Apogee Duet and Firewire

I run my Apogee Duet on a fully upgraded machine, through an external Glyph drive.

No problems at all.

In fact it has never been so reliable!

But you may should get one FW Hub or a 800 to 400 FW Cable.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/BELKIN/F5U526APL/

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/1394B6912C/

With one of these you will able to use Duet without messing with your system.

The use of hubs with the Duet is fully condoned by the blokes at Apogee. Check out the FAQ on the website.

I use the Duet with the Belkin firewire hub and two external drives on my macbook with absolutely no problems. You should do a search in the forum, because this question has been discussed. You will find information specific to the MacPro. For example, you have the option of using the express slot for firewire.

I have been having a problem with my Duet where it randomly will change to a distorted output and the the only way to get it back to its normally excellent output sound is to restart my iMac. Apogee Support has recommended that I not use a hub (though that didn't solve the problem). I think I may have a defective Duet since the problem doesn't seem to be resolved despite whatever recommendations Support has made. I am glad my local retailer has good return policy!

Hey -- I've had bad experience with a Belkin FW hub, no problem running Duet through both a Glyph drive and a portable FW drive (I don't recall manufacturer).

When that happens try opening the AUDIO MIDI SETUP

Sorry - try again.

When that happens try opening the AUDIO MIDI SETUP app and resetting the sample rate.

This works reliably for me.

I was having the exact same problem... I had several emails with Apogee. They knew there was an issue, but weren't sure how to resolve it.. I had a few issues, also when I tried to use my Isight. It was intermittant, and not reproducible.

There was a driver released for Duet 2 weeks back or so... so far the problem hasn't come back yet.

Hi James , this may be useful if you're still having the distortion issue

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1246922&tstart=0

I use a MacBook Pro and an external drive. I route my Duet through the external drive and have no problems whatsoever. It is great!

hi,
you should have no problems.
i fully endorse the Duet and Apogee, in general.
DR9.

how about with my macbook? I have read things about the agere firewire chips causing trouble with pro audio interfaces... and so lerry to put the money down for logic 8 & the duet... any thoughts? thanks

The Duet is the best sounding audio interface i've heard for under $1000, in fact nothing else even comes close. So for sound quality it wins hands down.

However i noticed you're hoping to use it with a Macbook, and all i can say is i hope you have better luck than me. I really do want to use the duet and will keep persisting until the day i finally throw it out the window in frustration (or they release drivers that fix all the problems).

Firstly it makes your CPU increase in temperature by about 15-20º for seemingly no reason at all - all you have to do is plug it in and your CPU fan goes up to full speed. And sometimes it just disappears and becomes undetectable, even when plugged in. At this stage i'm pretty sure i've tried everything, it's just unpredictable and unreliable. If i took it with me for a job as part of my mobile rig i honestly couldn't rely on its ability to function and therefore it is completely useless to me. I'd save myself the embarrassment and take my M-Audio, which i really don't like very much but at least the bloody thing works when i plug it in.

Having just ranted on i should also mention that it may not be any fault of the Duet that i'm getting the erratic behaviour. It could be my macbook, i can't say for sure since i can't actually figure out what's going on.

Basically if you're curious i'd still say get one, and hear it for yourself it's pretty amazing. You just might get lucky with the reliability issues too. Otherwise you can come on the Apple forum and vent your frustrations on other prospective buyers.

I should actually mention that despite what i just said, i still like Apogee the company. I've done some work for a studio with a Rosetta and Big Ben and they're both brilliant and work flawlessly. They make very good products. The thing that frustrates me is the fact that the Duet is literally the first thing i've attached to my macbook that has actually not worked, and consistently failed to work reliably despite constant efforts to fix it. I've wasted SO much time getting it to work now that i could have spent doing other things like ranting on the apple forum.

It's kinda like the PC/windows days all over again, and i was really glad to leave them behind.

You're definitely not the only one with Duet/firewire problems. The only way I've gotten it to work is by using a PCIe firewire expansion card. Everything worked fine with the same system in Tiger but Leopard seems to have some firewire driver issues. My liquidMix has been rendered useless as well. I hope this gets fixed in the near future.

DJE