clipping sound on new iMac when Logix X is running

Further note of interest to my earlier report:

It was pointed out to me in a different forum that i should note the following;

I have both a 2013 iMac without a Fusion drive and a 2012 Mac Mini with a Fusion Drive fitted and neither of these Macs have any issues with Audio whatsoever.. be it via internal Audio or External Audio interfaces.

So in regards to issues #1 and #3... these problems do appear to be limited to only the 2013 iMac with a Fusion Drive fitted and not any other models of Macs currently available. If an owner of a different Mac to the 2013 iMac with FD. has an issue with external Audio Interface, the likelyhood is it will be a driver related issue.

brentonius,

Yes, I suspect your issue is either driver .... for the reasons i gave in the last post I just uploaded here 🙂 or USB related..

Its worth noting that given you are using USB2, there is a known issue with certain interfaces that use USB and 'cut off' for no apparent reason...that has yet to be fully understood... It seems to be related to low power caused by several other USB devices plugged into the Mac that are draining power from the bus... but not always. Almost all Powered USB AIs don't seem to have this issue... but almost all non powered ones do... FW AIs do not have this issue either...

I have a Motu Ultralite Mk3 Hybrid that has both FW and USB connectivity... and without power, just running off USB bus power.. the Mk3 cuts out every so often with two different Mac models I have here and have tested it with. Running it with it's power supply attached or via Firewire and the issue vanishes.

Art Of Sound,

Both of the AIs I tried, Focusrite Scarlet and Personus AudioBox are USB2 devices, both were unusable, distortion various other problems with their software and drivers installed and for me at least work better without any drivers. like I said I only tried these two. I'm sure that the driver issue was from a Mavericks incompatibility.

I would advise anyone having problems with a USB AI to try it with the drivers removed. It isn't a big deal to reinstall them if it doesn't work. For me they both worked without drivers for an hour or so and then would need a reboot to work again. I no longer have this issue now that the Fd software is gone.

Something that I just thought of and I don't believe has been brought up yet is the new Haswell chips. They are present in the new iMacs and it might be possible they are part of the problem. Grasping at straws at this point. I am sure there will be a software fix for our problems soon.

First of all, thanks for your post The Art Of Sound!

I've just made some small testing, but this time only using software that where preinstalled on my iMac and the bulit in Audio (primarily because the guys from Apple I spoke with earlier kept saying it was a problem with third party programs or drivers, and that it had nothing to do with the iMac or the fusion drive).

I think I now can rule out my RME drivers (or any other sound application for that matter) as the one that's causing the sound issue - clicks and pops in my case. I still get clicks and pops when using Garage Band and iTunes together, even though I don't have any project open in Garage Band.

If I close iTunes and record some midi (for instance a small piano piece) in Garage Band I then get the same sound issue during record and/or playback. Needless to say this also happens when using Cubase, Native Instruments and Pro Tools.

But I still don't experience the bitcrushing sound some of guys are getting just by playing music in iTunes even though I'm also using a 3TB fusion drive?!

I'm going to call Apple (Denmark) again to hear if they will recognize the issue now, and if they will offer the same "solution" to me, or if I can do it my self without have any warrenty issue...

I have the same problem with the newest iMac with FD and have read through the thread. So just to be clear, should I wait for an update from Apple, or do I need to return my computer?

Currently I would wait for a fix from Apple...

or you can temporarily disable the FD function of your iMac....

You will find info on how to achieve this here...

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1485175

Personally though, I'd wait unless it is an urgent matter... There is no date given for a fix from Apple of course, but I don't suppose it will be too long now.

However, if you feel you can do without the FD completely then contact Apple and ask for a replacement without the FD feature.

I'd rather wait when I have paid extra for my FD.

Here's a funny story relating to this topic..

In 2009 I bought a non-standard configuration of the then 24" iMac. With a certain release of Snow Leopard I started having problems with my graphics card. Essentially the machine would freeze when pushing the graphics to hard. This problem is still unresolved, but everyone with the same hardware configuration experience it, according to this forum.

Now that is funny, because one of my two biggest interests is photography, and lately I couldn't view more than a few photos in Aperture until my 24" iMac completely froze. Realizing the problem would never be fixed, I gave up and decided to upgrade my machine (to fix the problem, not because I really neeed the performance)

So, I just purchased a new 27" iMac with the Haswell chip and the 3TB fusion drive. And here I am, with clicks and pops when playing sound - wether it is Logic or Spotify doesn't really matter, it still happens. In Logic instruments that really "shouldn't" overload this system still clicks and pops.

Now that is funny because my other main hobby is music - recording it, that is. So here I am, spent a fair amount of money to do an upgrade I didn't need performance wise, but had to do for stability reason, just to be left with exacly the same kind of problem except related to audio this time.

