CRACKING with Logic 7.1 and Emagics emi 6/2m

Well, it's like this... Apple bought emagic. Their products were very good. Apple seems to have forgotten a large number of the products they acquired with the purchase of emagic. The emagic hardware that I have for audio, including the Audiowerk 8, is non-functional or not installable. I don't want to spend $500+ (more) on a hobby that doesn't make me any money.

$ta$h has two M-audio 1010LTs installed in the same kind of PowerMac I own, and he claims they work great. Do you have another suggestion for an interface that has digital s/pdif, midi, world clock I/O, XLR I/O and RCA I/O for a total of 10 In and 10 Out ports for only $200 or at least close? Speak up quickly - I've placed an order but can probably still cancel it. The Delta 1010LT gets an avg. 7.9 out of 10 rating on zZounds.com with around 100 reviewers, and haters tend to be more vocal. I didn't notice any similarly priced audio cards with much better ratings. I've been annoyed for a very long time with this crackling. I've also noticed the crackling isn't there with QT 7.0.2, or at least is hardly noticeable, but is with iTunes 5. I've had a lot of audio problems over the years with Apple since losing the ability to use the Audiowerk 8, and I'm pretty sick of it.

firstly re the audiowerk... it's pretty unfair to expect something so very ancient in terms of computer/audio production to still be supported on the latest systems. I think I was in highschool when that thing was released, and I certainly don't expect to be integrating some old macintosh IIci into my modern work environment either. musical instruments, synths and such are a different matter because they retain their usefulness in a different way... but ancient legacy hardware is really just that.

as for the delta card or whatever it is.. that is true that $ta$h has said he has his setup working fine with it. I can't claim any personal experience with any m-audio stuff, so you are better off doing your research with people that use it. also, be aware that someone like $ta$h seems to be quite on top of his system and computer stuff in general. so what may appear like normal, simple maintenance to him in terms of driver installation and updating, and general system tweaking to get everything running well may or may not be hard work for you.

in any case it sounds like you are doing your research, so as long as you aren't just restricting yourself to a brochure and a salesperson for advice you should do OK. my only advice is to really figure out what you need in terms of input and output channels and base you choice on the best quality you can afford with the minimum i/o that you need. many users make the mistake of buying a big interface with tons of input channels because they something think it is "better".. when all they are going to do is record one source at a time and monitor in stereo. put your money into best quality and driver support and be realistic about your channel requirements.

tbirdparis, "CRACKING with Logic 7.1 and Emagics emi 6/2m" #17, 10:00pm Sep 19, 2005 CDT

I can't claim any personal experience with any m-audio stuff

I can, and even though I still use it, sometimes, I probably would not buy their stuff again.
Drivers come, and drivers go, but it's always a nice surprise when one works OK, and not so nice when the next ones have issues again.

I have had correspondence with M-Audio support when their driver, under early OS 10.3, was writing timecode to the console and system logs, and the service I got was no more than generic 're-install the latest driver' stuff. (eventually they released a driver which fixed it, but only on the german site, at first, and they did not inform me, or anyone else, that I know of, that were having the same problem, that the driver had been posted.)

I looked at the features of several cards on zZounds.com. Their setup is very nice for viewing ratings and feedback, though I did find it difficult to separate Mac-compatible cards. I really want a PCI card rather than USB or Firewire. I don't want to have to worry about the bandwidth on those busses. PCI rarely has problems where bandwidth on the bus is concerned. The Delta 1010LT is rated nearly as high as any other card - very high for it's price range and features. Hopefully the reviewers weren't mostly PC users. I really didn't see that many complaints, but I didn't go back that far, because I'm more interested in recent experiences. My take on this is that when Apple switched from PCI to PCI-X, a lot of people had problems with these cards because of the voltage issue. That shouldn't be a problem since the cards have been updated to work with either.

I'd put money on "time code written to the console" being a debug thing they were using internally, that they forgot to remove before making the driver publicly available. If so, the fix should have, or at least could have, come very quickly. Obviously, I don't know how it happened. I haven't been following the audio interface scene in years, but I should have been considering how much trouble I've had.

