Massive problem with audio interface

I haven't yet. But I should change what I reported earlier today. While I am able to record in other applications without crashes, unfortunately there are clicks and pops as others have reported. So 10.9.2 is making my rig slightly more functional but I still can't use it successfully in any application. I seem to be able to run anything I want successfully when I boot from my external USB drive, which is fine but not a workaround I want to use for long.

I installed the latest Beta but it did not change anything for me - but I am sure my problem (USB3-related) needs to be fixed by the audio device manufacturer as mentioned in earlier posts.

-act

Hey, thought i'd post this potential fix.

Just got my first macbook pro (15" retina with Mavericks- brand new) so am completely new to this apple game. Am using an Motu 8pre which uses firewire 400 which Im connecting via thunderbolt adapter with firewire 400 to 800 cable. Downloaded latest supported drivers from Motu and plugged it all in. The result was horrible 8 bit style distortion which lead me to this thread. I called Apple tech support who were very nice but couldnt fix anything and had no idea why. Things they walked me through were stuff like power reboots and memory reboots, driver reinstallation etc. I borrowed my girlfriend's audio interface (Presonus firepod fp-10) to try and eliminate factors such as the adapter/cable/drivers etc. On the presonus site the drivers they provide arent even compatible with mountain lion but i downloaded them anyway and it worked perfectly!! So I went back to the Motu site and downloaded outdated older drivers and....perfect sound!!! No problems!!

Long story short: try installing old drivers for your particular audio interface (especially if on Mavericks).

Hope this is of some help to somebody... Good luck

Tim

Anthony can you get us all the beta 2 of 10.9.2? I know you posted v1 of it before.

I'm hearing it doesn't fix the audio it will probably now be a 3rd party fix but worth a try to see if audio issues are going in the right direction.

Further to the issue after testing for a while with 10.9.2 I find the symptoms are rather specific. It seems when there is a buffer underun or CPU spike/disk spike the core audio slips in time compensation and delivers a delayed audio signal. if you continue to force buffer underuns you can get very large latencies between input and output of audio.

To me it sounds like a missing bit of code or code not working that is causing this slip and makes sense that old kext files for usb drivers are working and using old 3rd party drivers is possibly working too.

Hey ya'll,

Can anyone upload the osx beta 2, I think despite their politics we all deserve to try.

Would be very nice, thanks in advance to whoever will.

Best

guys, sorry to bother with that, but i go back to one of my comment, i explained that my set up (imac 2?7ghz, 16 RAM, 1 T FD with mavericks ) accepts line 6 POD XT via USB ; not a single problem to record

my problem comes from my external card like most of you ; i have an audiobox 22 VSL and also .. the internal miac microphone which is not working properley (metalic sound and statics)

may i ask an new imac owner with mavericks 10.9.1 to test its internal microphone just to check ?

i tried my audiobox 22 VSL with my good old 2007 imac ; output is very low, impossible to use but it is better than with mavericks

Hello Guys - I found a working temporary solution fo rmy problem which addresses the problem with USB3. The original suggestion from some weeks ago to put a USB 2.0-Hub between external audio interface and iMac did not work for me.

But out of curiosity I today connected the USB2.0-Hub (a really cheap one from logitech) to my second Thunderbolt-Display which again is connected to the iMac via Thunderbolt-Cable - et voila, no more distortions or feedback. Connecting the audio interface directly to the Thunderbolt-Display result in broken audio by the way, so it's the combination of Hub and Thunderbolt-Connection that does the trick for me.

Anyways, glad, it works for now - and again - this is a mega fail by Apple and Audio Device Manufacturers in Engineering and Communication. Steve Jobs would be ashamed.

-act

hankboomer, I have tested internal microphone with Logic Pro X and it's work ok for me (iMac 27" i7, 8GB RAM, 3TB Fusion Drive, OS X 10.9.1).

Another info: Logic Pro X seems work well with built in and out audio, but don't work good with externel audio interface.

XCellMusic,

I downloaded 10.9.2 Beta 2 from the Apple Developer site and am placing it here in this message for those that want to snag it. Please just understand - this is a beta so things could go wrong, and also when the final version of 10.9.2 does come out there is not guarantee that you will be just able to upgrade to it, you may need to do a complete release.

Eitherway here is the link and i hope it solves this problem!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uo2sslxsueqgaer/8oMf_zE-YI

(It's uploading now - so please give this 15 minutes to complete, it's aproximately 650mb)

Much thanks for all of your efforts. I've received a response from one of Apple's executive advisors after sending an email to Tim. It seems that this is a software issue that they are looking to correct.

