Hypothesis regarding flaky audio

Aramis · Post by **Aramis** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 8:38 pm

Well Guys ,
I was reading you and wonder .....I do not have any problems like yours ....I am using an RME card and not MOTU
??????????????

Aramis

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 10:45 pm

Aramis, that makes me wonder if simply having the 424 card installed may be causing flaky audio. Even if an interface is not currently turned on, the card is still running, and the driver is loaded.

Hmmm... Does anyone have these problems without having a MOTU audio card installed? A Firewire interface user, perhaps? Ever notice strange audio goings-on even when you don't have your interface turned on, and DP is not running?

Shooshie

bjornln · Post by **bjornln** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 6:35 am

Shooshie wrote:Aramis, that makes me wonder if simply having the 424 card installed may be causing flaky audio. Even if an interface is not currently turned on, the card is still running, and the driver is loaded.

Hmmm... Does anyone have these problems without having a MOTU audio card installed? A Firewire interface user, perhaps? Ever notice strange audio goings-on even when you don't have your interface turned on, and DP is not running?

Shooshie

I use the 424, and have not experienced this...

Best
/B

RCory · Post by **RCory** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 7:05 am

Ever since switching to dp5.x, I've been getting these issues too. And to add another strangness, when the computer sleeps, an inaudable signal passes through my system into the 2408 resulting in pegged meters...

I haven't really been too happy with the number of strange things going on. I'm not sure whose fault it is.

Perhaps Apple has this built into their development to make older machines (mine's a G4 dual 1.25) act funny so we buy a new one... hmmm...

C

Aramis · Post by **Aramis** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 7:08 am

Shooshie wrote:Aramis, that makes me wonder if simply having the 424 card installed may be causing flaky audio. Even if an interface is not currently turned on, the card is still running, and the driver is loaded.

Hmmm... Does anyone have these problems without having a MOTU audio card installed? A Firewire interface user, perhaps? Ever notice strange audio goings-on even when you don't have your interface turned on, and DP is not running?

Shooshie

Let me had to this ....for fun .....

Since I am using my setup that you see in the bottom , I have experienced a bit what your are explaining .... I was hearing bizarre things that I taught was non-wanted noise in the audio hardware .....

With the RME interface we have a nice piece of software called Totalmix which does the same as Cuemix . I have discovered that it was coming from my 2 guitars sitting in my room connected to my effects boxes . Each time I had strong passage in my tunes , this feedback path was creating some noise that I could have bet it was from my audio card in the mac ....
I know , that not everyone let their hardware powered on all the time like me but it is only to decribed to you why I was like you , sometime wondering if something was wrong with coreaudio .

Aramis

dave898 · Post by **dave898** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 7:31 am

Yeah, if the BTD issues weren't enough.... Every now and then, I get that phantom crackling/sizzling in my DP audio. It's always totally random, and after throrough troubleshooting, there never appears to be any reason for it (no plugins, no auxes, no bussing, volume/gain is all good, ins/outs are all good, no cables involved, etc.). Even after rebuilding my Audio Bundles, this problem still occurs once and a while. It really is like a ghost in the machine..

However, I have never noticed this in anything outside of DP, and all audio from my computer is routed through my 828 mkII.

dosuna11 · Post by **dosuna11** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 9:55 am

I just noticed that random crackle last night. It was on my right channel. Dp wasn't even up but my 828 MK2 was on as I was using iTunes to teach with. Is it core audio?

HCMarkus · Post by **HCMarkus** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 10:10 am

Random crackles and short-lived volume surges that happen on rare occasions don't bother me too much... it's the ones that happen ALL THE TIME that bug! Fortunately, the issues I have experienced have never impeded my work substantially, kind of like the occasional screen redraw erros that pop up on computers now and again. Essentially harmless.

My I/O is MOTU Firewire, so I may have things a little easier than you PCI Guys. Sorry the troubles have risen to the level of Pain in the Arse for you.

tommymandel · Post by **tommymandel** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 10:34 am

HC, are you saying that the crackle problems and strangely routed audio are only plaguing systems using PCI or PCI-X or PCI-E cards? I hadn't realized that. If true, it would be a big help to troubleshooters. Sorry if it's common knowledge to readers of this thread and i just missed it!

npatton · Post by **npatton** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 11:54 am

I've had random crackles in my audio while using an 828mkII, but only when I was "overloading" the firewire bus (specifically, when a firewire HD was mounted at the same time; since elliminating the FW HD, crackles are gone.)

n

HCMarkus · Post by **HCMarkus** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 12:01 pm

My audio stream has been clean for the most part, and I use an 828MkII and the system noted in my profile (oops... updated to 10.4.8. Gotta' change that). I honestly can't recall any wierd noises in recent history, other than the rare click here and there while editing. Certainly no crackling/sizzling.

However, I note dave898 and dosuna11 are both also using an 828MkII, and they have had some troubles. I recall noting from some old posts in the MOTU Hardware forum that some 828mkII users had trouble with noise if they left the SPDIF I/O unused. I alway have a Lexicon MPX550 or TCHelicon VoiceLive hooked up to my SPDIF I/O, so I can't say if this is one reason I have been enjoying smooth sailing. dave and dosuna: are you using your SPDIF?

I will say that if my system ever starts to exhibit ANY signs of strange behavior, which happens on occasion (and which is bound to happen in a system as complex as DP and OSX), I immediately save and restart.

HCMarkus · Post by **HCMarkus** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 12:07 pm

Follow up: npatton notes that crackles ceased when he stopped using firewire for his HD on top of his 828mkII. My Firewire bus is audio/MIDI I/O only. Everything else is USB (controllers) and PCI (eSATA HDs).

dosuna11 · Post by **dosuna11** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 1:29 pm

My lexicon is SPDIF but it is only turned on for use with cue mix. It wasn't on when the digital snow appeared. Thanks for the tip I'll see what happens.

Martin Ward · Post by **Martin Ward** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 5:44 pm

Frodo wrote: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.

This is a bit off-subject, however: it is easy to swap accidentally to another keyboard layout -- command-spacebar will do it. I did that a few times before I figured out what was causing it (and swapping to a French layout, as I did, can make you think your computer has entirely lost its mind).

On the other problems: I have been running Tiger for quite a while and have never had these problems. Maybe you have something corrupted somewhere?

And I'll just mention, though I'm sure an old hand like you is aware of this, that there are plenty of circumstances under which plain click-dragging is meant to create a copy (eg drag to another disk/partition) or alias (eg drag to a burn folder).

toodamnhip · Post by **toodamnhip** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:06 pm

Shooshie wrote:Aramis, that makes me wonder if simply having the 424 card installed may be causing flaky audio. Even if an interface is not currently turned on, the card is still running, and the driver is loaded.

Hmmm... Does anyone have these problems without having a MOTU audio card installed? A Firewire interface user, perhaps? Ever notice strange audio goings-on even when you don't have your interface turned on, and DP is not running?

Shooshie

I've had strange audio with just firewire, like being too fast for the audio to and having to hit play a second time becuase it dropped out the first...

etc

MOTUnation.com

Hypothesis regarding flaky audio

Crackle