Audio not playing through interface

I’m having an odd issue.

I’m on FCPX 10.6. Big Sur.

I use an Antelope Orion 32+ as my audio interface.  Never had an issue with it till trying to use it with FCPX.

FCPX will not play audio through my Orion interface.  No matter what I do…it will  not route through my interface.  My System Preferences have the Output selected to run through the Orion and all Mac audio runs through it fine.

If I switch to “external headphones”, then FCPX will pass the audio through the headphone port … but it’s 100% distorted (that’s another issue in it of itself).

Interestingly enough, if I restart the computer, immediately open FCPX and start playback, it will play for a few seconds through the interface but then will stop. It’s as if somehow it’s recognizing there’s external audio hardware and then ceases to pass through.

I never had this issue when I was using MOTU (firewire) hardware. But now, with this new interface (it’s been a year or so since I’ve used FCPX), FCPX doesn’t seem to want to play nice.

Any suggestions?