High Pitched Audio Whine then no Sound on Motu 896mk3

[cosmiccircuit]

Hi, after a varying period of time when using iTunes, Logic or Mainstage I hear a very high pitched audio whine through my main monitors or headphones then the audio cuts out through my Motu 896mk3 (connected to a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard 10.6.7).

Motu Tech support suggested flipping the Optical ADAT output settings in the Motu driver software from disabled to enabled (or visa versa). This does temporarily help sometimes, but the issue often occurs again shortly after.

I have 2 units and it is occurring on both units. I have the latest Motu driver software for the Mac (and the Motu 896 mk3 firmware is current).

Is anyone else having this issue? Does anyone know how to resolve this problem permanently? Thanks.

[Joshwa]

I am having this same issue, have you figured out what it is or how to fix it?

Thanks!

Joshwa

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Do you have any USB devices attached? Sometimes USB data can cause a whine in the audio. Even mouse movement can cause the problem, or a printer, etc.

[James Steele]

Dunno... but this shouldn't be in the General Macintosh forum. Moved.

[Joshwa]

Thanks for the reply!

No USB devices. I'm plugging my Motu 896 into my MacBook Pro 15'' via FireWire 400 to 800.

The 896 is squeaking and then disabling the audio across the board on my computer. I can't even play a song in iTunes, let alone hear it, unless I turn the 896 off, and then the song will play.

If I turn the 896 off and 're-mount' it, it will work for a short time and then start cutting in and cutting out before it just stops working.

Thoughts?

[Joshwa]

Also, it has caused the lights to blink spastically for a momentary and I've had to turn off and then turn back on, and once it 'clicks' off, the click follows the squeak, it will not register any signal in any of the channels.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Got me? Maybe a clocking issue. I'd call MOTU in the morning.

[cosmiccircuit]

Hello, yes I am still having the issue. I sent the 896mk3 unit to Motu and they gave me a new one - it worked flawlessly for about a week and then the issue has reoccurred very frequently.
Usually when it occurs I am running Apple Mainstage 2 connected to the Firewire 800 port via Glyph hard drive (daisy chaining the devices). I sometimes have an Apogee Gio connected via USB at the same time (not all the time).

Since the problem persists on the new unit I have to think something related to the Motu software driver or computer software is causing it.

The only temporary solution I have found is to flip the ADAT optical port on the Motu driver software to disabled or visa versa and the sound will come back. (This often only fixes the issue for a few minutes or more and then I have to keep resetting it).

I have done my best to only run one application at a time, turn off as my background processes on the computer as possible.

I was hoping Motu would upgrade the Firewire driver. Still not 100% sure of the cause of the issue or how to permanently fix it. If anyone has ideas....

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

I have something similar to this happening on my Traveler mk3. Has happened intermittently (usually at the worse time during heavy editing or playback) for years. I'll try toggling disabling adats. Wonder what causes this....

[cosmiccircuit]

I still haven't found a solution for this. I performed a reinstallation of the Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system but the problem returned after about a week.

The only temporary solution I have found is to toggle the ADAT port on the Motu Audio Setup from disabled to enabled (or visa versa). Sometimes this will hold for a while, other times it only will hold for a few seconds and the high pitched whine comes back and knocks the audio out again on the main output and headphone ports.

Apogee just recently updated their Gio driver - I am not sure if the issue is related to the Gio USB driver - but hoping it fixes the issue.

I still suspect something is not right with the Motu Audio Setup driver on certain systems.

[cosmiccircuit]

Issue still occurs - now even when playing music from a slideshow in iPhoto. Also, just streaming music from the Internet. Appears to be no rhyme or reason why this is occurring. Again toggling the ADAT ports from disabled to enabled will temporarily resolve the issue. Motu hasn't responded to tech support request over 2 months ago. Any suggestions appreciated...

[cinzons10]

Solution (for my situation) : go to Application > Motu Audio Setup and you can see: sample rate,clock source,default stereo input, and so on...... On the "Optical Input" select (ADAT) on the "Optical Output" select > ADAT. it works cause i also experienced the high pitch,if using Reason 4 as stand alone, but rewired on DP5 there's no problem, and high pitch sound on some mp3 files, and no sound for .mov files.. hope this solution applies to everyone either.

[amarin05]

I've got this problem as well.

At first, my 1st gen 896 would cease to work about two hrs after it was switched on. Now, it lets out the high-pitched "whine" then ceases to work after 15 min. Anyone have any luck?

Some people have been saying these have heating problems, I've read hypothesis saying these interfaces only work well with Texas Instruments Firewire chipsets.. I'm at a loss. Anyone?

1st gen MOTU 896
Mac Mini Mid-2011

[cosmiccircuit]

I have dealt with this issue for a long period of time on 2 different Motu 896 firewire interfaces. Something that may help is try to notice when the high pitched whine occurs. If you have a software that displays a cpu meter check to see if the CPU usage of your mac is peaking or near peaking when the whine occurs. I noticed very frequently when this occurred the machine was running very very hot and cpu usage was fairly high at the same time. I have since bought a cool master stand to cool the laptop with 3 quiet fans. I am not sure if it was coincidence but that for the most part seemed to resolve the issue (knock on wood). Might be worth a shot for you if nothing else will resolve it.

[ateitz]

I'm having this problem as well. Happens with Quicktime, & DP 7.24.
Makes my system unuasable. Help!

Powerbook Pro 2,1
OS X 10.6.8
MOTU 896 mk3