Forgive me if I'm bitter, but I doubt this issue will ever be fixed. So thanks for finding this thread, now I'm off to talk to Apple - I suspect the solution is a machine with SSD only.. (I don't want the magnetic drive config personally).

Ironically though, I didn't notice the problem until after using the machine for about a week. After reading this thread I suspect it is because the first week I was short on time and never had it running for very long.

Two days ago it just started happening and after a while the sound card stops working totally. Even if no sound has been playing. Right now when I turned on my speakrs for example it was dead. Re-selecting it as the output got it working again though. For those interested I use the Apogee One, but it sounds like we've concluded the problem isn't the interface of choice.

Kenny

The problem with the GC and the 24" iMac was resolved a long time ago as far as i am aware.concerned. . Apple did a free hardware replacement of the offending graphic card......I know, I had mine replaced free of charge after owning the 2009 24" iMac for two years.. with the intermittant 'freeze' / overheating issue... Now that older iMac works like a charm.... to this day.

Note: This was a physical hardware issue that for some was fixed via the two firmware updates issued and if not, Apple replaced the card with another free of charge so long as your iMac was not older than 3 years. You just had to ask.... or as in my case, reply to the email Apple sent me offering the free replacement GC.

As for the issue with Fusion Drives... Its an entirely different sort of problem as its not physical hardware that is causing the issue but firmware/software that can easily be updated when the fix is resolved.

Be patient and the fix will be forthcoming... or disable your Fusion Drive (as per the link I provided earlier in this thread) temporarily until the fix is released...

Additional: I assume you have installed the new drivers for the One available from the Apogee website? (Important: These new drivers are for Mavericks only...)

http://apogeedigital.com/company/support.php#one-for-ipad-and-mac

I ask because what you are describing with the One (the complete cut off of audio.. which is not the same issue as the clicks and pops one) is a known issue that has been fixed for many using the new drivers that just came out....

Btw.. I should add that i am not defending Apple here. The specific pops and crackles audio problem with 2013 FD equipped iMacs should have been caught during testing of 10.9.... (Note: This is not the same as any driver issues people may be having) but it wasn't and according to the Engineering team, the reason for that was none of the testers reported any such an issue.

I can say from my own perspective, I never had a 2013 FD equipped 2013 iMac to test on.. (Mine is a 2013 iMac with a standard 7200rpm HD fitted) and my 2012 FD equipped Mac Mini has no problems with audio and Mavericks.. so I didn't report any issues because i didn't have any regarding Audio.

I know several people reported Audio Interface Driver issues and those issues were forwarded onto the companies, who's Audio interfaces had such issues... Why some of them have taken so long to fix this issues.. is unknown to me but it seems to be the norm for many over the years! Most of the Pro AIs work fine with 10.9 now because those Devs either took part in the testing themselves or reacted fast to any changes made to 10.9 during development or listened to and acted swiftly upon any reports and feedback from testers in regards to any possible issues with their drivers.

hi

the replacement program for the old imac is interesting. i looked for any info regarding that a while back as i actually expected there to be one, but never found it. perhaps i was too late or something, i never had issues before 10.6.8 (i think it was).

anyway, i fully understand that the former is a hardware problem and the aduio one a software problem. it's just that i have grown slightly bitter based on my previous problem (perhaps unfairly so if it turns out there was in fact a replacement program that i missed to see).

i am slightly more positive though as i think the user base with this problem is quite a bit larger than the graphics problem i mentioned. i base that on no real info though. 😉

and yes, i do have the latest drivers for my audio interface. however, the only update in that driver is the installer, or so it said in the readme, so my understanding is that the driver itself is no different for mavericks compared to snow leopard. i perhaps should mention as well that i have the first gen apogee one, not the later version which might have a different driver.

in anycase, the soundcard works without driver as well, so i suspect the driver package is nothing more than the maestro control panel which i don't actually need. it is installed however.

ironically, while my computer was unusable two days ago (in the context of audio recording), today it is more or less perfectly fine. not sure why, but i did start to suspect that the fusion drive was shuffling around lots of data the other day for other reasons, which it didn't seem to be doing now (based on IO in activity monitor and sound of the magnetic drive).

however, just now, after a longer session in logic, i plugged in my guitar for the first time in this machine, and after about 5 minutes the sound started to "distort" badly. not as in overdrive distortion, but rather as if it was bitcrushed to ****. i also had severe latency at first, but after toggling the input to mic and back to instrument again the latency was fine. the distortion didn't go away though.

i also own the apogee jam, so i plugged that in as well and used that as the input. same distortion problem.

The Art Of Sound wrote:

Btw.. I should add that i am not defending Apple here.

A sure sign of guilt! 😁

kennylovrin wrote:

hi

in anycase, the soundcard works without driver as well, so i suspect the driver package is nothing more than the maestro control panel which i don't actually need. it is installed however.

That is correct. Much of the Apogee hardware is system compliant and the only software installed is the maestro panel.