What could be the reason that this results in a strange noise with a low volume (all the time, without even clicking the message)? The array is made with tabwrite~ and has a simple osc with 44100 samples. The buzzing sound comes from the tabread~ . Everything can be deleted, if there's the tabread~ connected to the output and this array exists, there is a buzz.

There are a couple of problems I would expect in this patch. Neither of them is exactly a "buzzing sound," but:

First, DC offset. There's a very low probability of the array starting at exactly 0. [tabread~] and [tabread4~] are always reading. If the read position is nonzero, then the output will be nonzero.

For example, [osc~ 0] produces no audible signal, but its level is full scale.

You don't want this. So, every sound should always have an envelope. A patch without an envelope to start/stop the sound is incomplete.

Second, the lack of interpolation means that the signal will sometimes be discontinuous. bocanegra is right that audio being read from a table should pretty much always use [tabread4~] and not [tabread~] (but the reason is not necessarily aliasing).

hjh

@Cmaj7 Close all those help pages you open the background? The else/All_Objects.pd is a worst offender for me.

I uploaded a sound file with the noise and the sine wave played in it: noise.wav

Tabread4~ doesn't change the noise, however the noise disappears with tabplay~ (which makes sense because it doesn't read all the time, just when banged, right?).

The DC offset seems to be the right problem, because a hip~ 5 after the tabread~ eliminates the humming noise. This leaves me with another question: if tabread~ is outputing all the time, what is it exactly reading? The first value of the array, since you mention the start? If that's the case I should read some level in the VU meter (which I do), but not hear any kind of noise, after all it's a constant, right? I also tested it with constant signs, and indeed I get the same noise whenever the constant is not 0.

Also, no help pages were opened in the background

There is no audible noise in the sound file when I play it besides some clicks while the tone plays. There is a constant bias though. I suspect the artifacts you hear are specific to your system / sound card and how it handles transients? Indeed a high pass filter will remove bias/transients, but @ddw_music 's advice is good practice as well.

@Cmaj7 imo sounds like an issue with your speakers or sound card, and how they deal with a constant dc signal/voltage.

Oh my ... indeed a spectrum analyzer doesn't reveal any artifact. The noise exists in the headphone and also the speakers. It looks like the notebook soundcard doesn't exhibit it, so my main m-audio soundcard indeed seems to be the problem

@Cmaj7 idk much about it but might be some grounding issue if it's 50-60 hz maybe? My audio interface does if my laptop power's connected and I don't disconnect the ground
maybe depends on if there's some other power source tho, if you're hearing it on passive headphones & audio interface maybe not...

It`s strange that the noise just occurred with the DC offset "sound", not all the time the soundcard was turned on. Well, a new day, a power off / power on ... and the noise is gone, definitely some hardware issue here, tks for the answers.