Level 1

5 points

clipping sound on new iMac when Logix X is running

I just got the new iMac that was released two weeks ago yesterday. All I did was set it up with Logic X, Main Stage, and Aperture all from the app store. nothing else was put on it. I opened up logic just to check it out and see how much faster the performance would be. I just wanted to give it a quick test and played some apple loops I immideatly noticed it was making a clipping sound randomly. The meters were not peaking everything was in the green and if you turned down the gain the clipping just got quiteter. I called apple support thinking it was a hardware issue. They had me do some trouble shooting like playing the same loops through quicktime and the clipping persisted. they also had me play a youtube video to see if I could hear the clipping. It wasn't as noticible but it was there. Apple decided that it would be a good idea to reformat the computer tomorrow and start over. Sounded fine to me seeing how I didn't have much installed yet. I did a little more trouble shooting on my own after I got off the phone with apple. First I made a copy of three apple loops and put them on my desktop then restarted the computer. Then after a fresh restart and nothing running I opened one of the apple loops off the desktop with quicktime player and it sounded great no clipping. Same with You Tube. I then opened Logic Pro X. Did nothing with it but minimize it. I then went back to quick time player and tried to play the loop again. This time the clipping was back. Same with You Tube.

My conclusion for some reason when logic is running the audio makes a random clipping sound no matter what audio program you play the audio through. (Clipping sound comes out of the internal speakers as well as headphones)

All of my software is up to date.

I am running:

27" iMac

3.5GHz Intel Core i7

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

If anybody has experienced this same problem or has any recomendations they would be greatly appreciated.

I am going to reformat in the morning and try and start again.

I will post my results

Thank you,

Aaron

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Oct 8, 2013 11:22 PM

998 replies

Pancenter

Level 6

14,782 points

Oct 28, 2013 10:31 AM in response to Deadphish42

DeceasedPhish,

Thanks for running the tests... sounds like everything is solid there.

Deadphish42 Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 28, 2013 11:49 AM in response to brentonius

Hi Brentonius,

I forgot to answer your question about how many USB ports I was using. Right now I have a USB3 Seagate hard drive plugged in, a old USB2 HD and The Apogee Jam USB2. I'm also using one of my Thunderbolt ports to daisy chain two seagate thunderbolt adapters and I have my Thunderbolt to firewire adapter plugged into the end of the chain with my Presonus inspire plugged in. I have (1) USB port free and (1) Thunderbolt port free.

DeadPhish

Oct 28, 2013 1:38 PM in response to Deadphish42

Cheers deadphish. Seems it really is just a fusion prob after all. I'd bet all Apogee products react the same (Duet, Quartet, etc) to the new iMacs. I'm just pleased to hear its working as I shelled out quite a bit of cash for my duet just a couple of months ago. It would be a shame if I couldn't use it, as I quite like it!

Oct 28, 2013 3:13 PM in response to Deadphish42

Deadphish42

I have just the same problems with my brand new iMac 27 using Logic Pro 9 and Duet by Apogee that you mentioned above.

What was at final the solution how did you solve this issue?

It would be really helpful to know,

Thanx in advance.

Deadphish42 Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 28, 2013 3:53 PM in response to fotoexplore

Hi fotoexplore,

Just to gather a little info from you before I send you in the wrong direction. Have you read this thread from the begining? I started it when I received a new iMac with a fusion drive before Mavericks was released the rice crispie effect I thought was originally only present when I was playing or had logix x open it was later discovered to include all audio. Once Mavericks was released it cleared up alot of the audio problems for alot of people but some with the new imac and fusion drive are still experiencing problems with certain Audio Interfaces Apogee not being one of them but if you have not upgraded to Mavericks yet you may experience the same problem with the Apogee. I hope that made sense.

DeadPhish

Oct 29, 2013 12:48 AM in response to Deadphish42

Hi Deadpish42,

Thanx for fast reply!

Yes I Have read this thread from the beginning.

I have a brand new iMac27 with fusion drive. I ordered this mac the day after it was released.

Before this i have used a Macbook pro for many years with the same sound card and software and experiensed no problem at all.

