Q: Massive problem with audio interface

It would be great, but Apple hasn't said ANYTHING, I don't know why we are paying like idiots for a machine to work with audio while we are losing money because it's useless...

OK PEOPLE LISTEN UP . I KNOW I AM NOT THE FIRST PERSON TO REPORT THIS BUT I JUST WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING CLEAR . i have a late 2013 haswell 27'' imac with YUP YOU GUESSED IT .. a fusion drive . the external audio problem is 100000000% with the fusion drive . however apple is definitely aware of this problem. Also the fix with splitting the fusion drive works perfect. First off for anybody new to the apple community or new to fusion drives let me explain so that you can fix this issue without having to return your fusion drive device . the fusion drive is not 1 drive . it is 2 drives , 1 mechanical hard drive 7200 rpm (which is a **** good, large, quiet and pretty speedy hard drive to begin with ) unless you have the 21.5 inch imac than it is a slower model 5400 rpm which is what a notebook would run on . but im not 100% sure if the fusion drive in the 21.5 is 5400 rpm i just know the 21.5" can only use the 5400 rpm if you just get a serial ata hard drive so i would assume it would be the same with the 21.5 fusion but i could be wrong ( maybe do some research and check it out) anyway so for the 27" model you have both a 1tb 7200 rpm serial ata hard drive and also a 128gb ssd flash storage which apple fuses together with coding. now if you have this audio issues and are considering getting a replacement from apple and just getting a normal ata hard drive please do not waste your time. i will explain why and its simple. you can split your fusion drive (google how to split fusion drive and its one of the first results just know some dont tell you that you have to do so in the terminal by shutting down and when you power back on press command + R  once you hear the start up sound and hold it. using the normal terminal while actually running os x wont work since os x is running at the same time as the terminal) so anyway .. if you split your fusion drive your mac will no longer recognize the 2 hard drives ( ssd and serial ata) as one, it will recognize each one individually and can be used however you like. the beauty of this is if you are like me and need to get some music done asap and you dont have the time or simply just dont want to wait for an update to fix theis issue you can split the fusion drive into the original 2 separate drives that they truly are, install a fresh copy or your time machine backup onto you 1tb hard drive and everything works exactly like it should. i just did it and tested audio and it works perfect. so ask yourself why return your fusion drive for a normal hard drive when you already have the exact same normal hard drive in you mac already PLUS you have the 128gb ssd in there too which you wont have with an exchange. ALSO once apple finally does fix this issue with an update which i was told they were definitely working on YOU CAN UNDO SPLITTING THE FUSION DRIVE AND GO RIGHT BACK TO HAVING YOUR FUSION DRIVE AGAIN AND ALL ITS GLORY. btw the 7200 rpm hd is not slow at all and you wont realize that big of a difference. YES the fusion drive is faster but im sure you have a few extra seconds for your mac to boot and transfer files but once again NOT SLOW AT ALL! NOW one more thing. if you were going to exchange the fusion for an ssd by itself you should do so but just know the 256gb ssd costs the same as the 1tb fusion so you are losing alot of space and apps typically are not able to be downloaded on an external hd, files are, music can be, but from my knowledge not apps so you can lose space quickly. but if you have the spare $$$ to upgrade to a 512gb ssd or even better a 1tb ssd than theres no reason to think about it you should 100% definitely do that. anyway like i said ... tested and confirmed that this method worked perfectly and once apple fixes the fusio drive problem i will be binding the 2 drive right back to a fusion drive again. hope this helped good luck .

I totally agree with this guy! And that's why I didn't ask for a refund. Working fine on splitted drives. SSD for system / apps and other stuff on hdd. It's really working good without any problems. But it's obviously temprorary solution until Apple fixes this bug. And you know it could takes more time than you expected. Maybe fix will not be delivered with 10.9.2 or even 10.9.3... but you already have working computer and you know the way how to work now in this case. Yes, its not good to make something yourself after paying big amount of money but its worth it anyway and it takes not so much time for you first of all.

Can't disagree more, this is not a fusion drive issue but a core audio issue, they both cause crackles/noise.

As you claim yourself you can cure the fusion drive issue with splitting.

The other issue is core audio actually being broken in 10.9.1

I've found that clicks during recording happen with any audio device including recording with internal sound cards, recording with usb sound cards, recording with internal apps like melodyne or vocalign and i've even had soundflower cause some issues.

I refer not to unusable noise but to intermittent crackles which sound exactly like buffer underuns you usually get with low latency settings. Instead these happen at all buffer settings and almost all conditions.

Fusion drive is a seperate issue this is potentially something apple broke in 10.9.0-10.9.1 but maybe before as i only got a few weeks of 10.9.0 before auto updates happened.

JonnyK

YOU ARE MY HERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!      YOU are a %$#@&)*# GENIUS !!!!    SO SIMPLE!

I owe you a beer

That I can't help you with . This is not my experience at all . I listened to my vocals very clearly in aCapella and they sounded great . My interface is a tascam us-600 . I know not the greatest but this thing has done me very well so far.. Anyway the updated driver for mavericks for it provides and suggests to use the bit accurate not the core audio driver and like I said it works great. If something changes down the road and I start to hear anything out of the ordinary I will definitely report back .  Are all your drivers updated for mavericks with your interfaces? I'm not saying that we should enjoy that we have to do all this just to get a solution but for myself and many others this solution works. But by all means if it's not working for you than get in touch with apple and rip them a new one until they make good on your problem . I will be recording all day on Monday so that will be the ultimate test for me and I will report back for sure but like I said so far so great on my end. And if it. Is a core problem it is still also a fusion problem . This was already confirmed by a lot of people and numerous people at apple to me personally. But anyway good luck I hope your problem gets solved, nobody should have to deal with this mess

Just to add myself to the list of woes...

