Q: Massive problem with audio interface

Happy New Years Everyone!

I was on my second 2013 iMac along with my 2nd Audio Interface both equipped with a top end i7 chips, 4GB of VRAM, and the 3TB fusion drive.   The first one I got I used the Focusrite 6i6 Interface and audio was bad from the start, and Apple gladly returned.  

The replacement custom order took 20 days to get and did not show up until 11/19.   I went out and purchased a ProAudio Interface and prayed that along with the new computer I would be good.   Same problem albeit not as bad but kept it in hopes that OS X Mavericks 10.9.1 would resolve and it did not.  

To add insult to this I had HD video to produce and when I tried to import tape based video Final Cut Pro X would drop frames every 30-90 seconds and made it unusable.   So I resorted to using my MacBook Pro Retina and all video imported flawlessly.

So..  iMac #2 just got returned to Apple on 12/27 and I ordered a new MacPro that I won't see until sometime in February!   Funny part is that if Apple/Tim Cook didn't take forever to get the new Mac Pro out the door, I never would have ordered the iMac to begin with.   I got a new project needed to get something current over my 2008 MacPro and the iMac's seemed to be the best option for me!

Boy was I wrong!

FIX THIS APPLE

I just found a working workaround (helped by others in this discussion, thx!):

I created a new partition on my original boot/system disk, Macintosh HD (3 TB Fusion), just by using Disk Utility.. This new partition is only HDD, not SSD.

I copied the relevant contents from my Macontosh HD to the new partition, with CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner, free the first 30 days), and defined this new partition as startup disk.

After rebooting, everything worked fine, no latency, no drop-outs and  no distortions in my DAWs.

A bit slower since the SSD is not used at startup, but satisfying enough (for me) as a temp workaround until Apple comers up with a solution. No Fusion-split necessary. and even better no later Fusion-setup either.

Good luck!

Wow! Thanks for sharing! So, first, it is possible to add a partition without erasing the fusion drive? And also, how large a partition did you do? Enough for a system. Or did you copy apps, plugins, ex as well? What DAW are you using? What interface? Was this with a ale 2013 iMac i5 or i7?

Thanks!

Bob

iPad typos...

ETC, not ex...

LATE, not ale...

Bob

Hey Bob,

My imac is the most recent model, late 2013.

For the new partition I just took half of the fusion disk, about 1.5 TB.

I copied all 'installation sensitive' files, that means just about everything (system, library, apps), but without the documents folder. It took disk utility some time to reorganize, but in the end, the original configuration, including everything, came out of the process without any loss. (i made 2 backups, but didn't need them - I recommend to do that anyway, in case I just got lucky...)

I intend to fully use the new partition, so I can copy everything back to the 'other half' when Apple has resolved the issue. I hope OSX Mavericks doesn't get confused with system and app related files being in 2 places at the same time now, but so far everythng seems to keep running well.

Good luck, let me know if you have more questions or remarks!

Forgot to tell that I have a large sample collection on a separate disk, which are mostly activated by several cumbersomeserial/return code processes. I was afraid that switching partition would effect my authorizations, but fortunately that was not the case. i can use all samples and virtual instrumentsb from the new partition without problems (so far).

Audio interface: Apogee Duet, USB

DAWS: Ableton Live, Reason, Apple Logic Pro

Sample collections/virtual instruments: Easrwest Quantum Leap, NI Kontakt/Massive/etc., Garritan Big Band, Big Fish Horns, Infinite Player Cinemas Sessions

I'd like to update everyone on what I tried today, taking a cue from others who have posted before. Using Carbon Copy Cloner, I cloned my hard drive to an external 3 TB USB 3.0 LaCie 7200 RPM drive. After booting from the clone, I successfully listened to iTunes for several minutes, ran a Pro Tools session for several minutes, and recorded a quick screencast in Camtasia, all using the Mbox 3 Pro as the I/O and the clone as the destination for all recorded files. Admittedly, I did not do this for 30+ minutes to see if any sound degradation or dropouts occurred. But when trying to do any of this from my Fusion drive, I could not get past even a few seconds without a serious problem of some kind. I am running Mavericks 10.9.1 on a 3.5 i7 iMac 27" by the way.