When i got my new iMac installed with Logic Pro 9, Garageband, Apoge Duet software, spotify and Chrome.

Pretty straight forward, no warnings and no sign of anything going wrong.

Then when starting up Logic Pro 9 I discovered that there was a clipping problem when playing midi piano. I dident play that mutch attention to it. Restarted Logic, and then everything was fine.

Afterwords this clipping appears more and more when I play feks. play some music from youtube or spotify. When I quit these programs and restart them. Mostly it will be OK.

This far I have been guessing if Duet dosent quite "fit" to my iMac and have sent a question to Apoge, unfortunately - No there has been no answere.

I notice one thing though. If I have Logic pro opened, then opens Chrome/spotify and play music, clipping appears on all programs -Logic-Chrome-Spotify. When quitting Spotify/chrome, clipping dissappears.

At least this was the truth inntil last night.

Then when recording som old tracks from my VS-1680 (Roland) using MTC for sync and analog input - clipping appears after 10-30 sec with recording. Only way to get ridd of this seemed to be quitting logic and restarting it.

But.. it appears again.

I have follow this and a couple of others threads related to clipping problems and I have seen a lot of suggest to solve this. But it all comes down to - Brand new mac, never had any problems with mac before that is simulare to this. Could there be anything wrong with my iMac maybe a hardware issue?

I have upgrade to Mavericks and the problems are the same.

Fotoexplore /r

Deadphish42 Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 29, 2013 7:37 AM in response to fotoexplore

Hi fotoexplore,

The problems your describing do sound the same as the problems that we all were having before we installed Mavericks. Most of us the Rice Crispie effect went away after Mavericks was installed. It sounds like nothing changed for you after installing Mavericks. Then people started to report similar problems with certain interfaces but Apogee users are reporting that all is good with them.

I know Apple will give you a replacement with very little hassle. Just call applecare then after you talk to a tech and they cant solve your problem ask for a senior technical advisor and they should be aware of the problem and set up a rapid replacement for you. I called on a Thursday and had a new Mac at my door on Monday.

I'm not saying that will fix your problem. But they give you two weeks to send back the old Mac. You can set them up side by side and do some comparitave troubleshooting.

I'm not the most knowledgable person on this thread probably the least. I'm just a novice that does this as a hobby. I have learned alot since starting this thread and am very grateful for all the knowledable people that have contributed to this thread.

I hoped some of this helped,

DeadPhish

Oct 29, 2013 8:09 AM in response to Deadphish42

Hi all

Now I'm at a loss what more I can do now except wait. I have a case open with apple as my imac is only 2 weeks old also have a case open with focusrite although I think the issue is the computer not the AI

will apple have people looking into a fix for the all alleged fusion drive issues or will it get forgotten in the mists of time ?

Suppose I could ask for a replacement imac with a standard 7200 rpm hd , I really wanted to be recording music at this point not just listening to pops etc and trying different fixes that don't fix as yet.

If this doesn't get fixed what sort of time limit is there to replace my imac under warranty ?

Tia

Paul

Oct 29, 2013 9:11 AM in response to Clandestyne

It seems to me like this is an uber serious problem which could do Apple as a company some damage. I mean, come on, even iTunes can't play music without distorting? That's insane... and it's completely unacceptable in today's cutthroat competition, high standards for consumers & pro audio users alike. Fusion drive or no fusion drive, this stuff should work out of the box. It's a real shame what seems to be happening. The last thing that Apple wants is to develop a reputation like Microsoft where things *dont* "just work."

In other news, I find that the distortion sounds similar to what a bit crusher plug-in in Logic does. I would bet its a miscommunication between the audio interface and the computer. It may actually be up to the audio interfaces to correct this problem... But I'm just guessing there and have nothing to back up that statement with.

There's an ongoing thread about this over at gearslutz for those who are interested:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/877537-potential-audio-problem-ne w-imacs.html

Oct 29, 2013 9:13 AM in response to brentonius

I dunno if its really the AIs at fault though as it seems folks are having problems even with iTunes, chrome, etc just playing audio off their normal built in sound card...