Peter.

I'm coming to this discussion very late and am working through this thread. I hope there is good news by the end.

I am also an Allen & Heath Qu-16 user with a late 2013 iMac running both Logic Pro X and Reaper, both of which exhibit the same problems with multitrack recording via USB B. These problems can be very intermittent. I have had a full day of recording without any interference and on other occasions every recording is peppered with low-volume closely spaced digital clicks and/or a high pitched screech over several seconds of music.

Allen and Heath have had my iMac and my Qu-16 at their R&D department for about two weeks and have concuded that there is a problem with how the iMac's handles USB information which is specific to late 2013 iMacs. I am informed that they are working on a software update for the Qu-16 to get round this issue.

I will register my problems with Apple Support.

Thanks you Fathington for the info! It's good to get a second confirmation that A&H works on a fix. I hope they will release an update soon.

Best

-act

Many, many thanks, William! I had been working with Apple Customer Care to try to get early access to the 10.9.2 beta to see if it fixed my problems (I have four days left to decide if I want to return my new Haswell iMac for a refund), but they couldn't figure out how to make that happen without me paying to join the Apple developer program.

I installed 10.9.2 and it's made the problem much, much better... but has NOT fixed things completely. I still get an occasional pop or click, but nothing like it was with 10.9.1.

Does anyone know whether folks with Fusion Drive Haswell iMacs BUT Firewire audio interfaces are experiencing the same problems? I have a Presonus Firepod that's Firewire-based, but it's incompatible with Mavericks, so testing with that wouldn't be terribly helpful. Yesterday I purchased an Apogee One for iPad and Mac to see if it would eliminate part of the problem since Apogee said it had few enough channels that it didn't suffer from the problem (unlike their Duet and higher-end interfaces).

So, now my fear is that Apple will think 10.9.2 fixes the problem "enough" and never gets around to fully fixing the Fusion Drive problem. It would seem there should be some Unix configuration file buried somewhere deep down in OS X where the end user could tweak the behavior of the Fusion Drive's "smarts" to have it be less aggressive in swapping files around while the data bus is being strained by other processes (like Logic). At least that's what I assume if causing the Fusion Drive related problems. I know there is a separate USB 3.0 issue, but it seems that's on the audio interface vendors' plates to work around.

Thanks to all who have helped debug and (almost) solve this problem.

Hey guys n gals, just wondering... I'm running the new beta update, no major issues nor dramas at all now! However I have had a couple of "system overloads". It is immediately fixed by clicking the "ok" that highlights the problem itself. Anyone experiencing this?

To answer your question ... yes, those of us with FD and firewire interfaces also have the dreaded audio issues. I have a RME UFX which has both USB2 and Firewire connections. The pops, clicks and distortions are awful whether I use the USB or Firewire connections .. and equally bad with firewire via the apple firewire-to-thunderbolt adapter or firewire into the belkin thunderbolt hub. Using the UFX as both audio input and output the audio problem was constant and rendered the computer useless for all audio. Setting the UFX as the audio input and the built-in Mac audio as the output was much better for listening to iTunes and internet audio but recording into Logic is still fraught with regular pops and clicks. I assume all of the above problems are related to the 3TB FD in my new fully spec'd iMac. Incidentally I have used the UFX with my 13" MBP Retina via USB with absolutely no problems at all so I can't blame any of this on RME or its drivers.

I finally got around to cloning the iMac hard drive with Carbon Copy Cloner to an external WD USB3 drive. I booted off that drive and the audio problems are completely gone. In fact I was a bit taken aback at how good my system sounded .. after 2 months of incessant audio issues I had forgotten what a normal system sounded like. I realized that in addition to the overtly obvious loud pops, clicks and dropouts there was also a more constant low grade buzz/humm and much more subtle, but more frequent, low-grade clicks and pops. Running off the cloned drive the audio background was dead silent.

I'm relieved that I can now reliably work on audio projects again with this setup but it doesn't excuse Apple for this egregious nightmare they have put us through. And it doesn't excuse them from fixing it asap. After reading all the various threads on the internet I'm not convinced 10.9.2 will fully fix the problem so I'm not even going to bother installing in it in advance of the public version. Maybe it fixes a few of the issues but it sounds like most people are still having problems, albeit less severe .. which is simply unacceptable for an over $3000 new machine.