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

iSchwartz wrote:

If you reply, would you please include a link to this thread? If they want information there's plenty of it here, including that Excel spreadsheet I made up a while ago detailing at least a dozen people's systems (if not more).

Hi,

this thread is already (well) known to Apple. The information given by the AppleCare guy is based on in house testing results at Apple.

That's at least the information I was getting from some friends over there.

Best,
21th

Thanks 21st.

Strange... there are reports here of this happening with 9.1.1, despite the claim made in the email. (I recall that you posted previously saying that there was some kind of scheme in 9.1.1 to prevent this but I couldn't find any documentation on it at the time).

Rhetorically... why isn't this information made public? Why does it have to be disseminated via a forum member and not by the company itself? Un freekin believable.

In more recent news... I got files from a musician the other day made on 9.1.1... WAVS with bursts of noise visible at the end of the recordings. Good thing I saw them and edited them out before I played them back.

I'm using 9.1.1

It most definitely still happens. Blocks of white noise appended to the end of a newly recorded audio file. Thankfully, like iSchwartz, I could see the "block of doom" before the playhead reached that section of corrupted audio.

Apple.... some communication on this is absolutely required.

The problem may be somewhere in the CoreAudio system, for example, and not in the Logic codebase, or it may be a combination of different issues resulting in the same outcome.

If it happens in 9.1.1, remember that Apple haven't been able to reproduce this yet, so any temporary workaround fixes they've implemented may not catch all cases or be exhaustively tested (you can't exhaustively test when you can't reproduce the problem reliably).

So, anyone that has this problem is best making some comprehensive bug reports to give them as much data as possible.

Never had it myself - must just be lucky... (famous last words!)

I got a blast of white noise once. I was recording a song in 32 bit, then decided to open it in 64 bit. That's when I got nailed. I went back to 32bit and it stopped. Then I opened a brand new project in 64 bit. It was fine.

It must have been because I used 32bit apps or filters that were incompatible with 64bit. I haven't had the issue again.

Many people seem to think it's a software problem. Maybe, but if it is, it's at the OS level, not the app...although app programming might make it more prone to happen.

For all we know could be a chip issue and exist as a bug in the "wiring." It's an issue that's existed across Mac platforms and OS's for years.

I think I remember first getting the blast when I was using Final Cut 3.0, so it's been with us for a looooong time.

That said, I don't ever remember the issue happening with Mac OS ver.9.

Mike Connelly wrote:
Just got this for the first time, couldn't believe how loud it was. Thank god I didn't have headphones on.

Mike, was it at the end of a recording? Was it visible in the Arrange page & audio editor?

I've had it a couple of times over the past two year, very infrequent, most notably if I was working fast recording take after take in quick succession.

pancenter-

A bit numb from the latest blast of noise, this time working in Compressor. The app comes bundled with Logic, so I'm posting about it here.

I'm reminded of the Pet Shop Boys song +What Have I Done To Deserve This+... Well, there I was, minding my own business, rendering out a movie clip in Compressor. I chose the Apple Lossless codec with a Compressor-generated fade-in and fade-out on the soundtrack.

The preview sounded perfect. The rendered file, however, was a different story... The blasts occurred over the duration of both fades; audio for the duration of the movie between the fades sounded fine.

I caught the first blast during the fade-in at high-ish volume. The blast that occurred at the fade-out was auditioned at a more of a, shall we say, "medically safe level".

Not to be dissuaded, I tried another render using PCM 24-bit instead of Apple (Hearing Loss)-less with all other Compressor settings the same. The audio rendered perfectly this time.

The problem is eminently repeatable, too. And to this effect I've set up an email address that's visible in my public profile *for someone from Apple to contact me regarding this problem.* And if any of the foregoing seems a bit snide, demanding and *****, I can assure you my angst is well-grounded, because, y'know what, Apple? If your collective ears were ringing like mine are now you'd have a bad farking attitude too.

This is now the second time that I've had the blasts while not using Logic. First time was with an app called ScreenFlow. Now with Compressor.

Apple codec, blast of noise.
Apple application, blast of noise.
Time for Apple to own up.

This is interesting, because the excuse so far is that it has not been reproducible. Now that iSchwarz has found a reproducible instance, they can't sit around any more and say it never happens to them?

I decided to call Apple and spoke to a tech. He said that there were no known issues with noise blasts from Compressor (lucky for me to be the first to encounter it??) and that the best thing I could do was submit a bug report via Apple/Feedback.

