of the mobile apps).

If you have an Apple device, you could try enabling Guided Access in your device’s Accessibility Settings panel. A Strum Machine user reported this solution to me; I have no idea why it worked for him, but it did.

I am still working on other solutions for this issue so please contact me with the name of your device and speaker and I’ll give you some other things to try.

Not using an iPhone, iPad, or Bluetooth speaker?

Please contact me, let me know what kind of device and/or web browser you’re using Strum Machine with, and I will personally help you get it working.