My ears are ringing from blast of white noise from Logic 9

Sorry, I didn't think to take a screen shot at the moment it happened because we were working hard trying to finish up the session. Too busy at the moment to consider that I guess. I'll remember to capture it if it happens again. We still have a lot more guitar tracks to do and I'll be using the same setup of FW drives... so maybe I'll see it again soon... but hopefully not. Haaa!

I didn't contribute to this thread thus far because I have not encountered this issue. But for your investigation it would be good to also have users who do not have this issue. So here are my thoughts on it:

From your PDF, only one conclusion is yet to be falsified: PPC's do not show the BOWN problem. I have never encountered it on my G4, from LP 8.0.0 to LP 9.0.2.
Could it be that the Intel Macs are too fast for their disks? Secondly: would *defragging the project- and sampledrives* alleviate/solve the problem?

Maybe you should ad disk configuration to your query: list each disk, what they are for (system, samples, recording, backup), how big they are and how much unused space they have. Also a report on the speed of the disk (with XBench http://www.pure-mac.com/diag.html#xbench ) might add valuable info about this threeheaded hellhound...

regards, Erik.

ps
as an example, here are reports from Xbench about my recording and sampledisks:
Eriksimon's Recording Disk:

System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.8 (9L31a)
Physical RAM 1792 MB
Model PowerMac3,6
Processor PowerPC G4x2 @ 1.25 GHz
Version 7455 (Apollo) v3.2
L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)
L2 Cache 256K @ 1.25 GHz
L3 Cache 1024K @ 250 MHz
Bus Frequency 167 MHz
Video Card ATY,RV250
Drive Type ST380024A ST380024A

Disk Test 33.37

Sequential 57.96

Uncached Write 53.93 33.11 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 54.96 31.09 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 60.46 17.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 63.55 31.94 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random 23.43

Uncached Write 7.66 0.81 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 56.12 17.97 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 82.99 0.59 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 98.03 18.19 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Eriksimon's Samples & Loops Disk:

Drive Type Maxtor 6L080L0 Maxtor 6L080L0

Disk Test 49.90

Sequential 70.20

Uncached Write 69.81 42.86 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 84.14 47.61 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 48.26 14.12 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 99.51 50.01 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random 38.70

Uncached Write 15.36 1.63 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 65.74 21.05 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 76.81 0.54 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 99.87 18.53 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Hi Guys 'n' Gals,

[Here a link|http://www.score2picture.com/noise/BLOWN.zip] to the PDF which I've updated with the latest replies to the questionnaire. It's a folder containing both the PDF and the .xls (Excel) file. As of today I will no longer have any free time to dedicate to this fact-finding project, which is why I've included the Excel file in the folder. Perhaps someone else can take over compiling the data.

At this time this thread is 3 pages long and has over 11,000 views. I think the number of views represents much more than a bunch of people on the internet rubbernecking at the scene of an accident. Still, no reaction from the company whatsoever. And hearing loss is nothing to be taken lightly or swept under the rug, as is the case here IMO. So I'll put it out there... What kind of reaction should the public reasonably expect from a manufacturer of artists paints which, by all accounts, has the capacity to blind the painter? Or an auto manufacturer who makes a car with faulty brakes? Should the reaction be silence? Eh, prolly not... So my suggestion is that if you want answers, call Apple, speak to Customer Relations, point them to this thread, and DEMAND answers.

Regards,

-=iS=-

iSchwartz,

So I got to experience another white noise blast today and this time I captured it. I saw it first again so I didn't have to get blasted. It happened the same exact way as last time (disk too slow - error). But this time I only had one audio drive (FW400) on the desktop so there was no other drive that could wake from sleep and possibly cause this.

There are 3 images to check out here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/45518121@N08/4174891463/in/photostream/

Message was edited by: intermission

Good points, iS. This is how class action lawsuits get started.

As a longtime Apple owner (since 1986), I have to say I'm disappointed with the way things are going these days. The company seems less responsive when it comes to fixing minor glitches as well as serious problems. I spent $200+ to upgrade to Logic 9 and Snow Leopard. Several months have now passed, and that combo still doesn't work for me. I'm stuck with using Logic 8. In fact, I tried to reinstall Tiger to regain some stability, but it won't let me go backwards without running a clean install. I wish someone at Apple would take notice and fix these issues.

iSchwartz wrote:
Hi Guys 'n' Gals,

[Here a link| http://www.score2picture.com/noise/BLOWN.zip ] to the PDF which I've updated with the latest replies to the questionnaire. It's a folder containing both the PDF and the .xls (Excel) file. As of today I will no longer have any free time to dedicate to this fact-finding project, which is why I've included the Excel file in the folder. Perhaps someone else can take over compiling the data.

