Sudden high pitch distorted sound: Why is my new interface doing this?

[nk_e]

Brand new MOTU UltraLite mk5 works perfectly… until it does not. All of a sudden, the sound gets crazy with high pitch distorted peaks. I change the sample rate from 96K to 44K and the audio becomes normal again. Then switch back to 96K and the audio remains normal. (It does not seem to the be a problem with the actual rate that is used.)

Just chiming in to say that I have the exact same problem here with a Motu 16A on a Windows 10 pro 64bit install. (My machine should be adequate, I would believe: AMD 5900X, 32 GB ram, RTX 3070 gfx card.)

I sort of doubt that this is due to a faulty USB cable, considering that changing the sample rate or buffer size always fixes it. My suspicion is that if there's some sort of spike in CPU usage, the computer and audio interface come out of sync, causing the metallic distorted result... until we change sample rate or buffer size, which then apparently forces the driver to resynchronize.

Considering that we hear exactly the same thing, and we do exactly the same thing to resolve it, it seems that this problem exists on both Mac and Windows.

I've just updated my driver from 4.0.8.9612 to 4.0.9.0067, and will report back if the problem goes away. There was no new firmware update for my interface.

Hi.

Just to chime in here. I think Joachim has it pegged.

I use two 16As and an 828ES usually as an aggregated device when not in DP. If I have a “few things going” on (e.g., in a DAW working through a YouTube tutorial perhaps other apps like iMessage or messenger open in the background), it will randomly glitch out as described here. This glitch is almost guaranteed to happen if a notification or other system audio interrupts while working in the DAW and/or watching YouTube. Changing clock rate on my master device or in the DAW always fixes the issue so it’s definitely a loss of synchronization.

My system manifests the problem a little differently sometimes. I will lose sound completely or there is a sudden high pitched whine.

When I’m working on a project, I don’t have a bunch of apps and other things open of course and the number of times the glitching happens goes down a lot … but it still happens. I hadn’t thought to correlate it with a CPU spike, but that makes sense.

It seems to be happening a lot more lately for some reason…

[Joachip]

Why has the topic been changed to "Resolved"? What's the solution?

[James Steele]

Why has the topic been changed to "Resolved"? What's the solution?

Because original poster seemed to have the problem solved. Apparently it’s a moving target now as others have jumped in. I’m change it back.

[labman]

I have a few clients with that same problem recently (high pitched squeal), and have experienced it myself from time to time.

[Joachip]

Oh, my bad. I hadn't noticed that the 5th post on page 1 had been edited with the resolution that replacing the USB cable helped.

[Joachip]

I replaced the USB cable with a brand new one a week ago, and I think this might have helped, as the glitch hasn't happened for an entire week. But it just glitched out just now, so the problem certainly isn't solved (at least on Windows, that is).

Being a sporadic error, it's hard to tell if the glitch is happening less often now, or if I've just been lucky.

Let's hear if the mac users are still getting glitches too. (Please post if you do!)

[Joachip]

I had an epiphany just now: I had youtube playing a video, and while it was playing, I turned off my Deepmind-12 synthesizer which is connected over USB. The exact moment when I flipped the switch, the sound went into this high pitched distorted version that this whole thread is about. This is the first time I've seen clear and immediate evidence of a direct cause.

So for those still struggling with this problem: Try noticing if this happens right when you turn off or disconnect a USB device.