MAC PRO REFUSES TO BE CLOCKED BY EXTERNAL WORDCLOCK!

Question

MAC PRO REFUSES TO BE CLOCKED BY EXTERNAL WORDCLOCK!

I used my Apogee Rosetta 200 as AD/DA and Wordclock going direktly into optical input on a G5 ...

worked perfectly together for years.

pretty much what i loved macs for.

alas! those times are gone. with my new built mid 2010 machine and os 10.6.8 running, i get these

tiny clicks all the time, whatever they mean now... in the past on G5 and Tiger that meant: forgot switch to external clock in

the AMS (audio-midi-setup), done it, and ::: wow!!!

nowadays: total fail! i can set the Rosetta or the mac to whatever settings there are offerd, i ALWAYS get these clicks

and the sound is dull ...

i wonder, what has happenend here ... and after a month of research i´m getting really angry, too ...

Apogee claimed that Apple is known for changing the specs of the built in internal soundcard

every now an then. (not much help from there, either, but still better than no help at all from Apple)

Dear all: please, i don´t need any of those "get a firewire-card/new interface, sth with a driver" - comments.

I just want the mac pro to live up to it´s name. and i need someone at Apple to tell me, that i really have to

completely rearrange my trustet & expensive equipment and spend another 2000 EUR to let a MAC PRO

sound as good as a 5 year old G5 machine ... (or be as fast, talking about 32 Bit modus!!!)

this whole development scares the **** out of me .. we surely do

not want to change the plattform, but one gets the notion that not before long they just want us to ...

sorry for bothering ...

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jul 18, 2012 2:08 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

louie

Level 4

2,950 points

Jul 18, 2012 1:18 PM in response to sweethomecologne

I think we are describing synching on digital input stream, not technically wordclock. The Apogee has wordclock connectors; you are likely not using them.

I use a Lavry Blue instead of a Rosetta 200 on my 2011 MacPro 10.6.8, although I have some experience with the 200. I have generally been successful setting to digital input within each audio editing application I use (Sound Studio, Reaper, Adobe Audition, etc), then checking the AMS settings. However, when upgrading to Sound Studio 4.5 recently, it gave a tick sound every 30 seconds, which was only on the sound monitoring during recording, not actually on the written file. Sound Studio had no answer, but recommended moving to OS10.7x. I have downgraded back to SS4.2.

So, what exactly are your synch settings in your applications, and then what does AMS show? Is the sound constantly fuzzy and distorted, or do you hear clean sound with random clicks? Or something else? You have tried various applications? What exact model MacPro do you have (System Profiler, i.e. MacPro1,1)? You are not using the Apogee firewire interface, are you?

Reply

Answer 2

Jul 20, 2012 9:33 AM in response to louie

Hi louie!

thank you so very much for caring!! I´ll try to provide as much information as possible:::

sorted it into ABCD

A: THE MAC

Machine is a MAC PRO5,1 built mid 2010, Quad Core Intel Xeon 2,4 Ghz

System is 10.6.8 (had the same issues under 10.7.x, too)

i get those clicks every 10 - 15 Seconds, some left, some right,

i get them in every audio, e.g. quicktime movies., itunes songs ... no so frequently, but they are there ..

Sound is otherwise ok, no fuzz or other artefacts than the clicksies ...

borrowed a Fireface UC just to be sure ... no clickies at all.

B: AMS

in AMS i created a "Hauptgerät" (Main Device or whatever its called in the US System)

it shows:

DIGITAL INPUT (with a Clock-Icon)

DIGTAL OUTPUT (With a wave icon)

With MAIN DEVICE highlightes, the puldown menu on the right says: "Source for clock : Digital Inpit (inegrated)"

In the list of audio-devices below Digi-Out and In boxes are checked, AMS puts a checksign into the "resample" of Digital Output ... don´t know why ...

If beneath MAIN DEVICE i highlight the "digital input" it shows on the right:::

Master stream

source: Internal Clock

Format: 44100,0 kkz 10 Channel, 24 Bit

But AMS crashes everytime i highlight "digital input" (thats a new "feature"!)

C: ROSETTA 200

says Wide/Narrow , meaning "clock locked"

Sample Rate 44,1

SRC is not on, neither on DIGI nor ANALOG outputs

WC/IO ist not set to external

(i don´t know the rosetta so well, it just always worked, so i never had to dig deeper)

D: LOGIC

as far as i know and reseached there is no place in Logic where you would talk care of

clocking (apart from MTC)

I/O Buffer is 256 Samples, but anyway, i have the clicks on every audio from every application

-----------------------

so, thats all i can offer you ... can you think of whats going wrong here?!?!? i do hope so ...

thanks for offering your help ,,, much appreciated!!!

best

bernd

Reply

Answer 3

louie

Level 4

2,950 points

Jul 20, 2012 5:34 PM in response to sweethomecologne

I do not really have an idea, but can look at the Apogee/MacPro installation of my co-worker. However, this will not be for 3 days or so (holiday).

I do find some of the AMS and Rosetta 200 settings hard to understand, but as I said, I use Lavry.

Reply

Answer 4

louie

Level 4

2,950 points

Jul 21, 2012 8:15 AM in response to sweethomecologne

Also, you might try asking on a recording forum such as gearslutz.com or recording.com .

Reply

Answer 5

Jul 21, 2012 8:51 AM in response to louie

I will, i definatly will ...

Reply

Answer 6

louie

Level 4

2,950 points

Jul 24, 2012 8:50 AM in response to sweethomecologne

BTW, I meant recording.org.

Also, I should ask, do the clicks actually get onto a recording, or are they only on monitor/playback?

Reply