Audio popping and crackling problems across the board with Mavericks

Question

Level 1

10 points

Audio popping and crackling problems across the board with Mavericks

I have a mid-2012 Macbook air.

Is anyone else having popping and crackling issues with Audio after upgrading to Mavericks? (I have read through various discussions but haven't seen this particular issue) Note: popping and crackling is not present when playing audio with Quicktime.

Audio is popping and crackling. I'm a musician and DJ and this is terribly impacting my business . . . This includes when played on Youtube, in iTunes, on Djay, Serato DJ, flash, any audio.

It doesn't matter is I am playing audio through a USB mixer, through headphones, internal speakers, audio jack to speakers, DJ console. All of the above snap crackle and pop. I have tried the following:

1. Turing off wifi

2. Restarting

3. removing playlist files (.plst) from /Library/Preferences/Audio

4. shutting down all unused applications

I sure hope there's a new update coming out soon . . . any ideas?

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9), DJay, Serato, iTunes

Posted on Nov 5, 2013 10:55 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 18, 2017 6:14 PM in response to Questionable Sanity

similarly I just changed the Audio MIDI Setup Format to 48,000 Hz and the clicks and pops seem to have disappeared..

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

685,221 points

Feb 18, 2017 8:30 AM in response to johnedlt

Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions. These are mostly user to user discussions.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem or a suggestion for change. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem/suggested change solved sooner.

Feedback

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Answer 3

johnedlt

Level 1

4 points

Feb 18, 2017 8:12 AM in response to Corvusater

Another apple f'up! And I'm yet again a victim! Will will this ******** stop????

We're paying top dollar for piece of **** hardware???? Fix this!!!! You can call it what you want (enhancement/ improvement program) I don't care. Just fix this mess!!!!

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Answer 4

robbennion Author

Level 1

10 points

Nov 5, 2013 11:12 AM in response to robbennion

Tried the following, didn't work:

I tried this and it did not work. The audio static was a system-wide issue for me. I solved it another way! If this did NOT work for you, please try my solution:

Open Finder > Applications > Utilities > Audio MIDI Setup

Go to Built-In Output in the pannel on the left-hand-side of the window.

Click "Output"
Set format to "2ch-24bit Integer"
Set format to "96000.00 Hz"

That's it! Hope that helped.

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Answer 5

robbennion Author

Level 1

10 points

Nov 10, 2013 12:18 PM in response to robbennion

The latest update took care of it. Whew!!!!

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Answer 6

kmleong

Level 1

4 points

Nov 23, 2013 8:20 AM in response to robbennion

Hi Robbennion,

I'm facing the same audio issue as well through my USB headset.

Audio starts out fine, but after 1 - 5 minutes, static and crackles start to creep into the audio and increase until it completely drowns out the audio.

Which update did you apply to solve the issue?

Thanks

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Answer 7

Bakmaind

Level 1

13 points

Dec 3, 2013 2:20 PM in response to robbennion

I’m sound designer and I’ve the same problem! I'm using Ensemble Apoge audio interface and since I’ve my new macbook pro has become impossible to watch a movie or listen to the end of a song without having sound problems (crackling). I'm having problems with VLC, iTunes and QuikTime 10. Terrible to spend more than $ 3,000 and have the problems that had computers of the eighties. Luckily I do not have these problems with Logic Pro!

I'm hoping for an update that puts in place a high number of problems!!

Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013, 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7, OS X 10.9 (13A3017)

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Answer 8

Dec 14, 2013 2:42 AM in response to robbennion

What update? there i no update that I can see that resolves this issue, it occurs when recordings no matter the buffer size.

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Answer 9

rhjph

Level 1

19 points

Dec 18, 2013 3:34 PM in response to robbennion

Yes, just moved to Mavericks with a Saffire PRO 24 DSP on my Mac Pro 12-core. Sound plays fine in iTunes and Spotify, but after 30 secs or so any file played in Quicktime suddenly deteriorates into rythmic crackling/clicking, as if played through a helicopter. The Saffire says it is sync-locked OK. Any ideas welcome.

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Answer 10

rhjph

Level 1

19 points

Dec 18, 2013 3:44 PM in response to rhjph

OK, if I use QT7, the problem does not occcur - it is only QT 10, so that seems to be the workaround.

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Answer 11

Bakmaind

Level 1

13 points

Feb 7, 2014 12:19 AM in response to AlexGowers

It's not a question of wrong recordings or bit rate and of course there are trillions of workarounds. For me it's a a shame buying a 3500$ machine that have this kind of problmems.

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Answer 12

Dan-o

Level 2

403 points

Feb 26, 2014 2:04 PM in response to robbennion

Seeing this on Mac Pro under 10.9.2. Was not present on under 10.9.1.

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Answer 13

jimzz

Level 1

0 points

Mar 7, 2014 12:34 AM in response to Dan-o

same here, happened after update to 10.9.2

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Answer 14

Mar 8, 2014 6:48 PM in response to jimzz

same problem for me here too. audio was fine until the 10.9.2 update. anyone have any fixes? or are we just stuck waiting for yet another update from apple?

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Answer 15

MovPix

Level 1

0 points

Mar 18, 2014 7:31 AM in response to robbennion

Hello, all - not sure if this is an option for any of you, but for those using an external audio device/interface, I found that by being sure the clock source was set to "Mac" as opposed to the device itself helped. Internal Mac resources tend to want to be clocked by the Mac, not an outboard device. So slaving the device to the Mac - not the other way around - can often get timings aligned. And glitches - I have found - are often caused by synch issues.

FYI, you can toggle this option under Applications > Utilities > Audio MIDI Setup > Output/Input - "clock source"

Might be a solution for some of you.

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