Q: Apogee Duet (1) not working on Mavericks

I've just spent two days with tech support because a Duet and three other audio interfaces won't work with my new, straight from Apple,  Intel  IMac running Mavericks.  I'm now at the "take it back to the store and probably get a new machine, because we can't believe that the OS is the issue".   This is after erasing the hard drive and reinstalling everything and a bunch of other steps recommended by tech support

All the interfaces work with my IMac that isn't running Mavericks.  The Duet also works fine with my Ipad.  With the new IMac all the interfaces have intermittent digital distortion, delay etc when trying to get sound into Garageband (haven't even tried with Logic yet).   if I reset the sampling rate on the Duet it usually works again for a couple of minutes before going back to the same issue.

Maybe it is the Mac, I guess I'll see what the people in the store say.  If anyone else gets this figured out let us know.

Hi el PO,              

Could you give me a run down of exactly how you downgraded from Mavericks to Mountain Lion. I can't seem to figure it out. Cheers.

Has anyone tried using a new imac running mavericks that has either an SSD drive or 7200 HD?  I'd like to know if it's the fusion drive or mavericks or the new iMacs?  I've tried 3 different models of Apogee Duets and an RME Babyface on my imac with Fusion drive. Apogee's tech help have acknowledged the issue via email and said they're working with Apple on the issue but not told me how I can get myself up and running. If I can I would like to change the fusion drive to a SSD but don't want to waste anymore time and money if it's not going to help. 

Response By: fabiovellar 12/27/2013 10:04:55 AM EST

Dear Carl, I tried to start up my iMac 27 (late2013) with external HDD installed with the Mavericks, and I saw that the problems with my audio apogee duet firewire did not show up. I used the mac in this way for 8 hours without distortions or crackles audio. In my experience the cause of the problem is due to the Fusion Drive that probably there are problems with mavericks. Monday 30/12/13 with the sorrow I made ​​the iMac to Apple because it can not work, and I was thinking of buying a new IMac 27 with I7 processor, with 16GB of Ram HDD 7200rpm but then without Fusion Drive hoping to finally solve my problems!. At present Apple and Apogee you have some more information that might be helpful for me still does not proceed in a wrong purchase? I hope you can help me because I do not know what to do!
thanks
Fabio Vellar

Response By: carlh 12/27/2013 4:22:33 PM EST

Hello,

If booting off an external drive remedied the situation, exchanging to a HDD might be the solution!

- Carl

Tech Support Specialist

Apogee Electronics, Corp.

(310) 584-9394 x300

Same issue and with the Apogee Duet Firewire, which uses the Firewire 800 to Thunderbolt converter. Changing the sample rate from 44.1 kHz to 48 kHz seems to have fixed it...for now.

Hi

I first tried to do it myself by having the moutain lion driver but it was not working.

It has eventually been done by the apple tech himself as it is quite complex to downgrade specially I understood that fusion drive is making it now more complex than in the past. As I have suscribed to apple care someone came home first to change the imac motherboard and as it did not change a thing then proposed to downgrade. He himself has to call the apple support at some stage to make it happen.

The best is to call apple and they can help you to do so throught the phone.

Hope it helps

Regards

PO

Yep another case on the duet firewire here with a new 27 inch iMac with fusion drive. Exact same symptoms with the sporadic cracling and sample rates giving a temporary fix. Pretty annoying there's not a good fix yet!

Guess I might give apple a call as I've got Apple Care...perhaps splitting the fusion drive into seperate ssd and hard drives might fix it from the sound of it? Not sure I'd want to do that myself though...

Hi all togehter

I am voice over talent and I do have this awful problem as well.

I do have a late 2013 Core i7 27'' iMac, Mavericks 10.9.1, 3 TB FD, 32gb Ram connected via FW/TB adapter to my Apogee Duet FW and cant really work.

Pretty sad after spending more than 3'000$!

I just spoke to Apple Care and the guy was aware of the problem and pretty friendly.

The shock was, that he couldnt give me a solution other than waiting for 10.9.2, which should solve the problem. But this could take weeks..

He told me I could change to a HDD or SSD, but they wouldnt pay anything.

Splitting the whole thing is not what I am looking for.

