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

Babw

Level 1

0 points

Nov 20, 2013 10:39 AM in response to The Art Of Sound

Art of Sound,

how can you be sure there're 2 issues and not just one underlying issue which is activated by different components.

I'm assuming here that Apple has the FD capability within all the iMacs of this vantage but the hardware obviously has to be in place to activate it.

Has Apple confirmed from their diagnostics there are two independent errors?

Nov 20, 2013 1:00 PM in response to Babw

Yes babw, It has been confirmed by Apple there are two distinct issues and they are easily identified... (via the Phone conversation I partially listened to that i reported about, a few pages back, between the US Engineering team and a client of mine)

2013 iMac with FD - Play sound via iTunes and you will hear crackling.... especially if you are also doing file transfers etc... to/from the FD drive. This audio crackling also affects Audio Interfaces of any kind, USB2 or FW ) to differing degrees... again depending on the load placed on the Bus... Booting from an external HD or splitting the FD resolves this issue.

2013 iMac without FD - No issues with internal Audio and no issues with FW / TBolt Audio Interfaces if they have compatible drivers for the version of OS X installed.

2012 Mac Mini with FD - No issues with internal Audio and no issues with FW / TBolt Audio Interfaces if they have compatible drivers for the version of OS X installed

2013 iMac with no FD (or any recent Mac with USB3 ports) but used with a USB2 Audio Interface, connected to a USB3 port... Issue with crackling Audio and dropout of Audio/crash of Core Audio when using Audio Interface possible... depending on the specific Audio Interface and it's drivers.. but not internal Audio.

As I said earlier.. 2013 iMacs with FD and when used with a USB 2 Audio interface connected to a USB3 port... can suffer from both the FD issue and the USB2/USB3 issue... which is partially the cause of some of the confusion about these two issues...

Fnally, I'm not surprised that initially (and for those CSRs/Eng Teams not aware, still do suggest this) the CSRs and Engineering Teams around the world.. suggested the problem with 2013 iMacs with FDs was an Audio Interface/driver issue because in the face of it, that is exactly what you would think given the symptoms being reported... and the fact that similar issues were being reported to them with other non FD equipped USB3 Macs....

I believe it was only when the US Eng team realized the issue with onboard Audio was occuring only with 2013 FD equipped iMacs, did they begin to understand and look in the real cause of this particular issue....

Deadphish42 Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 20, 2013 8:34 PM in response to The Art Of Sound

Hi Art of Sound,

I know you are the man with the info and also a late 2013 non FD iMac. So I was wondering if you are having any trouble updating some new additional content in Logic? Particularly 4GB of stereo drum kits. I have downloaded and installed them several times and every time I start up logic it tells me there updates available and when you go to them its the same 3 drum kits saying there outdated. I will attach a screen shot.

I know it's a bit off topic I just wanted to make sure it wasn't isolated to FD.

I did set up a FD late 2013 iMac today using the externial boot drive method and everything is working well with it. But if I boot from the internal right back to the snap, crackle, pop. It's a great work around untill it gets a fix though. Thank you for all of your help with the issue(s).

Thanks,

DeadPhish

Nov 20, 2013 9:53 PM in response to Deadphish42

Hey Deadphish,

No.. No problems at all with any of my rigs here.. I have downloaded and installed all the additional content at least 8 times here.. and probably another 10-12 times with clients and their various different Macs (both FD and nonFD) at their studios and never had any issues at all.

Unfortunately there is a miriad of possible causes for such issues including but not limited to;

Intermittant Internet Issues and Server connection problems...

Internet provider issues (Some internet providers place either timeouts or max limits on single file sizes for continuous downloads)

Home network Issues (Inc router config problems and data corruption)

Hard drive issues such as permissions issues and/or physical disk faults preventing data from being successfully written/saved. Check both permissions and disk status via the Disk Utility

Power saving issues (Try changing the energy settings in Sys prefs to temporarily stop the Mac and its hard drives, from going to sleep)

User account issues (especially possible if data/.accounts were moved from one mac to another using Migration Assistant at some point in the past)

Incorrect Folder names .. that confuses the download proceedure....(There is a thread about this particular cause here )

and so on.......

However as far as i can recall... I haven't seen the "Outdated' issue before and have no clue what that actually means...... I tried googling it and came up with nothing reported by others either....

I think its time for you to make yet another call to Apple support unfortunately...

