AE audio beat difference with headphones vs. speakers

[MSChristensen]

Hello everyone,

I truly hope that someone could help me out here. I'm not a professional within AE but I do know my way around it. To jump straight into my issue then let me try and explain the best that I can.

I bought a song (audio) to play in the back of my design showreel. I have worked the entire time with my headphones on and listened and matched the clip in the reel to the beat. I throught it worked perfectly until I played the rendered video with my speakers on and on mobile. There the clips are off beat all of the sudden...

Are there some basic setting in AE that I have to set so that it looks, feels, and plays the same on any device?

I'm quite in need of help here, because Google has not been my friend in this matter, unfortunately.

Best regards,
Morten.

[MSChristensen]

Ps. I am using the latest version of AE.

[Mylenium]

You probably have some weird audio settings on your system by ways of the audio device driver which affects the perception of the audio or the headphones themselves screw with it. The more fancy your headphones, the more of such nonsense you typically have, including bass boosting, environmental audio, noise suppression and whatnot. Most of all check these things and then of course the other stuff like AE's audio preferences, preview settings and so on. This really has nothing to do with AE. It simply plays the audio as it's on the timeline, give or take volume adjustemnts and the few audio effects it offers. If it sounds crooked, the audio file may not have been correctly prepared in the first place as well, so have a look at it in Audition or Premiere and adjust the mix if needed.

Mylenium

[Kyle Hamrick · Accepted solution]

It's possible you have a slight lag when using your headphones, especially if they're wireless.

The best way to confirm what's accurate is to look at the waveform. In AE, select your audio layer and press LL. This will reveal the waveform, and you should be able to see the beat pretty easily. 

If it turns out you're a few frames off, you should be fine to just judge the entire audio track a couple frames until it lines up correctly.

[MSChristensen]

After a bunch of research I found out too that it is because of the wireless headphones. But in my case the beat came 0.5s earlier when using my wireless headphones compared to pluging in the wire or listening on the speakers.

Thank you for replying.