This is not ideal by any means, but I'm hoping this keeps me going until a fix is in place. I just hate waiting to hear from Apple whether a fix is even possible, or if a product recall is going to happen. If it's the latter, I'd rather know now so I can acquire a different (older) model iMac!

I experienced the same issues with late 2013 iMac with 1T Fusion Drive (FD) I received on Dec 10, 2013.

• USB audio interface Apogee One connected to iMac to record acoustic guitar with built in mic and then directly into One with electric guitar
• Using Garage Band 10.1
  • After 5-10 seconds the sound distorts, with odd popping and 2-3 second latency.

(four year old MacBook with GB 10.1 did NOT experience these issues)

I was within my return policy & returned the iMac with FD and exchanged it for an iMac with Flash Storage or as some call a Solid State Drive (SSD). (return by Jan 13 if purchased on or after Dec 1, 2013)

I received the new iMac with SSD, tested my Apogee One, recorded several tracks for approx 1/2 hour on new iMac with SSD and have not experienced any issues (fingers crossed but feeling good).

• My layman's conclusion is that the FD is the cause of the audio interface USB issue. I'm confident Apple and vendors will find a solution. But I decided to exchange for what my initial instinct guiding me towards - SSD

I hope this helps. Thank you to everyone for their input into this forum.

In closing - I spoke to two Apple Care reps, two Apple Store managers by phone & one Apple Store sales rep in person for the exchange. Everyone from Apple was great & very helpful.

Hello fellow sad people!

I too am trying to record audio, I am trying to do it through Garageband, with a M-Audio MobilePre as my USB audio device.

I turn on "monitoring" (so I can hear what I am recording) in Garageband, with my Microphone hooked up and working, and it sounds perfect for a little while (a few seconds through almost a minute) but then I get the dreaded noisey distortion and crackling! Unusable obviously for audio recording.

So I try to use Audacity, (free audio recording/editing software) and I am able to monitor the recording without the crazy noise, but the latency is so bad that it is also unusable.

My Computer is:

So basically , for > $3000 or so, none of us can record audio?

*** Apple? How is this not a priority fix?

Thanks for this thread, its like a therapy group

I have a read this but have not tried it, however i did use carboncopy and reboot from an external USB clone and yes the problrm went away.   That statedf yes its a work around but for paying almost $3000 and having to do something like this for a brand new computer is just not acceptable.   The long you keep it the less likely you will be able to return it.   

Good luck with that approach but it was not for me :-)

Tom,

Yes this forum is good group therapy but for me and the fact i got this for iMac for #$3000 and it does not work as it should just is not acceptable.  I would return it while you can and either go with a MacBook Pro or order the new MacPro since at least we know there are no issues with the MBP.   Wish you well on your new computer !

William,

Yeah luckily I am more of a hobbyist with audio recording and do graphic art stuff mainly, so I will probably just hold out for a fix, but wanted to throw my same situation into the ring.

I have been talking to the Apple support team all morning, and they are going to call me back too, but I am certain this forum is correct and that my issue has to do with the fusion drive, and I just wanted to log the complaint as well as everyone here in order to hopefully get more attention brought to getting a fix for this problem.

Another funny thing is that when I record audio with the Audactity program (free internet download application for audio) , I do not get the buzz/fuzzy noise, which is weird, but I can't record with that because of the intense unfixable latency of that application.

Good luck!

Hi all,

Just to put this in as well, I am using a SATA hard drive and my sound drops out completely after about 2 min of just listening to iTunes or YouTube using apogee duet 2 iOS.

Works 100% fine on the iPad air.