I explained to him that submitting requests and bug reports via Feedback feels like lip service since it's rare that anyone ever gets any, um, feedback after you post something there. He then explained that e-v-e-r-y feedback message is taken seriously and that the various engineering departments, in their weekly meetings, review what's been posted.

As an example of this, he said that introducing the Flex feature in Logic 9 was as a direct result of user feedback (feature requests, I imagine) from the Apple/Feedback website.

Considering the bad experiences I've had with Apple support in the past I'm inclined to take a cynical and untrusting view of what he told me. But for now I'll submit a feedback report and see what happens.

Meanwhile, I remain totally open to email correspondence from Apple about this issue. I have the file all zipped and ready to go, with instructions on how to reproduce the problem.

Did he say there were 'no known issues with Logic' regarding this? Since it is clearly the same fault, there IS an issue with some audio software. Isn't that the point? I am disappointed that he was able to wriggle out of it, as if the fault was with Compressor, when it is clearly with Apple hardware/software.

Mike Connelly wrote:
Have you sent it to bugreport.apple.com? If you report things there, you can include files, and you're more likely to get a response.

I thought of going that route, but after thinking about what the tech told me I decided to start with Apple/Feedback, going on the tech's insistence that all reports submitted via Apple/Feedback are "absolutely taken seriously". In my report I made the point of saying that as a musician, the potential for hearing loss from using Apple software is not something that should be taken lightly, etc.

I have the goods they need to reproduce the issue. I've made that known here in the forum and via feedback. I'll wait for a week or so and see if Apple contacts me. If they don't, I'll try the bugreporter route.

maceasy wrote:
Did he say there were 'no known issues with Logic' regarding this? Since it is clearly the same fault, there IS an issue with some audio software. Isn't that the point? I am disappointed that he was able to wriggle out of it, as if the fault was with Compressor, when it is clearly with Apple hardware/software.

No, he didn't specifically say that there were no known issues with Logic. I mentioned, as an aside, that noise blast issues were a known issue with Logic but he didn't elaborate. To be fair, I called to discuss the issue with Compressor, so I'll give him credit for sticking to the subject. The point of my call was to make Apple aware of a reproducible problem, see if it was a known issue, and see what kind of support I could get.

Perhaps it might be an idea for people experiencing the Logic+Noise problem to call the (former?) Customer Relations number to discuss the situation: 800-767-2775

BLAMMO! I got nailed this evening by a blast of noise after recording a sound check of my piano mics. Upon playback, my classical piano work was "interpreted" as a horrifically loud blast of white noise.

As soon as the playhead hit the region the meter banged all the way into the goddam red. It stays that way until the actual recording ends. In this screencap, note the position of the playhead and where it crosses the region. Then look at the meter:

!http://www.score2picture.com/L9pix/fu1.jpg!

While the recording played, the timbre of the noise seemed to modulate with the dynamics of the recording. As the playhead passed the end of the region the noise stopped. However, the region itself, which is only 23 measures long (at 109 BPM) appeared to be over 7000 measures in the sample editor.

!http://www.score2picture.com/L9pix/fu2.jpg!

Then the song crashed not long after I took that screencap.

Upon reloading I got this error message:

!http://www.score2picture.com/L9pix/fu3.jpg!

46,000+ views on this thread. Dozens of reports. Data compiled and offered to Apple to help get to the bottom of the problem. And what do we get? Absolute silence. To that effect, I did a little research online and found a quote attributed to Steve Jobs:

+Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.+

You can cut the hypocrisy with a knife.

I was going to say... find and save the audio file if you can because your description sounds like a missing or corrupted header.. one of the things the header contains is the number of samples in the file, basically, how long it is.

I see on re-loading the file Logic does see it as that.

Having a file to send Apple along with the pics may be of help.

Hopefully your ears (and tweeters) didn't get fried!

pancenter-

iSchwartz wrote:
BLAMMO! I got nailed this evening by a blast of noise after recording a sound check of my piano mics. Upon playback, my classical piano work was "interpreted" as a horrifically loud blast of white noise.

46,000+ views on this thread. Dozens of reports. Data compiled and offered to Apple to help get to the bottom of the problem. And what do we get? Absolute silence. To that effect, I did a little research online and found a quote attributed to Steve Jobs:

+Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.+

You can cut the hypocrisy with a knife.

Youch. Awful awful stuff... I wish this stuff were picked up by the media like the iphone 4 antenna issue! Because we're a small and niche market, this issue doesn't get any attention at all. Yet it's as flawed as the iphone issue (or more so) and Apple have not resolved it (though admittedly because they don't seem to know how)!!!