Logic X audio problems (pop, click, stutter)

Take a look at OS X's Activity Monotor (Found in Applications/Utilities) and see if any other process is using up CPU cycles..

Also make sure you have nothing else running in the background.. like Time Machine for example..

i am having this exact same problem too

2013 27" iMac top end

I'm having the same problem with Logic Pro X running OS-X 10.8.5 on a dual core i7 1.7Ghz 2013 Haswell MacBook Air. I also get the problem with Ableton Live 9 (all releases) so it looks like an OS-X issue.

Very unimpressed as I bought this computer solely to run audio apps.

Same problem, started noticing it using Logic Pro X, but the software has nothing to do with it.

Brand new IMac 27, 3.5Ghz i7, fusion drive, 8gigs.

Originally on Mountain Lion, also tryed installing Maverick. No difference.

After a bit of audio playback I start hearing clicks and then the audio starts stuttering, after a while real badly.

I can reproduce this with Logic Pro X but also simply with itunes. Tryed with Live9 and apparently I didn't have the problem but just tryed for a couple of minutes. When this happens, activity monitor says I'm idle 85/95%, so no issues there.

Called up Apple support, tryed a couple of things on the phone. Pram reset did nothing, tryed to enter safe mode but didn't work, meaning the machine didn't enter safe mode.

Apple is changing my machine with a new one in the next days. While waiting, I'm trying to see if I understand more about it.

I have a bunch of stuff connected via USB:

- An apogee duet

- A Mackie Mcu Pro

- 2 Usb drives

- 2 Master Keyboards

- A keyboard + trackball

- Akai MPD18

Some of the stuff goes through a Belkin usb hub

Decided to detach all the usb stuff and see if something changes.

This is what i noticed, using itunes:

Only keyboard + trackball = No problems

keyboard + trackball + Apogee = No problems

keyboard + trackball + Apogee + MCU Pro = Stuttering begins after a couple of minutes.

keyboard + trackball + Apogee + USB hub = No problems

keyboard + trackball + Apogee + USB hub + 2 usb drives (through the hub) = stutter begins after a while

Detaching the usb hub and the drives gets back to normality, except for rare clicks.

I've been using this same setup with another Imac 27 (late 2009) without problems.

Don't know what all this means but for sure I can't use the machine for music production.

Hope the new one will work correctly.

OSX uses so many buffers to give the impression of speed I think some of it's real-time facilities are suffering.

I guess some of these are new machines with clean installs and others are upgrades over the existing operating system?

Hopefully it's a background process like AOS mentioned, other possibilities are Spotlight getting stuck because of a corrupted index which it keeps trying to reconstruct.

Do not run "Little Snitch" in the background.

Have 20 to 30 gigs free drive space and enough RAM.

Create a new user account and run Logic, any difference?

Delete Logic's preferences andf control surface preferences.

In the Finder, choose Go > Go to Folder from the menu.

Type ~/Library/Preferences in the "Go to the folder" field.

Press the Go button.

Remove the com.apple.logic10.plist file from the Preferences folder. Note that if you have programmed any custom key commands, this will reset them to the defaults. You may wish to export your custom key command as a preset before performing this step. See the Logic Pro User Manual for details on how to do this. If you are having trouble with a control surface in Logic Pro.

then delete the com.apple.logic.pro.cs file from the preferences folder.

Be sure and delete both files.

Also update your Duet's drivers to the latest 10.9 compatible version given you have updated to Mavericks...

joefrost01 wrote:

I'm having the same problem with Logic Pro X running OS-X 10.8.5 on a dual core i7 1.7Ghz 2013 Haswell MacBook Air.

Very unimpressed as I bought this computer solely to run audio apps.

Buyng an Air to solely run Pro Audio apps was not a smart move as that is not really what an Air is for...... It can be done but the Air's inherrant limitations (lack of ports and small internal HD capacity, slow graphic processor, power saving routines to extend battery life etc...) really don't suit that task at all.....