When I asked him, if they at least could send me the Beta version of 10.9.2, as I dont want to get a developer and pay another 99$, he told me

they cant do that, but with a quiet voice he told me, there are other possibilities to get to 10.9.2

I just downloaded it now.. and will install it later today, after backuping the whole system.. you never know..

Just wanted to ask if other people are interested in that file.

I know its not the way to actually do it in a legal way, but come on Apple, people cant work, and on Monday the year really starts!

What else should we do?

Cheers

shnicshnac

Hey all

Extremely frustrating Christmas present.  I have the same issues aswell, clicking popping, freezing apogee maestro, failing Garageband all related to the Apogee Duet for ipad/iphone, and Mac.  I recently purchased the Imac 27" with fusion drive 3 TB, 7200 rpm, 2013, mavericks 10.9.1. 8 GB RAM

I spoke with Apogee "Carl" yesterday and try my best to empathize to their situation following Apples lead all the time.  But after spending $3300 to fulfill a childhood dream of recording top notch music at home....I can barely stand to listen to this set up play iTunes, and hardly touch the guitar all day cause I'm too busy on the phone, on hold, writing this comment, and rebooting my new iMac just to temp fix the issue. Carl did not seem too confident that they will find a fix.  After contacting Apple online the rep offered to send a new interface.  Hopeful but more pessimistic that this will be the remedy.  How can I  empathize to the tune of $750.

I really hope that this glitch doesn't cause damage to the computer with all the clicking and poping.  The only reason I bought this Apogee was because it was on the Apple Mavericks Compatibility Chart.  The previous Tascam stopped working when I first upgraded the Mavericks and subsequently discontinued from their updates, eventhough the product still works very well.  The Yamaha Steinburg wouldn't work at all and customer service was real slim. 

So you'd think that for sure Apple would stand by their products (especially when it's publisized as Mavericks compatible)  and not run some sinister plot to stop all of us practicing musicians from really doing what we love - - - playing and writing music. 

So come on you mega corperations, get your *$#@ together and stop causing problems.  Simplicity is always the better choice.   And yes, if I sound ****** off that's because I am.  I wouldn't treat my worst emeny this way..

ps. we just spent another $1400 at your store this morning.  Who is the fool now?

I'm really considering buying another interface, but I want to continue using my Thunderbolt port with my Firewire/Thunderbolt adapter, because my two USB ports are already being used.

I'm thinking of selling my Duet Firewire. BUT which other Firewire interfaces have the same quality and price?

This is my biggest question.

(Macbook Pro Retina 13' 2013 / Mountain Lion with all the same issues).

For what it's worth I've been going through apple support the past couple of days too...just uploaded a debug capture of my system reproing the problem for the engineers. Pretty frustrating but have to say the support team were really nice. From what shnicshnacsays they might already have a solution though; fingers crossed!

So, after testing sound on Adobe Audition, iTunes, VLC player, Divx Plus Player and Quicktime Player (7.6.6 and 10.3) I must say the problem is gone for 99%.

In Audition I could record and edit without any problems.

iTunes, VLC, DivX and QT 7.6.6 is perfect too.

When I was playing back an mp3 or mp4 file on QT 10.3 I had little clicks, very little, but still not completely perfect. But maybe that has something to do with that QT version.. dont like that player anyway..

So I defenetly can work like that.

Only thing is: I didnt work longer than 30 minutes, so I dont know how it is for longer sessions, but I am positive.

Hope that helps.

If anyone wants that BETA of 10.9.2 just tell me.

Cheers

shnicshnac

In response to Schnick Schnack I found that the issues always came back after approximately one hour of playing it seemed less severe with the higher frequency rating from 44 up to 176 kHz but still the issue remains.. Just sent mine back to Apple for an exchange today hope it works better

Given the pattern and the amount of people having issues, it seems pretty obvious to me that there is currently an issue with the way Apogee's equipment works with one or more of the following in Apple computers:

• Solid state drives
• Haswell processors
• Thunderbolt
• Thunderbolt to Firewire adapters

Until there is an update by Apple and/or Apogee, I don't believe the issue can be resolved by getting a new computer.

Changing the sample rate to a higher frequency has seemed to help many people, including myself.

It isn't just the Apogee unit though.  I found that four different audio interfaces all fail with Mavericks.  Duet, Presonus audiobox USB, a Mackie mixer and a Saffire fire wire unit.

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