Hypothesis regarding flaky audio

[Shooshie]

During the past 7 weeks I've avoided music entirely. Instead of playing my keyboards and recording/editing stuff with DP, I have just let sounds come as they may, and I've listened to iTunes, played games, DVDs, and so forth. Somewhere during all this I upgraded to OSX 10.4.8.

I've been noticing some very flaky audio, and it has nothing to do with DP, though the symptoms are exactly the same as we began to report back in about this time last year. Tracks that disappear for a few seconds and return. "Dirty" audio with lots of crackles for a few moments, followed by clean audio, and nobody can say for sure where it's coming from.

I was listening to a Keith Jarrett DVD I had just bought, and was locked into the groove with his playing, when suddenly it just disappeared. I was so disappointed, as I thought it meant my DVD was damaged. So, I rewound about 15 seconds, and none of those noise or skips were in it on the 2nd pass. It has happened randomly and consistently in anything I play: iTunes downloads, game audio, YouTube videos... the only saving graces are that it is rare and brief. One really disturbing one occurs with muted sound. When OSX's sound is muted, after an hour or so it begins to "leak" through. Pretty soon it will begin playing as though it were turned on.

This leads me to conclude that very possibly some of the problems we've encountered, ranging from dropouts to tracks suddenly un-muting themselves, to EQ bands suddenly popping out at full volume, and so forth, are symptomatic of the mother code: OSX, and not just DP.

I don't know where this leaves us. Furthermore, maybe it happens on some machines and not on others. I'm using a 4-year old dual 1GHz Quicksilver. But it sure has me worried. If this is indeed what's happening, where the heck do we go from here?

Shooshie

[tommymandel]

If this is indeed what's happening, where the heck do we go from here?

Shooshie

Um, Apple Logic, a Mac Intel Tower and (Exactly) whatever else Apple is selling telling us is What We Must Have?

That's why I liked OS7, OS8 and OS9 - you could fiddle around, customize with Kaleidoscope, add kookie hardware, and really feel like you were in the driver's seat... The more things progress, tell me I'm growin old, but it just seems easier and easier to just get what they recommend, and they seem to assume we're all using. (Tho not necessarily easier to pay for it! Altho being fair to Apple, I think a stripped down- top of the line system today costs about what it always has...or less...I'm just spending on drearier stuff...)

[blue]

Or it could be our audio drivers.

I hope for all our sakes it's not an Apple issue. I mean, if they can't put together a solid core audio this late in the game then we're all screwed. Especially with their emphasis on sound with iTunes, Garageband, Soundtrack Pro and Logic.

I wonder too what role if any QT has in all of this. When iTunes 7 came out, an amazing amount of users had all sorts of playback issues with the latest QT update. These day, it seems updating QT is a bit like pointing a gun loaded with at least one bullet to your head.

Then there is the UB issue. I make no claims to understanding what having dual code in an app or OS could do for stability, but it does seem like these problems are consistent with the arrival of UB updates.

[Frodo]

I've been a little down on AU, Core Audio, and OSX for some time for some rather inexplicable quirks as audio leaks and such. Sure, it's pretty stable overall, but the way it does things really bothers me sometimes. Things just *happen* without explanation-- that's been going on for a long time, although these days it's less obvious than it used to be.

There were times when my PCI Console would constantly reset itself--- System Audio would suddenly reset it self from PCI to internal or from internal to PCI. Core MIDI still occasionally has to be rescanned when it drops a device.

On the non musical side of things, it bugs me when my key commands no longer work-- only to discover that for "whatever reason" I'm running in Scandanavian or Portuguese even with all languages but English are off in System Prefs. Moving files by click-dragging with no keyboard modifyers sometimes copies the files or makes an alias of the file instead of actually moving. Doesn't happen all the time, and often it stops as quickly as it starts.

Tiger is the best OSX to date, imho, but some of these misbehaviors are getting long in the tooth.

[Mr_Clifford]

I wonder too what role if any QT has in all of this. When iTunes 7 came out, an amazing amount of users had all sorts of playback issues with the latest QT update. These day, it seems updating QT is a bit like pointing a gun loaded with at least one bullet to your head.

I second that. QT 7 has been a disaster for DAW users. I'm stuck on QT 7.0.4 because anytime I try to update to the latest version (both 7.1.2 & 7.1.3 have done this) I lose all the audio on QuickTime playback - it also really messes with the video window in DP. Not to mention that there's a whole lot of little annoying bugs in QT Pro that just aren't being fixed in all these 'updates'.

BUT, I've never had any of the Bounce to Disk problems that many of you seem to have suffered, and I use the function heaps.

[toodamnhip]

During the past 7 weeks I've avoided music entirely. Instead of playing my keyboards and recording/editing stuff with DP, I have just let sounds come as they may, and I've listened to iTunes, played games, DVDs, and so forth. Somewhere during all this I upgraded to OSX 10.4.8.

I've been noticing some very flaky audio, and it has nothing to do with DP, though the symptoms are exactly the same as we began to report back in about this time last year. Tracks that disappear for a few seconds and return. "Dirty" audio with lots of crackles for a few moments, followed by clean audio, and nobody can say for sure where it's coming from.

I was listening to a Keith Jarrett DVD I had just bought, and was locked into the groove with his playing, when suddenly it just disappeared. I was so disappointed, as I thought it meant my DVD was damaged. So, I rewound about 15 seconds, and none of those noise or skips were in it on the 2nd pass. It has happened randomly and consistently in anything I play: iTunes downloads, game audio, YouTube videos... the only saving graces are that it is rare and brief. One really disturbing one occurs with muted sound. When OSX's sound is muted, after an hour or so it begins to "leak" through. Pretty soon it will begin playing as though it were turned on.