An Air is great for web browsing, email.. basic computer functions on the go... and light weight/long battery life etc.... but for running Pro Apps... Not really! That's not its forte at all.

..and if that sounds a little blunt.. I apologize... but it is a reality of your situation... and choice.

Art of Sound - thanks for your reply.

Just to give a little background, I bought the Air as a suplement to my 17" quad core MBP so that I would have something more portable to travel with and the ability to work on music away from home.

It has more than enough ports for me to connect my RME Babyface when I'm in the studio and the Air that I bought has 512GB SSD so also plenty of disk to hold my Kontakt libraries plus Omnisphere and Trillian installs. It also manages to run a handful of instances of DIVA without a problem.

Until I upgraded from 10.8.4 the Air was doing a great job of running both Ableton Live 9.1b and Logic Pro X.

After upgrading, it's all glitches and skips in both audio apps. I fixed the problem by reverting to a TimeMachine backup taken before the upgrade to 10.8.5 and it's working perfectly now.

Therefore I would tentatively suggest that it's not down to the fact that it's an Air but rather it's down to there being an issue resulting from the upgrade to 10.8.5....

Has anyone else noticed a correlation between audio issues and an OS-X upgrade?

Joe,

I was simply making a comment based on your choice of an Air for running Pro Apps.... and not relating to the problem you now are having.... so no offence meant. It was simply an observation... without knowing you also had a MBP... as some people buy Airs as their sole computer to run LPX on, which as I said is not the best choice in most cases... for the reasons i gave.

I have an Air myself and i do use it for running Logic on now and again when I need true portability.... as i no longer own any MBPs... so I know it can be capable of running a Pro level DAW.. just not to the same degree as an equivilant Mac Mini or iMac can.. (or MBP for that matter)

Anyhow....

As to your issue... did you update the Babyface firmware to 201?

http://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=94914

If you updated to 204 however there is a known issue detailed here..

http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=18045

Art of Sound,

No offence taken, I can see how my original post could have led someone to believe that this was my first audio computer.

Thanks for the RME links, although the problem was present using both the Babyface and built in audio interface so would seem to be unrelated to the RME drivers.

Both the Babyface and the onboard audio glitched after the update to 10.8.5 and were fine after rolling back to 10.8.4.

Both the Babyface and the onboard audio glitched after the update to 10.8.5 and were fine after rolling back to 10.8.4.

That's an interesting quirk in that case... and one to add to my 'list'.

I have not come across that at all... where it affects both internet and external audio with the exception of 2013 iMacs with Fusion Drives

Please let us know if you ever find a resolution and/or reason for it....

Cheers!

Nigel

I had the same problem with my new 27-in. iMac (Late 2013) and so far it seems to have gone away after talking with Apple support today. I was getting clicks and pops about every 10 minutes and I had to either unplug and replug my Apogee Duet 2, or change the buffer size in Logic, which only provided a temporary solution.

Apple support today had me do the following:

#1 Shut down my computer and unplug everything (all USB's, external hard drives etc.)

#2 Unplug the power cord, wait 15 seconds, and plug it back in.

#3 Turn the computer back on, but as soon as you press the power button to turn it on, you have to hold Option+Command+P+R

#4 You will hear the boot-up chime (or whatever) twice, and after the second chime, let go of the keys.

#5 If you get a Mac Utility screen or something other than your normal login, shut down the computer once more and restart.

#6 Login as usual, and the problem should be fixed.

Apparently resetting the "NVRAM or PRAM" is what this does, although I don't know what it means. He also provided me with two articles to use in the case that it happens again, although he said it shouldn't:

Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

About NVRAM and PRAM

Hopefully this will help.

I've been having similar problems and as far as I know it's due to the Apogee Duet sound card. There are various threads around the web going back a few years. In a particular one a rep from Apogee actually replied (link), but there seems to be no solution yet. It's apparently a driver issue.

I'm still experiencing several issues with this card.