like it says in the title the mic sounds like it's underwater on fl studio 21 doesnt happen with ableton live tho or other daws anyone know why? it might be something with the settings? please someone help

 

You sure the channel you load it into doesn't have an EQ on it? Have you tried recording outside FL Studio and running the same clip into several empty channels to see if it's the same?

 

ive tried recording in ableton suite 11 and bitwig 5 and i dont have that underwater sound it's crispy clear in ableton and bitwig but i dont like the workflow of either and ableton has a BIG latency bug i dont know what to do anymore im getting depressed : (

 

So open Ableton/Bitwig and go to their preferences section where your Audio Interface, driver, RAM buffer settings, are. You can screenshot those. Then go into FL and do a comparison between the settings so you can go item by item, and see what is different.

Your problem is obviously in FL's settings, or the actual application. (which it probably is not). Be systematic in your approach to signal chain and signal flow. Try thinking about it like plumbing, and water going through it from point a to point b.

It can be helpful to use a Wave Editor like Soundforge, Audacity, etc to troubleshoot something like this. Gets the DAW related possibilities out of your way. 1 valid waveform recorded without your issue will prove to you it is FL you need to dig into.

 

Last edited: Sep 9, 2023

my preferences are the same on fl studio as they are in ableton and bitwig but in fl studio the mic still sounds like it is under water

 

Perhaps you are monitoring both the mixer output as well as the input signal at the same time which sounds like shit under water.

 

Yes, something like this even. If the input, interface, driver, and such settings are no different than other DAW; the problem is obviously somewhere in FL. Which is actually good, because FL user setup error and bad settings can be more easily fixed. Are there any other obvious FL internal possible causes you can think of?

@OP, is this the first time you have tried recording from microphone into FL, or did you have it working properly before this?

 

i put my focusrite analog imput ie the mic as default mic and now it sounds better still sounds kinda underwater compared to other daws but i guess it's better than no improvement

 

no this is my first time using the mic with fl studio

 

hey mate, this might be a stupid question but it used to happen to me.
are you sure you're not using a template with some garbage already put on the master mixer track?

 

I don't have a Focusrite, but I do have an AT2020 and FL Studio. Attached some of my main screenshots for recording, but honestly don't know how you can manage to mess up the sound in FL.

Maybe the problem is the optimisation of the Focusrite ASIO driver in FL? But that would be weird since millions of people use this interface and this DAW.

Spoiler

 

I understand what you are suggesting, especially because it is a Focusrite and depending on the model's software, it could be issues in it's mixer/routing too. But it is working in 2 other daws, besides FL. A driver change to check might be worth trying since it's fast to do. This is why I was suggesting using an audio editor program to test. there are so few options in them which someone could screw up.

But I would not voluntarily go down the hole which is the Focusrite Control software, if it could be avoided. I wouldn't even screw with it, if it is already working fine in two other programs. FL may not be recording and playing back his mic correctly (underwater sound), but we also know sound is making it there to FL from the focusrite and it's software. Focusrite mixing software can add effects, but it would not be application specific.

There was a recent thread on here about FL causing CPU spikes, and it was due to some setting in the audio preferences menu. a simple checkbox difference, and it was spiking cpus. Users were saying thanks to the poster. I think this is something along those lines. It's amazing how many bugs people find in programs when they first install them ;)

 

just because the mic has not been used with FL before, doesn't mean somehow settings in FL were not changed around during normal work.
maybe restore fl to factory default settings and a brand new FL project would be where to start.

 

Sounding "underwater" may be comb filtering caused by accidentally monitoring the microphone signal twice. Direct signal via the interface itself and a slightly delayed software monitoring signal through the DAW.

 

are you on mac or win ? look on audio co,figuration or the machine NOT the daw ...

 

im on windows 11

 

how can i fix it ? im using asio4all

 

how can i fix it?

 

I'm not using FL Studio, so I don't know its settings. But there has to be something like "hard- or software monitoring".

 

Probably unrelated, but why are you using asio4all instead of your interface's asio driver?