Thanks for the input guys. I'll be sure to let you know how well the card works, and if it doesn't, I WILL send it back!

jeffery, do you need that many simultaneous ins and outs? if not, then getting a good quality converter and just using the digital i/o on the G5 is a fantastic solution, sounds awesome and has _no drivers_...

I have a second station set up where I just use a mindprint trio with a G5 using the digital i/o, and it is just brilliant for working on projects where I am only ever tracking one instrument at a time.

Jeffrey Huskey, "CRACKING with Logic 7.1 and Emagics emi 6/2m" #19, 08:36am Sep 20, 2005 CDT

I'd put money on "time code written to the console" being a debug thing they were using internally, that they forgot to remove before making the driver publicly available. If so, the fix should have, or at least could have, come very quickly.

It was on the public release driver, and their tech support didn't seem to have any idea what the problem was. ( I even suspected that the replies may have been 'form leters' at first)
I was not the only one who had reported the problem either,

If you think that writing time code to logs was a minor issue, it wasn't. It was building huge log files and eating drive space at the rate of several gB a day, The results could be fairly catastrophic.

The point I am making is that their support was less than stellar. Another point is that their PCI cards have had driver issues on and off in OS 9, OS X, and XP, that I know of. The case I mentioned was just one. Previous drivers have had problems with noise bursts, driver going offline etc. I suspect it may be that the chps they use in a number of their interfaces may be very hard to write stable drivers for. (although I can't say that with any certainty)

If you are prepared to put up with the odd malfunction from time to time, and with somewhat variable drivers, the their cards are probably OK for the price. But you pay for what you get, The issue was whether they are a good choice if stability and continuous trouble-free use were a high priority, in which case the answer is 'probably not'.

I really want a PCI card rather than USB or Firewire. I don't want to have to worry about the bandwidth on those busses.

Bandwidth is a genuine concern with USB interfaces, but, if you look closely, a majority of users here are running firewire interfaces with no real bandwidth issues.

That's a very good suggestion, but has come just a few minutes after I received my shipment notice. Believe me, if I have problems with the Delta 1010LT card, I WILL return it. I don't care if it is considered a low-end device or not, I'm not paying $200 for something that doesn't work, so it had better work, or they'll be seeing it back in their warehouse.

One of the things I really liked about the card was that it eliminates two devices I currently have on the USB bus: audio and midi. If I end up sending the card back, I'll certainly look into a converter. I've never thought about such a device before, and wouldn't know where to start, but now that you've suggested it, I can probably find something. Thanks!

Customer Support and Development are rarely the same people. Customer Support is usually underpaid and understaffed, so you have to find someone who is truly interested in helping users, rather than someone who needs to collect a paycheck every other Friday, or you'll get terrible, almost form letter-like responses. I used to work at a Help Desk where the girl across was our highest performer, but 2 minutes after they hung up with her one of the rest of us would get the user's "that didn't work" call and actually take the time to fix or explain the issue. Even if you find a truly dedicated CSR, they are rarely given the opportunity to work with the developers to get the answers they need or pass on the most important issues.

I will be on the lookout for the console problem, just in case. I expect it to be relatively trouble-free, and I'm not prepared for instability. They will get the Delta 1010LT back in their mailbox if it doesn't work as advertised.

My last Mac was a G3 B&W so I'm a little leery of firewire even though it has generally worked like a charm on my G5. The G3 B&W was Apple's first implementation of firewire and it was truly pathetic. It must have been a hardware problem because they were never able to fix it with updates. I don't want to crowd the firewire bus since my recording disk is firewire. Ok, now, tell me that's bad too. I can take it, but as a general rule, looking at the firewire audio/midi interfaces on zZounds.com and their ratings, the firewire boxes have lower user ratings, generally have fewer features, and are for the most part much higher priced. So, I'm not convinced that's the way to go, but I certainly do appreciate your input.

Jeffrey Huskey, "CRACKING with Logic 7.1 and Emagics emi 6/2m" #22, 08:53pm Sep 20, 2005 CDT

One of the things I really liked about the card was that it eliminates two devices I currently have on the USB bus: audio and midi.

Actually, the biggest cause of issues with the delta PCI cards is MIDI.The MIDI driver has often caused audio problems. Often you end up needing to delete the MIDI driver and use a separate USB MIDI interface. (single port interfaces are fairly cheap anyway,)