Mac Pro 4.1, Mavericks, Audio glitches

[stevenew]

Hi,

I have been running my iMac with my MOTU Traveler under Mountain Lion 10.8.5 with no audio issues, it's all been running really good, audio from DP, Safari, DVD Player iTunes etc all perfect.

Earlier in the year I bought a used Mac Pro 4.1 2x2.26 8 core, have 24Gb ram, over the past couple of months I have been doing a slow transition, fresh install of Mavericks now running 10.9.2 on to brand new SSD for boot, separate SSD for samples, separate HDD for data. Finally this weekend I transferred the Mac Pro to the music room and hooked it up with the Traveler and the rest of the music gear. I put in a DVD to test the sound (have a new Pioneer DVD burner in the Mac Pro) I noticed straight away that every so often the audio would 'glitch' 'stutter'. Over the weekend I have tested this with Safari as well, playing videos and radio, and get the stutter glitch with these as well.

It is the same traveler & cable that has worked fine with my iMac, I don't have any speakers to test the Mac Pro line out but with headphones it seems fine. I have read on the Apple discussion boards numerous people having similar issues when using external audio devices, under Mavericks up to 10.9.2, these have included but not limited to MOTU devices. The consensus seems to be bugs in Core Audio and/or Quicktime.

I am kind of surprised not to find any mention of it here on Motunation. I haven't tried DP 8 yet or iTunes but was not expecting to have problems playing simple audio under Safari!

Anyone else experiencing this, any thoughts. I want to make sure there is not a issue with my Mac Pro. I am going to put another hard drive in and install Mountain Lion and test it, if the audio works OK then perhaps I will get another SSD and make a Mountain Lion Boot and use that until the Maverick issue is solved. If the audio glitches under Mountain Lion then the problem is the Mac Pro and/or traveler/firewire.

Thanks

Steve

[mikehalloran]

There are a number to threads that complain about funky audio in Mavericks, especially iTunes which has sucked since 11.

The OS 10.9.2 and latest iTunes update fixed those issues for many of us, myself included. The word is that 10.9.3 will address other audio issues but I don't know what they are, especially as I don't experience them.

[stevenew]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply Mike.

I setup a spare drive in the Mac Pro with fresh Mountain Lion install, this evening I tested, Safari, DVD Player & iTunes playing lots of audio, thankfully with not a single glitch, so hopefully my Mac Pro & Traveler are fine and the problem is with Mavericks, what a pain.

I will test iTunes under Mavericks later. Not sure if I can live with stuttering audio until 10.9.3, that is if they fix it, I see many have been waiting for a fix since 10.9.0. I guess a new SSD for Mountain lion and run both OS until Mavericks is fixed.

Thanks

Steve

[HCMarkus]

I have stayed with ML on my 4,1 > 5,1 Mac Pro. Solid.

[stevenew]

Hi,

Yea, I wish I had stayed with Mountain Lion now, if I set up another SSD with Mountain Lion on will I have any issues installing things like DP & Komplete on that drive while they are still on the other drive with Mavericks, all my samples are on a separate SSD.

Thanks

Steve

[dosuna11]

especially iTunes which has sucked since 11.

Sucked, Sucks are not strong enough describe how bad iTunes 11 is.

[mikehalloran]

I agree and detest the iTunes 11 interface. Otoh, the combination of the Mavericks 10.9.2 and the latest iTunes updates has finally fixed all non DP audio glitches for me. Although many blame Mavericks, I noticed these in OS 10.6.

I have never had audio glitch issues in either DP or Toast. iTunes, QuickTime, ITunes, avi, iTunes, Flash, iTunes, YouTube, iTunes etc. ... Oh yea.

[stevenew]

Just to update, I have just installed Mavericks 10.9.3 update but I'm still having this audio cutting out problem, Safari, iTunes & DVD Player all effected. Since starting this thread I have now added a 3rd SSD as Mountain Lion 10.8.5 boot and have no audio problems when using the same apps.

Steve

[HCMarkus]

Just to update, I have just installed Mavericks 10.9.3 update but I'm still having this audio cutting out problem, Safari, iTunes & DVD Player all effected. Since starting this thread I have now added a 3rd SSD as Mountain Lion 10.8.5 boot and have no audio problems when using the same apps.

Steve

Thanks for the update Steve. I can't thing of anything Mavericks brings to the party when running DP... using a separate partition if you need Mavericks for non-audio apps is a good solution. I ran Tiger on my G5 Quad for years for DP, booting into Leopard for other tasks.

[James Steele]

Strange. I have a MacPro 4,1 and am running Mavericks 10.9.3 and have no issues like this.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Not a problem on my 3,1 machine.

[stevenew]

Yes, this is a strange one, a quick search brings up many people with the problem and many people without the problem, there seems no real pattern, machines from different periods inc brand new ones.

All I can say is I have made two separate fresh installations of Mavericks (10.9.3) & Mountain Lion (10.8.5) on two SSD, the same apps on each both running through my MOTU Traveler, no problem with 10.8.5 but Mavericks has done it consistently since 10.9.2.

I even did a another fresh Mavericks install on to the original HDD that came with the Mac Pro just to see if it did it with that and it did! No idea what is causing it, a real pain as I was so looking forward to using this machine for trouble free audio.

I finished my last major DP project in March on my old machine, so I have not done extensive testing of DP with this machine yet but hope to do so over the coming weeks and will see if it is effected.

Steve

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Well it ain't cache so there must be something going on in the internal bus or clock or something. Is there a way to verify the clock speed is correct and syncing to all devices and the software, etc? Just thinking out loud.

[stevenew]

MLC,

Interesting thought, not sure how one would check this, but if it was a hardware issue surely it would cause problems under Mountain Lion?

On the Apple discussions there is a 30 odd page thread about audio problems with Mavericks & External audio interfaces, at first I think they all thought it was only machines with fusion drives, but I think this has been shown to not be the case. I guess I check it and see what the latest theory is.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Unless the click is controlled via software - like Quicktime. I'll try googling how to check the clock integrity when I'm free.