Sorry!

Nov 20, 2013 9:50 PM in response to Deadphish42

I did set up a FD late 2013 iMac today using the externial boot drive method and everything is working well with it. But if I boot from the internal right back to the snap, crackle, pop. It's a great work around untill it gets a fix though. Thank you for all of your help with the issue(s).

Great! I'm glad to get another confirmation that this workaround continues to do it's job and fix this issue temporarily until the matter is properly resolved.

Thanks for the update.. Truly appreciated!

Cheers..

Nigel

Nov 20, 2013 10:34 PM in response to Deadphish42

Deadphish,

The 'Outdated' problem appears to be a new issue going on currently with something server side at Apple...

Please see this new thread....

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5584247?answerId=23862940022#23862940022&ac_cid=tw123456#23862940

Cheers..

Nigel

Nov 21, 2013 12:05 AM in response to Deadphish42

Ciao Deadphish 42.

I had the same issues downloading the additional content for Logic X, on different machines, no FD involved.

No connectivity problem on my side. Some of the downloads ran until completion then I got errors like "Logic X can't install the additional content" and I had to start over. After a while everything finally downloaded and installed. It's the kind of "glitch" I'm experiencing on a bunch of Apple products lately, be it iphones, ipads, computers etc. Minor things that make my Apple experience less "stable" and "comfortable" than in the past. Obvously a personal view but having used macs since the Mac plus and went through all stages of Apple computers history, I get the feeling we are a bit in a "grey age" right now. 😁

Sorry for the off topic rant.

Regarding my Imac issues, I sent back 2 of them, got my refund and will now wait to see what happens. Luckily I can afford to stay without a new machine as I can use my old setup, I'm a not professional of music, just having fun.

Cheers

Deadphish42 Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 21, 2013 12:19 AM in response to The Art Of Sound

Thanks Nigel,

I knew you were the man to ask. I did look around the forurms first though :-). I thought it was strange because I have a couple late 2013 iMacs right now both set up very different from each other and it was showing up on both. One I have set up with Mavericks running off of a externial. and the other I have Mavericks running on the internal FD and I got the problem on both. Thats what made me want to rule out the fusion drive when I was getting it on both systems and I couldn't find any other reports of it.

One thing to mention about using the externial drive work around method when downloading the additional content as a matter of fact. When I loaded it on the internial FD I just clicked on the select all button and downloaded everything at once. But when I tried to do that with the externial version If I had more than a couple downloads going at once I kept getting failures. It was like it would download everything except for the last byte of a file and just hang there until it finaly said it was unable to complete the download. Like it didn't have a place to put it while it waited for other files to download that had to be installed first?

Is there something I should be setting up on the externial other than the OS? It wasn't that bad of a inconvience and everything is fine once it loaded. I was just curious to why.

I am using a Seagate 2TB Backup plus USB3 for my externial. I also tried it hooking it up with a Thunderbolt base (a real one not just shaped like a lighting bolt :-) and got the same results. Like I said it was no big deal just thought I should document it for everyone. I also left a note on the feedback page.

Once again thank you Nigel,

Aaron

Deadphish42 Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 21, 2013 12:29 AM in response to Inkaroads

Thanks Inkaroads,

I'll give it another go in the morning. I'm sure they will get it worked out. Yes I have been through good and bad experiences with Apple. More good than bad and the bad ones were always made right when brought to the proper persons attention.

Good night,

DeadPhish

Wound

Level 1

0 points

Nov 21, 2013 3:34 AM in response to The Art Of Sound

As long as the main US engineer team are aware of the Fusion drive core audio crash then there is hope of a proper fix.

What I was saying was the Ireland Apple guy "Steve" said the engineering team said it wasn't apples fault and this concurs with what you said regarding the issue getting confused with the deprecate usb2/3 crackling.

And that's what was worrying.

I'm just not sure how or why the engineering team got mixed up as mine is FireWire and not a crackling issue.

It's either what you say...they aren't ready to admit a problem.

Or they are still confused between both issues.

Either way it leaves a problem for us all affected.

I did get audio working with external hdd...just not happy having an unused 3TB FD.

Nov 21, 2013 3:36 AM in response to Deadphish42

Hi All, same problem here.

I have a late 2013 iMac with fusion driver.

everying worked well, except when connecting an external interfaces.

