hi, i have a rather unsupported setup and have run into an issue. it mostly works well. i have worked through a lot of issues with it but i found one this weekend that confuses me. maybe someone will have some insight on this.
i have a mac pro 4,1 flashed to 5,1 running mojave and DP 9.52. 16gigs ram, 6 core xeon 3xxx single cpu.
i added a sonnet 10g pci card and got AVB to work. i am currently setup for 64 tracks in both record and playback.
i have a Biamp Tesira Server IO with 32 analog inputs, a dante brooklyn II card and an AVB card hooked direct to the sonnet 10G card. i am using apple AVB grid to route AVB to DP. it took some figuring out to get this to go but so far it has worked quite well. i started this journey last november. i have only tested recording of 32 tracks at a time for 30 minutes and it has been good. i cant imagine myself ever actually doing that in real life but i have been routinely doing 16 tracks at a time regularly.
this weekend i ran into an issue where i was losing AVB clock sync. it manifests as a little bit of dirt being heard progressing to howling and then clock loss. this was taking anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes into recording. i started to think what changed as this has been solid for months. what was different is i was playing 12 MIDI tracks in DP to external equipment and recording to 16 audio tracks into DP. prior to this i was using an external MIDI source and had no issues.
long story short i found that UNselecting multi record in the menu solved the issue although this took some time to find. i was not recording MIDI so it made no difference to what i was doing, just didnt cause the avb clock to lose sync.
what i am doing for MIDI is using the built in OSX network MIDI over ethernet to go to a mac mini where it runs VI and real world MIDI. mac mini is running windows 7 (dont do this) and is using RTP MIDI to talk to OSX.
i have three networks that are separate; AVB, Dante and MIDI. they all have separate NIC's and cables.
i am not sure if my issue lies in DP multi-record or is something that gets connected to DP when multi-record is enabled causing AVB sync loss.
any insight is appreciated.
MIDI Multi-Record disrupting AVB clock (?)
Moderator: James Steele
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This forum is for seeking solutions to technical problems involving Digital Performer and/or plug-ins on MacOS, as well as feature requests, criticisms, comparison to other DAWs.
This forum is for seeking solutions to technical problems involving Digital Performer and/or plug-ins on MacOS, as well as feature requests, criticisms, comparison to other DAWs.
Re: MIDI Multi-Record disrupting AVB clock (?)
i may have been to hasty when i went to 64x64 tracks in/out. i did a lot of testing today and no longer think multi record has anything to do with it. i do not know why it started working last night when i turn it off, i could not repeat it today.
i did go down to 32x32 in/out and no longer have any issue with dirt or sync loss.
not sure where the limit is on that but 32x32 should be fine. i am used to 8x2 with my 828mk2
EDIT: i have made a mistake in my troubleshooting process. my mistake was that initially after i turned off multirecord i then put the screen on "mixer" instead of "sequence". apparently i can do 64x64 with the mixer screen up without issues. i checked the cpu in both audio performance window and activity monitor and its running about ~10% in activity monitor and barely visible in audio performance monitor, that is until i change tabs in DP from mixer to sequence. it immediately glitches when i press the tabs. going down to 32x32 tracks i can tab all i want without glitches.
i have a gtx 760 video card. i wonder if i have an acceleration issue. i am looking into that. the computer doesnt seem to be working that hard at all.
i did go down to 32x32 in/out and no longer have any issue with dirt or sync loss.
not sure where the limit is on that but 32x32 should be fine. i am used to 8x2 with my 828mk2
EDIT: i have made a mistake in my troubleshooting process. my mistake was that initially after i turned off multirecord i then put the screen on "mixer" instead of "sequence". apparently i can do 64x64 with the mixer screen up without issues. i checked the cpu in both audio performance window and activity monitor and its running about ~10% in activity monitor and barely visible in audio performance monitor, that is until i change tabs in DP from mixer to sequence. it immediately glitches when i press the tabs. going down to 32x32 tracks i can tab all i want without glitches.
i have a gtx 760 video card. i wonder if i have an acceleration issue. i am looking into that. the computer doesnt seem to be working that hard at all.
Re: MIDI Multi-Record disrupting AVB clock (?)
here is an update: i have found the issue and have come to a solution but its not perfect. it has nothing to do with multi record and doesnt seem to have anything at all to do with digital performer. it is a mac os issue.
for whatever reason, i can only run mojave 10.14.4 or earlier (10.14.0). any further updates results in AVB crackles and cutouts above 32x32 i/o.
for two months now 64x64 AVB i/o has been fine, no issues. very low overhead when recording and playback. i do not know what my record/playback limits are because i have not exceeded them yet. i have been in the ballpark of 32-34 tracks recording and more than that for playback; digital performer performance meters are extremely low but do peak when i hit stop.
i made an audio bundle template with named inputs and either start with that or import it into older sessions. all my inputs/outputs in DP have meaningful names like SQ2 LR or Dante 31-32 or MIC4 etc.
i do have some software conflicts that must have been resolved in 10.14.6, mostly some audiounit plug ins are not working in certain software; they work in one but not another.
i also have an issue where mac os starts and says it shut down due to an error, and it did not shut down weird at all. i get a extreme brief message when i shut down but i have no idea what it says, its too fast.
i dont know what happened to AVB in 10.14.5 and 10.14.6 or catalina, but those do not do 64x64 on my mac pro 5,1 without audio issues.
so for now i am stuck at 10.14.4 and dealing with it. i have never had a system this powerful in terms of channel counts, and i am only using 16 out of 32 analog inputs, mostly i use dante to avb for VTSI.
wish i knew more about the AVB portion of mac os but i cant find a lot of information in the last year.
for whatever reason, i can only run mojave 10.14.4 or earlier (10.14.0). any further updates results in AVB crackles and cutouts above 32x32 i/o.
for two months now 64x64 AVB i/o has been fine, no issues. very low overhead when recording and playback. i do not know what my record/playback limits are because i have not exceeded them yet. i have been in the ballpark of 32-34 tracks recording and more than that for playback; digital performer performance meters are extremely low but do peak when i hit stop.
i made an audio bundle template with named inputs and either start with that or import it into older sessions. all my inputs/outputs in DP have meaningful names like SQ2 LR or Dante 31-32 or MIC4 etc.
i do have some software conflicts that must have been resolved in 10.14.6, mostly some audiounit plug ins are not working in certain software; they work in one but not another.
i also have an issue where mac os starts and says it shut down due to an error, and it did not shut down weird at all. i get a extreme brief message when i shut down but i have no idea what it says, its too fast.
i dont know what happened to AVB in 10.14.5 and 10.14.6 or catalina, but those do not do 64x64 on my mac pro 5,1 without audio issues.
so for now i am stuck at 10.14.4 and dealing with it. i have never had a system this powerful in terms of channel counts, and i am only using 16 out of 32 analog inputs, mostly i use dante to avb for VTSI.
wish i knew more about the AVB portion of mac os but i cant find a lot of information in the last year.