This leads me to conclude that very possibly some of the problems we've encountered, ranging from dropouts to tracks suddenly un-muting themselves, to EQ bands suddenly popping out at full volume, and so forth, are symptomatic of the mother code: OSX, and not just DP.

I don't know where this leaves us. Furthermore, maybe it happens on some machines and not on others. I'm using a 4-year old dual 1GHz Quicksilver. But it sure has me worried. If this is indeed what's happening, where the heck do we go from here?

Shooshie

Isn't it funny SHoosh,
I believe you and I met by tangling over my provovatic post on the limits of DP compared to Pro Tools because DP will always be a victim of the whims and inconsistencies of the Mac OS...

and here you are, saying something akin to my arguement way back when...

I would just like MOTU to be more open once in awhile and post a note saying, hey guys, OSx is screwing us in the following manner:,,,,,,

INSTEAD, we never hear a damn thing....

Hope your recovery is coming along...

Dave

[Mr_Clifford]

I believe you and I met by tangling over my provovatic post on the limits of DP compared to Pro Tools because DP will always be a victim of the whims and inconsistencies of the Mac OS...

and here you are, saying something akin to my arguement way back when...

I would just like MOTU to be more open once in awhile and post a note saying, hey guys, OSx is screwing us in the following manner:,,,,,,

INSTEAD, we never hear a damn thing....

You make a very good point there TDH. I personally wouldn't mind if MOTU did the Digi thing and only made DP for MOTU hardware, and then didn't have to worry about Core-Audio drivers etc. They seem to have enough range of products that everyone could find something to their liking - people that wanted better converters could just get their preference and then ADAT-pipe it into the back of a MOTU device.

The fact that using a MOTU audio interface is currently absolutely no guarantee of better (or more stable) performance does suggest that there's little gremlins lurking in OSX that the MOTU developers haven't been able to deal with.

[Shooshie]

This is really getting troublesome. I was trying to make a video last night, and the audio kept switching to internal audio on its own. It would switch over, and I'd hear the sound coming out of that single little speaker in the Mac, and then it would switch right back to Soundsticks or PCI. On video playback, the audio dropped out completely at every place where those switches had occurred. This stinks.

DP wasn't involved, by the way. This is just plain old OSX. I was using SnapzPro, though. Newest version.

At least it's of some comfort to know that I'm not the only one. Thanks for the discussion, but I don't really think any of us knows what we're going to do about it. Does switching to Logic solve the problem? How can it, when OSX is moving audio around apparently of its own free will?

Shooshie

[Timeline]

Maybe Apple is just offering up a Halloween ghost?

BOO!

[dosuna11]

When I updated to 10.47 I encountered all of the above audio artifacts. Tracks that had no problems were weezing and coughing. The minute I went back to 10.46 they disappeared.

[Frodo]

...
At least it's of some comfort to know that I'm not the only one. Thanks for the discussion, but I don't really think any of us knows what we're going to do about it. Does switching to Logic solve the problem? How can it, when OSX is moving audio around apparently of its own free will?

Shooshie

It is nice to confirm this with others and to have a discussion to which those who might fix the problem can be directed when no particular crash reports pop up that can be "sent to Apple". Hmm.

As for the OSX/Logic question, I wonder if it's not comparing Apples to Apples, so to speak? Meaning, are any of Apple's own apps behaving the same way as third party apps? I haven't used any Apple app extensively since upgdating to 10.4.7/10.4.8 (two different computers), but I have noticed odd behaviors since making these updates when using third-party apps.

There is the one exception of key caps and languages running amuck when using Safari. These are two features that are very difficult to activate easily just by normal typing, and I don't believe it's accidental since it happens consistently with the same features on two computers.

[Shooshie]

Maybe Apple is just offering up a Halloween ghost?

BOO!

Awright... you're scarin' me. That Boo just went in my 424 card and came out my internal speaker!


Shooshie

[tripit@earthlink.net]

I would just like MOTU to be more open once in awhile and post a note saying, hey guys, OSx is screwing us in the following manner:,,,,,,

INSTEAD, we never hear a damn thing....

That's been a beef of mine for a while too. The fact that MOTU doesn't think it's important enough to either:
a) put up their own support forum or
b) actively participate in this forum by at least posting some update info and general comments for all their users who pretty much just fly by the seat of their pants when it comes this kind of useful info is beyond me.
Every plug maker, every daw maker has a dedicated site with extensive support in a fourm setting except MOTU. They are the only ones.
What the hell are they thinking?

[OldTimey]

Lately,

When I attempt to open an aiff file by drag and dropping the file onto the peak icon in the dock, (with my Motu audio interfaces off, running mac hardware sound only) i get this crackling sound coming out of my internal speaker, that sort of sounds like a modem speaker connecting to the internet. The sound keeps cracklin away, until I log out...so strange...truly a demon in the computer

[Shooshie]

Lately,

When I attempt to open an aiff file by drag and dropping the file onto the peak icon in the dock, (with my Motu audio interfaces off, running mac hardware sound only) i get this crackling sound coming out of my internal speaker, that sort of sounds like a modem speaker connecting to the internet. The sound keeps cracklin away, until I log out...so strange...truly a demon in the computer

Old Timey, are you using 10.4.8? I am, and I get the same thing.

Shooshie