I Googled to these pages as I am also just experiencing clicks and drop outs when trying to record audio. It starts fine then quickly degenerates into crackles, buzzing and other distortions, then when those clear I end up with a massive 1 second latency.

My Set Up:

• 21 inch late 2013 iMac Intel Core i5, 16 GB memory, 1TB Fusion Drive
• OS x 10.9.1 (Mavericks)
  
• Propellerhead Balance USB 2 audio interface
• Garageband 10
  
• Logic Pro 9
  

Hope a fix comes soon as I don't really want to change my system, though I could live with booting from a clone or recording my guitar by plugging into my iPhone and using Garageband on that. Not ideal...

You can also install mavericks on an external hd and just boot from there although I haven't done so myself I do know you can . I don't know how much it will slow things down , might not I don't know. But that is a solution for not wanting to split the fusion . Then u will have two copies of Mav to choose from . To do so when turning on your Mac once you hear that first boot sound hold command and r . From there you can install a new copy of Mav on external hd. It's safe an can't hurt to try but u will lose anything you have on that hd so back it up

Thanks Ant, I already have a cloned external drive thanks to SuperDuper! so I'll give that a go...

Reply back and let us know how it works and how the performance is also what speed is the ex hd . Good luck brother

I don't have issue that you described after un-fusing. Focusrite Scarlett is now working in Class-compliant mode.

Alex,

I have now gone through 2 2013 27"iMac's with i7's and 3TB fusion drives and have tried both Focusrite 6i6 and ProAudio interfaces to the exact same problem.     I purchased this iMac to produce videos and record voice overs for my business but can not use these computers because of this problem.   Funny part is I can use all the same gear on a 2013 MacBook Pro retina with No problems! 

While I can split the fusion drive or boot from a Carbon Copy clone of the drive and the problem goes away this is JUST NOT ACCEPTABLE!   Why did I spend close to $3,000 for a top end iMac to have to come up with work arounds to use the computer?  

I have returned 1 and Apple swaped it out no questions asked, the second one came on 11/20, I kept my fingers crossed but 10.9, 10.9.1 did not fix this problem so number 2 has been brought back to Apple and they are trying to fix it.   At this point I don't want it back, there clearly is an engineering problem with USB and the Haswell chipset in combiniation with the fusion drive.     I have been wiithout my $3,000 purchase now on and off for almost a month and ordered a MacPro to replace this lemon.      If they don't refund then yes I agree a Class Action Lawsuit is in order over this.

While yes this does work (I have tried this on 2 different 2013 27" iMac's) along with booting from an external HD, I'm sorry but this approach is just not acceptable to me personally.   I purchased this computer for my business and this has had signifcant impact on my ability to produce video with voice over audio reliablely.   For the $3000 I spent on this iMac this type of problem should not exist and I am curious why would you settle for a product that has an obvious issue that is very wide spread based on all of the numerous posts in this thread?

Here is something else for you to try - Play music through your audio interface and while music is playing copy or move seveal large files to a USB drive connected to the back of your iMac.  Make sure the files are big enough that while the audio plays and continues to get worse and worse to the point that it stops playing all together.   At about that time you should see an OS X Communications Error and that external drive will  be forcibly ejected AND the content will be corrupted on the drive!  

To me these independent but common (USB Interface) problems suggest there is a serious issue either in the Haswell chip itself or how the logiic board and I for one don't want to get stuck with someting that I spent so much money one.   Just my $.02 and Good Luck

William I could not agree with you more. It's total bull and a bigger issue is that apple is more concerned with adding FaceTime audio and fixing minor bugs that's most people don't notice than fixing this major problem. It's not a common house hold problem that they deal with every day with customer service. I made a YouTube video addressing this to just for the simple purpose on trying to spread the word so more and more people can complain . I want my speedy fusion drive to run without these issues, but for me I only have 4 options. Return the imac which I don't want to do, exchange for a normal serial ata hd which I pretty much already have when splitting the fusion so why do that. Exchange for an ssd but I can only afford either a 256 or at most the 5 for an extra $300 which ***** and it doesn't leave me much space to work with and there's no way I'm giving apple $1000 for a tb . Or split the fusion like I did and return to it when the issue is resolved if ever . But once again you couldn't be more correct this is as unacceptable as it gets . That's why I encourage people to complain and write letters and emails and just complain as much as they can so apple gets it fixed. I feel sorry for all of us with this problem. These macs are way too expensive to have these problems and we don't deserve this. SPREAD THE WORD PEOPLE !

Just to add a complication to this. In November I purchased the 27" iMac with 3TB FD - the very same machine that most folks here are reporting issues with. After reading through all the posts, two weeks ago I decided to try something else. I returned the iMac and spent an additional $600 to purchase the latest Macbook Pro Retina with a 1TB SSD. Great machine but guess what, I still had the same issues with my Duet 2 iOS through the USB 3 port. What this proves is that although there may be an issue with the FD, it is not that alone. The issue is definately also related to USB 3. I have found that using a powered USB 2 hub appears to have resolved the issue for the most part. Not completely though. For example, I can switch to play a new video in Chrome or Safari and find that there is no sound. I go into sound settings and see that the Duet is now showing Unknown Device. This rectifies itself after some time. So now I have 2 days to decide if I want to take this back, get the original iMac again, and try the FD splitting fix. I am leaning towards doing this and waiting for what hopefully will be complete fixes in 10.9.2. Any one have any additional thoughts?