seriously bizzarre notebook computer audio problem

i bought a sony vaio pc-tr1mp for really cheap. pretty good for the money (£30). however, i'm seriously infuriated by this dynamic compression effect that is on all audio and can't seem to be turned off. trying to make music with it is really unpleasantly disgusting (the effect is like, on extreme settings and not transparent at all.. if transparent is the right word, never been sure about that one) and i have only made crap because i get in a bad mood.

couldn't find any answers with google. i don't have a working external soundcard to see if it would still do it through that (this thing is so fucked i wouldn't be surprised). looked through all settings and can't find any way of turning it off.

i'm pretty sure i've tried everything but i'd appreciate any ideas for a fix.

pc-tramp

ha

Does the laptop have any program or something that controls the laptop's soundcard? For example, I have an ASUS laptop that has a program where you can control treble, bass, vocal clarity.

Sorry if you've already tried this or something, just a thought I had that might be able to help you out.

thanks, but yeah there's none of that

Pretty sure Sony Vaios used to come with Sony Sonicstage preinstalled.. Pretty shonky crap software for managing external players, also included a whole bunch of processing units, EQ's, compressors etc.

Half the thing that put me off Sony laptop was the gratuitous amount of bloat they came preinstalled with

Any chance it's running somewhere as a background service, applying compression or whatever to everything you play off your machine?

Did you try using an external audio interface? If you're using a USB one and the issue is gone, you can be fairly sure it's and issue with the internal soundcard or driver. If it still remains, could be something else.

Something else worth trying, the Vaio website used to have a service where you could enter your laptop model, and you'd be directed to a link for all software it came with, and all drivers and utilities it came with. Also there will be links for the most up to date versions of the drivers. Might be worth re installing/updating the soundcard drivers.

reinstalled soundMAX with old drivers. the compressor seems to be gone. the sound is very quiet and muffled... i guess this is the default sound and that's why there were effects, must have been an update to cover up the shittiness of the soundcard.

time to attempt a fix on my external soundcard that was lobbed across a room (it actually works but the controls don't)

Muffled and quiet? I would check your cables, try different headphones/speakers or something. I've never experienced a laptop that litterally had muffled sound. I seriously doubt that all those laptops have bad sound cards. That would be fucking crazy.

http://technicallyeasy.net/2010/09/how-to-disable-audio-enhancements-windows-7/

?

  On 8/11/2012 at 6:48 PM, Blanket Fort Collapse said:

Muffled and quiet? I would check your cables, try different headphones/speakers or something. I've never experienced a laptop that litterally had muffled sound. I seriously doubt that all those laptops have bad sound cards. That would be fucking crazy.

it's not cables, headphones or speakers. it became muffled when i installed the old soundcard driver, before that it was compressed and horrible but not muffled. it is a laptop with a shitty soundcard.

also, i fixed my external soundcard, everything sounds great, so.. super.

but i'm still making absolute bollocks:

http://soundcloud.com/tauboo/iglancechanceton-versie-one

  On 8/11/2012 at 11:46 PM, tauboo said:

  On 8/11/2012 at 6:48 PM, Blanket Fort Collapse said:

Muffled and quiet? I would check your cables, try different headphones/speakers or something. I've never experienced a laptop that litterally had muffled sound. I seriously doubt that all those laptops have bad sound cards. That would be fucking crazy.

it's not cables, headphones or speakers. it became muffled when i installed the old soundcard driver, before that it was compressed and horrible but not muffled. it is a laptop with a shitty soundcard.

 

also, i fixed my external soundcard, everything sounds great, so.. super.

 

but i'm still making absolute bollocks:

http://soundcloud.com/tauboo/iglancechanceton-versie-one

sounds like mr. scruff... not really my cup of tea but certainly not absolute bollocks! really well produced and all that, catchy vibe..