At this time this thread is 3 pages long and has over 11,000 views. I think the number of views represents much more than a bunch of people on the internet rubbernecking at the scene of an accident. Still, no reaction from the company whatsoever. And hearing loss is nothing to be taken lightly or swept under the rug, as is the case here IMO. So I'll put it out there... What kind of reaction should the public reasonably expect from a manufacturer of artists paints which, by all accounts, has the capacity to blind the painter? Or an auto manufacturer who makes a car with faulty brakes? Should the reaction be silence? Eh, prolly not... So my suggestion is that if you want answers, call Apple, speak to Customer Relations, point them to this thread, and DEMAND answers.

Regards,

-=iS=-

iSchwartz, Your screen capture shows the noise when it can be seen. The bigger problem is when you can't see it. When the waveform looks fine, but plays back with the white noise. Or when recording and the noise just happens without the disk too slow warning (although I think it does happen in this case because of a disk access problem). I have not had it happen in two weeks of heavy use. No rhyme or reason.

Have you experienced blasts of white noise while using Logic to record or play back audio?
• Yes

Under what conditions has the noise occured?
a) recording only


After recording audio, has the waveform overview ever looked normal but playback resulted in white noise?
• No

After recording audio, has the waveform overview ever appeared like a thick solid white bar that filled the entire waveform display (peak-to-peak waveform level)?
• Yes

Computer -- complete specs of your Mac, including:
• Mac Pro 8-core Early 2008
• 8 core 2.8 ghz
• 6 GB

OS
• 10.6.2

Logic
• Logic Pro 9.02

Frequency
• 3 times ( after that I went back to recording in 8 and Leopard. Clients for some reason don't like white noise in their headphones...)

Audio Interface
• Fireface 800
• FW 400


Hard Drives -- list each audio drive which you've used in the course of production and from which audio recording or playback has resulted in a white noise blast. Leave this part blank if you don't experience the white noise problem.
• Hitachi
• Internal
• Sata
• No
• Journaling: Off


As I record in the control room most often, I got to experience the white noise in headphones as well. Could really damage you're hearing. As a professional engineer this could put an end to your whole career and maybe your client's. This is a SERIOUS bug. No need to elaborate further.

Try THIS one on for size:
My white noise blast happened on a midi project (all midi) that I have been working on for over a month, and resaving regularly as I worked. Today has gone great, until I started to bounce in place to save on system resources.

Here's where it gets seriously weird: the white noise only occurs on the first third of all of the tracks, and then mysteriously disappears. AND, there aren't any waveforms to indicate the white noise. And even STRANGER, on certain tracks, the white noise is happening on sections where nothing is even recorded (i.e. BLANK SPACE!).

I don't have time to mess with it, so I have no choice but to take that section out and go to an earlier version of the song and edit that section completely separately. Annoying as you-know-what!

BillyboyAlberto wrote:
Try THIS one on for size:
My white noise blast happened on a midi project (all midi) that I have been working on for over a month, and resaving regularly as I worked. Today has gone great, until I started to bounce in place to save on system resources.

If you are using virtual instruments (ie: softsynths), it's only half MIDI, the MIDI tracks trigger VI, which produce audio output.

And if the VI use samples streaming from a hard drive it's even closer to user to actual audio tracks... at least as far as the computer is concerned.

pancenter-

I've been following this thread for a month or two now and I'm not sure if this is relevant or not but I'm posting it here in case it helps narrow down the cause of this problem. I have been experiencing the White Noise bursts, although I'm not using Logic. I have my suspicions that this is an OSX or Audio MIDI Core Audio bug.

Recently I have also been experiencing MIDI drop outs. I've discovered that by rescanning for MIDI devices in Audio MIDI Setup I can get it to see the MIDI device again and looking further into this I discovered a webpage that offers a solution to the MIDI problem: http://jnote.org/29

Anyway, it also states that the problem arises from upgrading from 10.4 to 10.5 (the route I took) or from using Migration Assistant as opposed to having a clean install.

I wondered how many of the people here have also upgraded to 10.5 rather than started with a completely fresh install of 10.5? It could be that upgrading this way is causing problems for both Core MIDI and Core Audio.

Recently I've noticed that the white noise is the result of OSX boosting the volume to ridiculous levels as opposed to random noise that might be generated just from a crash. I found that I was able to lower the channel level to almost zero so that the sound can be heard again. In this state all of the volume levels are much higher than expected. Is anyone else able to try this the next time this problem occurs in Logic?

crbn wrote:


Anyway, it also states that the problem arises from upgrading from 10.4 to 10.5 (the route I took) or from using Migration Assistant as opposed to having a clean install.

I wondered how many of the people here have also upgraded to 10.5 rather than started with a completely fresh install of 10.5? It could be that upgrading this way is causing problems for both Core MIDI and Core Audio.

I know in my case, the white noise is happening on a mac pro that came with OS 10.5 already installed. There was no upgrade to it.

In my case, it happens when using software monitoring and reverb plugins.
When using higher buffer rate like 256, it did not happen.
Also I can say that it's gone with Logic 9.1.

Have you guys tested 9.1 in 64 or 32 or both? Thanks.

Both