Deadphish42 Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 29, 2013 9:36 AM in response to Clandestyne

Hi Clandestyne,

As far as your question on how long do you have to get a replacement under apple's warrenty program. I can only speak from my experience. But I received my 2013 iMac as a warrenty replacement for a 2011 imac. I must have paid more than $300 for the 2011 warrenty because on top of Apple sending me a new iMac they also refunded me a pro-rated check for the remainder of the warrenty ($160) I had less than a year left on it. The new warrenty for the new iMac warrenty was only $169. I highly recomend getting the extended warrenty. It's worth it just for the phone support. And also in my case when you run into a cluster of problems two years after purchasing your mac. Within a 3 month period I had a screen go bad, 3 fans go out and a bad logic board. Apple was great about trying to repair the problems. I have difficulty getting around so each repair was set up on sight and in a timely manner.

I will also repeat what apple told me when I last spoke to them on Saturday when they called me to update me on the problem. There engineers are well aware of the problem now and are working on a fix and I will be notified as soon as a update is released. If you haven't done so yet I would suggest calling apple and get ahold of a senior technical advisor make sure they are aware of the problem you are having and get a case # and ask to be notified when a update is released.

They also offered to replace the computer for me on Saturday but agreed with me that they did not think it would make any difference since I was allready on my second 2013 iMac with identical problem. I decided to stick with this one and get it all set up the way I want it. Then if a replacement is necessary to fix the problem hopefully I can just migrate everything over.

I hope that eased your mind a little,

DeadPhish

Oct 29, 2013 9:51 AM in response to Deadphish42

Thanks Deadphish

Yes will go for a upgraded warranty makes sense at this stage

Have a case number and have spoken to apple pro apps technical team but will contact them again for further guidance

Thanks

Paul

Pancenter

Level 6

14,782 points

Oct 29, 2013 9:58 AM in response to Clandestyne

Clandestyne wrote:

Suppose I could ask for a replacement imac with a standard 7200 rpm hd , I really wanted to be recording music at this point not just listening to pops etc and trying different fixes that don't fix as yet.

As discussed earlier... the FusionDrive (recently developed by Apple) is not necessarily advantageous for recording music.

As I understand it, the FD is a standard hard drive with a large "active" buffer that's controlled by the operating system.

Where does the FD drive show up under About This Mac/More Info

Oct 30, 2013 2:26 AM in response to Deadphish42

Ahhh Crap!

Ok. I took my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 back and swapped it for a Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 which is FireWire. So got the FireWire-thunderbolt adapter as on the Focusrite website it says it is "100% compatible" with thunderbolt.

Plugged in, rebooted my imac and hey presto. No sound, followed by clicks and crackles?!?!

So I have now tried two USB audio devices and a FireWire/thunderbolt device and the same issue. I don't want a "replacement" as it sounds (no pun indended) that I will get the same results.

Apple should replace them with SSD's for compensation and the amount of downtime. Can't run an audio business like this!?!?

To add salt into the would, the Saffire Pro 14 works FLAWLESSLY if I just plug it into the 2007 MBP.

Cant BELIEVE I have spent ALL this money on an imac only to find it just won't work.

Plus... And this is the fun curveball in the equation, I am not having ANY issues with it running its own speakers / internal audio on Logic Pro X or iTunes, YouTube.. ONLY with an external audio devices does it go to ****.

So I don't think the fusion drive is to blame as it works on its own speakers and tested recording with headphones and using the internal mic. No clicks no pops nothing!?

Called apple support 3 times, ended up speaking to Pro Apps dept, second technician and he said it was the fourth call he had that day with separate users / ticket numbers about Logic and the specific imac.

Have a new project to record and will have to record the basics on my 2007 MBP for now as it's the only thing I can trust to run smoothly with the Saffire! ARGH!!!!!!!

Pancenter

Level 6

14,782 points

Oct 30, 2013 3:15 AM in response to Johnpaulmusic

Johnpaulmusic wrote:

Ahhh Crap!

Have a new project to record and will have to record the basics on my 2007 MBP for now as it's the only thing I can trust to run smoothly with the Saffire! ARGH!!!!!!!

What operating system is the 2007 MBP running.

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clipping sound on new iMac when Logix X is running