Sonic Pi doesn’t make any sound whatsoever

[gmfbrown]

I’m trying to get started on Sonic Pi and I’m going through the tutorial. However, starting with the very first step in the tutorial, I can’t get Sonic Pi to make any sound whatsoever. I’m on Windows 10, using Sonic Pi v3.3.1. The code I’m trying to run is as follows:

# Welcome to Sonic Pi

live_loop :flibble do
  sample :bd_haus, rate: 1
  sleep 0.5
end

According to the tutorial this is supposed to produce “a nice fast bass drum beating away”. Instead it’s completely silent. I’ve tried using headphones as well as my laptop speakers, but neither one works. I can hear sound through other sources, like watching YouTube videos, just not through Sonic Pi itself.

[ethancrawford]

Hey @gmfbrown 🙂

I wonder if the Sonic Pi logs might shed any light on this at all.
Can you please find and paste the contents of some of these files here?
They're usually in your home folder, under .sonic-pi\log.
The most useful logs to start with might be scsynth.log, server-errors.log and server-output.log.

[gmfbrown]

What do you mean by the home folder? When I downloaded Sonic Pi it created a Sonic-Pi folder at C:\Program Files\Sonic Pi. However that only contains folders called app and etc, nothing called .sonic-pi or log.

[ethancrawford]

Hey @gmfbrown 🙂
The home folder refers to something like C:\Users\[your user name]- so Sonic Pi's logs will probably be at C:\[your user name]\.sonic-pi\log. You'll need to have told Windows to view hidden files first in the file browser in order to go there, since .sonic-pi will be hidden by default otherwise.
Once you've found the logfolder, the three log files I mention above are likely to provide the most clues to start with 🙂

Let me know if you still have problems finding them 👍

[gmfbrown]

Text of the scsynth.log file:

Starting SuperCollider 2021-10-24 13:05:13

Device options:

• MME : Microsoft Sound Mapper - Input (device #0 with 2 ins 0 outs)
• MME : Headset Microphone (Jabra EVOLV (device play_pads not stopping #1 with 1 ins 0 outs)
• MME : Microphone (Realtek(R) Audio) (device Thread sync/drift #2 with 4 ins 0 outs)
• MME : Microsoft Sound Mapper - Output (device Note lengths vs BPM #3 with 0 ins 2 outs)
• MME : Headset Earphone (Jabra EVOLVE (device Auto stop after about 4 minutes #4 with 0 ins 1 outs)
• MME : Speakers (Realtek(R) Audio) (device Removes binaries from source tree. #5 with 0 ins 8 outs)
• Windows DirectSound : Primary Sound Capture Driver (device Use $HOME rather than /home/pi #6 with 2 ins 0 outs)
• Windows DirectSound : Headset Microphone (Jabra EVOLVE 65) (device Add facility to select sound output #7 with 1 ins 0 outs)
• Windows DirectSound : Microphone (Realtek(R) Audio) (device current_tempo not working? #8 with 4 ins 0 outs)
• Windows DirectSound : Primary Sound Driver (device Ten possible development requests #9 with 0 ins 1 outs)
• Windows DirectSound : Headset Earphone (Jabra EVOLVE 65) (device Add modified play_pattern_timed command #10 with 0 ins 1 outs)
• Windows DirectSound : Speakers (Realtek(R) Audio) (device Improve chord commands #11 with 0 ins 8 outs)
• Windows WASAPI : Headset Earphone (Jabra EVOLVE 65) (device Add tempo command to work with timed notes #12 with 0 ins 1 outs)
• Windows WASAPI : Speakers (Realtek(R) Audio) (device Add global feature for with_synth command #13 with 0 ins 2 outs)
• Windows WASAPI : Headset Microphone (Jabra EVOLVE 65) (device Allow for first time/second time bars #14 with 1 ins 0 outs)
• Windows WASAPI : Microphone (Realtek(R) Audio) (device Function Keys (?programmable) for keyword input #15 with 2 ins 0 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Stereo Mix (Realtek HD Audio Stereo input) (device Add ability to put in note values from keyboard #16 with 2 ins 0 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Microphone 1 (Realtek HD Audio Mic input with SST) (device Add defined way to enter rests into note sequence #17 with 2 ins 0 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Microphone 2 (Realtek HD Audio Mic input with SST) (device Improve loading and saving tunes to and from workspace #18 with 4 ins 0 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Microphone 3 (Realtek HD Audio Mic input with SST) (device Add ability to play from command line #19 with 4 ins 0 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Speakers 1 (Realtek HD Audio output with SST) (device Add ability for play lists #20 with 0 ins 2 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Speakers 2 (Realtek HD Audio output with SST) (device deleted #21 with 0 ins 8 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : PC Speaker (Realtek HD Audio output with SST) (device Make print command more useful. Ability to suppress normal text output #22 with 2 ins 0 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Headset Earphone (Jabra EVOLVE 65) (device Add variable font size in Sonic-PI #23 with 0 ins 1 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Headset Microphone (Jabra EVOLVE 65) (device Workspace temporary file uses same name for all users #24 with 1 ins 0 outs)

Requested devices:
In:

• (default)
  Out:
• (default)

Selecting default system input/output devices

Booting with:
In: MME : Headset Microphone (Jabra EVOLV
Out: MME : Headset Earphone (Jabra EVOLVE
Sample rate: 44100.000
Latency (in/out): 0.013 / 0.091 sec
SC_AudioDriver: sample rate = 44100.000000, driver's block size = 64
SuperCollider 3 server ready.

