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

Yes.. I had this happen to me in L8 a few months ago. It scared the sh*t out of me and I, too, had ringing in my ears for a few hours after. I already have a bit of damage from touring.. and I'm in my mid-40s now, so every bit of hearing I have is precious. Bummer so many have suffered this experience. Generally, however, the awesomeness of Logic FAR FAR outweighs the issues I've experienced, IMHO.

This has just now happened to me for the first time in Logic Pro 9.

Was working on a tune that I've been working on for a little under a week. Left the computer to go watch a bit of TV, maybe for around 15 minutes, came back, had a look at a few effects plugins and when I pressed play I was met with the horrendous distorted audio. I ripped my headphones off and turned down the Mac's volume. Now too worried to use it again..

Can I just note that I've had Logic 9 for a while now and so gradually updated as they've come and have never experienced this before. I knew about it long ago from these threads but assumed I was just lucky. I don't think the problem has come or gone during any Logic or OSX updates.

There is nothing I've updated/downloaded recently enough that i think could have caused this to happen. Therefore, I believe the problem lies somewhere in the Core, and not an update/external plugin. Perhaps, as I left the computer for a while it was something to do with the computer going to sleep?

I will write to Apple, as this is not acceptable. I urge all others to contact them too. All energies should be placed into a solution. They were keen to fix the iPhone problem when they feared loss of sales due to the reception issues. This should be no different - infact, it's a billion times more important!

FWIW, I have a Macbook Pro Intel Core i7, OSX10.6.7, 7200 500GB SATA HDD..

I said this long ago, but maybe it pays saying it again: I've had this RECORDED blast of white noise usually at the end of the file back in Logic 4 when using Lexicon Core32 and Aardvark something... Never happened with Audiowerk8 (I even used AW8 and Aardvark at the same time on a PII 333!), and never again since I switched to RME. I've had 3 Multifaces and one Fireface800. I've run these on the following machines: PIII 500, Athlon 1200, PIV 2,3, PIV 2,66 (portable HP), Macbook Pro 2,3,. The PCs were running Logic 5, on the MBP I've run Logic 7, 8 and 9. It never happened again. I even ran Logic 7 in the PIV (hacked) during some time, using both USB and FW400 and also FW800 external HD. NEVER had the problem again.

This leads me to suspect there is a problem with the soundcards you`re using or with the drivers. Of course I can be wrong, but in my case I'm 99,95% sure it was the soundcards. Maybe something in the program too, but as it's my program of choice I buy soundcards that work well with it in the first place.

Hope this helps a little.

>Left the computer to go watch a bit of TV, maybe for around 15 minutes, came back, had a look

>at a few effects plugins and when I pressed play I was met with the horrendous distorted audio.

This presumes the computer went to sleep.

What you describe is a classic case of the audio hardware losing sync, however, under no circumstances should Logic allow a high decibel blast of noise to occur.

Also, looking at the replies there's at least two (maybe more) white noise scenarios.

1. White noise that's recorded on a track but not heard while recording,

2. A blast of white noise when hitting play.

pancenter-

I haven't used Logic, but in Final Cut, every single time I've had this problem, it's been traceable to a mismatch between the sequence bitrate and the bitrate of some audio file in the sequence (usually a music or sound effect track).

To solve, first check your sequence settings, and make sure Audio -> Rate = 48 kHz. Then look through all sound files in the sequence (and, obviously, the sound in video files). To check them, open in Quicktime and look under format.

I almost guarantee you'll find some stray piece of audio that's set to 44000 Hz, 22050 Hz, or some other number that isn't 48000 Hz [note: 1 kHz = 1000 Hz].

So just open it in some audio editor (Soundtrack Pro works but is overkill, Quicktime Pro or the freeware program Switch are probably better), and export it as a 48000 Hz file.

And enjoy life!

McKleinfeld wrote:

I haven't used Logic, but in Final Cut, every single time I've had this problem, it's been traceable to a mismatch between the sequence bitrate and the bitrate of some audio file in the sequence (usually a music or sound effect track).

