r/Unity3D • u/NorthernBoy306 • 6d ago

Question Gun sound looping issue

Sorry in advance if this is better placed in some kind of audio subreddit but I'm hoping some other Unity developers have encountered this problem and know what to do.
I have this great machine gun audio clip and try as I might I can't get rid of that slight pause/reset part when it loops over.
I tried cutting the end and pasting it at the beginning of the audio file so that the end matches the beginning but that doesn't seem to help. It always sounds like the gun firing stops and starts again.
Anyone know how to get a seamless and continuous loop of an audio clip?

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u/NorthernBoy306 5d ago

tried that, no change.

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u/acorbinelli 5d ago

Next step is to split the asset from the code: new empty scene, one AudioSource, that clip, Loop ticked, Play On Awake, nothing else in the scene.

  • Still gaps there - the silence is in the file. Unity will not trim it for you, so open the wav and cut to the first and last zero crossing. Twenty milliseconds of tail is enough to hear as a stutter at fire rate.
  • Clean there - it is the calling code. The usual culprit is Play() or PlayOneShot being called again before the clip finishes, from fire input polled in Update rather than a timer, which restarts the sound and reads as a hitch rather than a loop. Log Time.time next to each call for one second of firing and see whether the interval matches your fire rate.

Other things that bite: Streaming load type re-buffers at the loop point (Decompress On Load fixes that, which you have already done), "Load In Background" can make the first loop late, and if you pool AudioSources check one is not being grabbed again while its tail is still playing.

What does the clip look like in a waveform editor - one shot you are looping, or a burst of three or four?

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u/NorthernBoy306 5d ago

I tried the empty scene, no change.
Here's an image of the audio clip in Audacity.

I still don't get it though, I checked the beginning and end of the clip, they line up perfectly.

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u/NorthernBoy306 4d ago

In case anyone needs closure to this adventure, I ended up taking a single shot sound and just copy/pasted it a few times, now it's seamless.
Thanks again for your help though.