The server-errors.log file exists but is blank

Text of the server-output.log file

Sonic Pi server booting...
The time is 2021-10-24 13:05:12 -0500
Using primary protocol: udp
Detecting port numbers...
Listen port: 51235

• OK
  Scsynth port: 51237
• OK
  Scsynth send port: 51237
• OK
  OSC cues port: 4560
• OK
  Erlang port: 51238
• OK
  Websocket port: 4562
• OK
  Opening UDP Server to listen to GUI on port: 51235
  Started [22588] [-] "C:\Program Files\Sonic Pi\app\server\native\scsynth.exe" -u 51237 -a 1024 -m 131072 -D 0 -R 0 -l 1 -i 16 -o 16 -b 4096 -B 127.0.0.1 -U "C:/Program Files/Sonic Pi/app/server/native/plugins/" [-] C:/Users/georg/AppData/Local/Temp/sonic-pi-pids/22588
  Starting Server Runtime
  Booting server...

Booting Sonic Pi

Booting on Windows
Boot - Starting the SuperCollider server...
Boot - SuperCollider booted successfully.
Boot - Connecting to the SuperCollider server...
Boot - Sending /status to server: 127.0.0.1:51237
Boot - Receiving ack from scsynth
Boot - Server connection established
Studio - Initialised SuperCollider Audio Server v3.11.2
Studio - Resetting server
Studio - Studio - clearing scsynth
Studio - Studio - allocating audio bus
Studio - Studio - Create Base Synth Groups
Studio - Starting mixer
Studio - Starting scope
"C:/Program Files/Sonic Pi/app/server/native/erlang/bin/erl.exe" +C multi_time_warp -noshell -pz "C:/Program Files/Sonic Pi/app/server/erlang/sonic_pi_server/ebin" -sonic_pi_server api_port 51238 in_port 4560 cue_port 51235 enabled false -s pi_server start
Server Runtime Initialised

This is Sonic Pi v3.3.1 running on windows with ruby version 3.0.0 with api 3.0.0.
Sonic Pi Server successfully booted.

Started [36396] [-] "C:/Program Files/Sonic Pi/app/server/native/erlang/bin/erl.exe" +C multi_time_warp -noshell -pz "C:/Program Files/Sonic Pi/app/server/erlang/sonic_pi_server/ebin" -sonic_pi_server api_port 51238 in_port 4560 cue_port 51235 enabled false -s pi_server start [-] C:/Users/georg/AppData/Local/Temp/sonic-pi-pids/36396

[ethancrawford]

Thanks @gmfbrown 🙂
All I can think of at the moment is to try using a different audio device.
If you look in .sonic-pi\config, there is a file called audio-settings.toml.
This is a file that will allow you to do things like tell Sonic Pi to connect to a specific audio device - so let's try that.
Open that file and find the line that says:

# sound_card_name = ""

Change it to something like:

sound_card_name = "Realtek"

Then save the file and restart Sonic Pi.
I'd be interested in 1) whether Sonic Pi starts up successfully, 2) Whether it plays sound like you're wanting it to, and 3) what scsynth.log says after you've tried starting Sonic Pi with the new sound device config 🙂

[gmfbrown]

That worked! Thanks! Here's what scsynth.log says now:

Starting SuperCollider 2021-10-31 21:11:13

Device options:

• MME : Microsoft Sound Mapper - Input (device #0 with 2 ins 0 outs)
• MME : Microphone (Realtek(R) Audio) (device play_pads not stopping #1 with 4 ins 0 outs)
• MME : Microsoft Sound Mapper - Output (device Thread sync/drift #2 with 0 ins 2 outs)
• MME : Speakers (Realtek(R) Audio) (device Note lengths vs BPM #3 with 0 ins 8 outs)
• Windows DirectSound : Primary Sound Capture Driver (device Auto stop after about 4 minutes #4 with 2 ins 0 outs)
• Windows DirectSound : Microphone (Realtek(R) Audio) (device Removes binaries from source tree. #5 with 4 ins 0 outs)
• Windows DirectSound : Primary Sound Driver (device Use $HOME rather than /home/pi #6 with 0 ins 2 outs)
• Windows DirectSound : Speakers (Realtek(R) Audio) (device Add facility to select sound output #7 with 0 ins 8 outs)
• Windows WASAPI : Speakers (Realtek(R) Audio) (device current_tempo not working? #8 with 0 ins 2 outs)
• Windows WASAPI : Microphone (Realtek(R) Audio) (device Ten possible development requests #9 with 2 ins 0 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Stereo Mix (Realtek HD Audio Stereo input) (device Add modified play_pattern_timed command #10 with 2 ins 0 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Microphone 1 (Realtek HD Audio Mic input with SST) (device Improve chord commands #11 with 2 ins 0 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Microphone 2 (Realtek HD Audio Mic input with SST) (device Add tempo command to work with timed notes #12 with 4 ins 0 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Microphone 3 (Realtek HD Audio Mic input with SST) (device Add global feature for with_synth command #13 with 4 ins 0 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Speakers 1 (Realtek HD Audio output with SST) (device Allow for first time/second time bars #14 with 0 ins 2 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : Speakers 2 (Realtek HD Audio output with SST) (device Function Keys (?programmable) for keyword input #15 with 0 ins 8 outs)
• Windows WDM-KS : PC Speaker (Realtek HD Audio output with SST) (device Add ability to put in note values from keyboard #16 with 2 ins 0 outs)

Requested devices:
In:

• (default)
  Out:
• (default)

Selecting default system input/output devices

Booting with:
In: MME : Microphone (Realtek(R) Audio)
Out: MME : Speakers (Realtek(R) Audio)
Sample rate: 44100.000
Latency (in/out): 0.013 / 0.091 sec
SC_AudioDriver: sample rate = 44100.000000, driver's block size = 64
SuperCollider 3 server ready.

[ethancrawford]

Fantastic! I'm glad to hear it 😄
Feel free to close this issue if you're happy enough with the result 👍
Any further issues, just let us know 🙂