I tried a few interfaces (Line6 UX1, Motu Microbook and another proffesional one), and it seems that interfaces that uses the USB port as power supply (no other cables) ,playing noises and crackling sounds.

it usually take some time (5-60 sec.) before the noises begin.

I double and cross checked everying, 3 interfaces X 2 iMacs and an old macbook.

For now, it seems that late 2013 iMacs, using Mavericks and external sound cards / interfaces, are having this issue.

The iMac in currently in the lab, trying to figure out this problem.

I askd the guys on the lab to restore it to Mountain Lion, so i can test it.

Nov 21, 2013 10:01 AM in response to Deadphish42

Hi all, as you can see from my name i am a total beginner here in the mac forums and in the mac world in general. so far i haven't had the smooth ride i thought i would get from buying an apple product. anyway, satisfactory customer service aside, i thought i would share my experience so far with the rice crispy effect. please forgive me if i don't use the correct terminologies in many or all cases.

i bought an imac with 1TB FD. spent 2 days downloading logic and all the additional content. installed the drivers for my midiman keyboard, for serato scratch live, and for my allen & heath DB4 mixer. i should add at this point i was using mountain lion. everything 'fired' up perfectly, had itunes playing through my monitors, logic seemed a dream if a little alien (hadn't played with it since version 5). then after a short while i noticed the popping and crackling whilst using the midi keyboard. decided to unplug the keyboard, no change. unplugged the serato box, no change. unplugged the mixer, no change. even itunes using the onboard sound was coming out crispy in the end ! i was gutted. my curiosity brought me to this forum and this discussion in particular. i was relieved to discover it wasn't just my machine, but also sad that i now faced the decision of trying the various workarounds (no good for a newbie) or going for the refund and ordering a machine with a standard ATA drive. i opted for the latter. i am currently waiting for my new imac to be sent to me.

in the meantime, while i wait for this one to be picked up i thought i would at least see what happens when i upgrade to mavericks. last night i downloaded and installed mavericks. now i can't get the DB4 drivers to 'stick' as a permanent I/O device. the option to have it is there in the sound menu, but as soon as i go away from system preferences the machine just reverts back to the onboard sound. strangely i can still get logic to go through the mixer, but itunes will only use the onboard sound. however, sorry if i'm dragging this out a bit, i don't have any more popping or crackling, no matter how hard i try. not sure what this means to anyone, just wanted to share my experience in case it does mean even the smallest thing. or discourages anyone from trying the things i have. all i know now is that i prey my new machine arrives with mountain lion installed and that i have no issues using the standard drive.

thanks to everyone who has posted so far, i would have been lost without all the info.

mike

Nov 21, 2013 1:07 PM in response to Mr MacNoob

Hi guys, here’s some more information regarding Mavericks compatibility:

We're working on making all our mac-compatible products compatible with OS X 10.9 (Mavericks). Where the solution requires working with Apple or another 3rd party, which is mostly the case, we are unable to provide a time line to compatibility. Where we can provide a solution independently, we will provide a time frame. We are working on Mavericks compatibility now, and have been for some time.

We have recently realigned our priorities in terms of available resources, and are creating additional resources to ensure smooth operation with new OS releases for all our OS-dependent products . This is now our top priority, ahead of new product development and all other development requirements. We apologise for the inconvenience and stress that not providing a solution sooner has caused. Our goal now is to deliver a zero time gap for compatibility with new OS releases.

Please do get in touch with our support team if we can help you with anything further.

Compatibility Article:

http://us.focusrite.com/answerbase/are-focusrite-products-compatible-with-osx-ma vericks

Nov 21, 2013 1:28 PM in response to michaeltownsfocusrite

Thanks Michael for the timely update and for posting it here.........

Much appreciated!

Our goal now is to deliver a zero time gap for compatibility with new OS releases.

This is something I know my clients and other people here, who use your products, have hoped for and will welcome for sure...

Cheers..

Nigel

Wound

Level 1

0 points

Nov 21, 2013 2:20 PM in response to The Art Of Sound

Nigel,

Regarding fusion drive core audio crash mavericks thing...did this only happen under Mavericks OS for sure?

Were FireWire to thunderbolt AI Late 2013 iMacs with fusion drives and Mountain Lion ok before the new OS and or firmware?

Just trying to decide what to do...keep changing my mind as I want to keep the blooming thing really.

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clipping sound on new iMac when Logix X is running