To solve, first check your sequence settings, and make sure Audio -> Rate = 48 kHz. Then look through all sound files in the sequence (and, obviously, the sound in video files). To check them, open in Quicktime and look under format.

I almost guarantee you'll find some stray piece of audio that's set to 44000 Hz, 22050 Hz, or some other number that isn't 48000 Hz [note: 1 kHz = 1000 Hz].

So just open it in some audio editor (Soundtrack Pro works but is overkill, Quicktime Pro or the freeware program Switch are probably better), and export it as a 48000 Hz file.

And enjoy life!

While it's possible there is a relationship, Logic handles samplerates differently than FCP auto converting when it needs to.

Also, the Logic/Core Audio white noise problem can happen in several different scenarios. Sometimes it happens during recording and the noise is recorded onto the audio track, other times a burst of white noise can happen with no indication.

pancenter-

I have had this problem in Soundtrack Pro a number of times on my MacPro. Last time was about a year ago. NOW, I just had it on my MacBook Pro while listening to a radio station on ITunes. Right channel went out. Closed and restarted ITunes and got the blast from the right channel. (Glad I wasn't wearing headphones like the first time on STP.) This is telling me it is something internal to the Mac sound engine or OSX and not related to any application software.

This is a serious ear health issue.

Fred C

MacBookPro 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

OS X 10.6.8

ITunes 10.3.1

I too, have long suspected this was an OS issue. There were far too many differences and variables in the list of complaints... from different audio interfaces, to different computers, to completely different software... the only common denominator I could see was the OS.... and even THAT was different (although I suspect code build and refined from other code could exhibit that problem)

as an aside, I personally have not had this happen for over a year and a half now... go figure...

I have had this happen in Logic 8, Final Cut Pro 7, and now the rewritten-from-scratch Final Cut Pro X. Both Leopard and Snow Leopard. Macbook Pro early 2008 and Macbook Pro 2011. With no hardware attached (laptop only, no audio interface, MIDI devices, etc).

No Logic (or AU plugins) installed on new computer yet, only Final Cut Pro X, but still happens. The only consistency is OSX.

Well, that's a pretty clear report, thanks for that. Coreaudio is the main suspect then. I wonder if the "Bl.o.w.n." gets credibly reported by Lion users, or, in other words, if in Lion the coreaudio has been fixed...😕

Hello,

Ive been reading this whole thread, and to me to white noise still happens. It only happens when i freeze my tracks, go back to the beginning and press play. Is there any solution already, caus there is not much activity anymore on this thread?

Dear apple support team...

I've been having this problem for a long time now and I'm really fed up with it (and so are my ears and speakers)!!!

It occurs randomly and while using different audio software (Logic Pro, Finale, ProTools, QuickTime). It is also not traceable to the interface (I'm using a MOTU ultralite) as the same blast of noise has happened when I was using no interface at all but the internal speakers of my Mac (OSX 10.7.5; but has happened in 10.6 too).

The situation ist always the same: While working with an audio software for some time (sometimes a couple of minutes, sometimes for hours) without having any troubles I press play and suddenly there is a white noise at full level. It stops when I stop the playback.

Sometimes before this happens there is a sudden crackle of clicks and pops on all channels, sounding like a clock/sync problem. But this happens while I'm doing NOTHING (no playback, no recording). When I start the sequencer afterwards, the beloved noise appears.

I've been reading about this problem in several forums. Many people are experiencing the same problem with very different setups. As far as I now there has been no solution so far! In my oppinion the whole phenomenon sounds like a clock/sync problem in Core Audio. I now about similar issues when working with different sample rates or word clock generators.I really don't think that all the audio software engineers of AVID, MakeMusic and so on did the same mistake!

It might be a difficult problem to solve as it occurs randomly, but if you care about professional audio users then please try to fix it soon!!!

Although your post is correct in every respect, this is not the Apple support team. This is a user to user forum. Your post would be better mailed directly to Apple. Apple don't come here unless they are deleting posts that break the forum rules.