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luken36163038
luken36163038
Participant
November 7, 2018
Question

Slow audio playback in After Effects preview, can anyone help?

  • November 7, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 12803 views

Hi,

I am a relative After Effects novice only needing to touch it on  perhaps one or two occasions a year. I've previously produced videos and been able to edit and sync sound very easily in After Effects, that was probably a year ago, I've probably updated the app a few times since and now when I import a .wav file the preview of the sound is extremely slow and I'm unable to sync with the video? The video, however, plays perfectly at the correct pace.

I've googled this quite a bit and tried all the advice that I've found i.e - amending the frame rate, restarting my Mac, assigning more RAM, previewing at the lowest resolution, fast draft previews etc etc but none of this has had any effect.

Any ideas would be most grateful as After Effects is unusable for me at the moment.

Many thanks in advnace

    3 replies

    F
    free_4364
    Participant
    July 4, 2025

    Yar How to set audio lag in after effect 2019 with 4gb laptop ram plz someone help me 😭

    nishu_kush
    Community Manager
    nishu_kushCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    August 12, 2025

    Could you provide more details about what is happening? Your computer doesn't meet the minimum system requirements for After Effects, so you'll face performance issues.

     

    Thanks,

    Nishu

    OussK
    Community Expert
    OussKCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 7, 2018

    Try to cache your preview before playback

      luken36163038
      luken36163038Author
      Participant
      November 7, 2018

      Thanks for the advice, I’ve just tried that but it hasn’t made any difference unfortunately.

        Martin_Ritter
        Martin_Ritter
        Legend
        November 8, 2018

        Can you share your project with the WAV? This might speed up the trouble-shooting.

        Thanks!

        Martin_Ritter
        Martin_Ritter
        Legend
        November 7, 2018

        Hi!

        I assume that the WAV plays back correctly in a media player software (VLC or something like this)?!

        Is the WAV longer then is should be after you imported it into AE?

        What version of MacOS and AE do you have? Also computer specs, please.

        *Martin

        luken36163038
        luken36163038Author
        Participant
        November 7, 2018

        Hi,

        thanks for getting back to me,

        yes the file sounds fine in quicktime, the WAV isn’t longer than it should be no.

        I’m running OS High Sierra 10.13.2 with a 1TB hard drive and 20GB RAM. My After Effects version is CC 2019.

        Thanks

        Luke

        P.S - I just tried the file on another mac in the office (one that's got a lot less spec) and it worked perfectly. I've checked that Mac's settings against my own and they are the same and I've even uninstalled the application and reinstalled and restarted my Mac all to no avail!

        Edit by moderator: remove personal (company) information

          R
          Rowan5E3F
          Participant
          May 25, 2021

          Everything is saying to make the frame rates the same in the preview and the comp settings, and they are but the audio still isnt working unless i make the frame rate in teh preview higher but then the actual video speeds up a lot , but when both the frame rates are the same it just slows down again. I have a Macbook air 2019.

           

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