• Registered: 2011-06-10
  • Posts: 3

Topic: Fireface UC / mac book pro 17 inch - audio dropouts in live context

i use a fireface uc usb - MacBookPro 17 inch  Intel Core 2 Duo / 2.93 GHz with live ableton.
in the middle of the performance the audio card dropout - ever after reboot ...
this happen just one time now after 200 times using it in the same set up...

i troubleshoot  now and the card works again "stable"....of course i feel very unsafe to continue to use the card in a live context now.
rme support makes the computer /usb cable responsible/ the support as well will not offer a replacement

has anybody similar experiences ? any ideas what constellation could cause such dropouts?

cn

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 3,025

Re: Fireface UC / mac book pro 17 inch - audio dropouts in live context

Did you happen to use the middle port of the three USB ports? I experienced kind of loose contact problems with that on my 2009 17" MBP. On my 2008 15" MBP one of the two USB ports also ceases functioning for a time, but after connecting an external display (days later) it was usable again.

The external ports also share internal hubs with internal devices (keyboard, bluetooth, trackpad, infrared, camera). The port closest to the power-connector should only share the infrared, the one closest to the ExpressCard slot shared the rest.

On my current 2011 MBP the port in the middle is on the same hub as the one close to the power-connector (infrared), but I mean to remember that it was the other way around on the C2D MBPs. You can check "About This Mac" -> More Info -> USB for detailed information.

3 Reply by gtodd876 (edited by gtodd876 2011-06-10 10:45:13)

  • From: USA
  • Registered: 2010-10-20
  • Posts: 75

Re: Fireface UC / mac book pro 17 inch - audio dropouts in live context

alva noto -

THat is exactly my experience with a Fireface UC and Macbook pro. It was and still is unusable in a live context for me...in OSX. The only way I was able to make it work was by running Windows 7 in bootcamp. It is frustrating that such expensive equipment can't provide a stable audio stream at low audio loads. I have run into many people with this issue over the past year that I have been troubleshooting it.

www.toddbass.com
Macbook pro i7 15" (mid 2012) 8 gigs ram, Fireface UCX

gtodd876's Website

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 9,778

Re: Fireface UC / mac book pro 17 inch - audio dropouts in live context

gtodd876 wrote:

THat is exactly my experience with a Fireface UC and Macbook pro. It was and still is unusable in a live context for me...in OSX. The only way I was able to make it work was by running Windows 7 in bootcamp.

I don't think your phenomenon is comparable. The issue here is not audio dropouts, but apparently the FF UC being disconnected physically for a moment, and the audio software switching to internal audio.
The same kind of phenomenon happened on the same computer to a FF400, which is another reason for me to assume the computer may be at least part of the issue.

Audio dropouts are not the issue here.


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • Registered: 2011-06-10
  • Posts: 3

Re: Fireface UC / mac book pro 17 inch - audio dropouts in live context

yes the same problem happen with my fireface 400 - we testes for several days the audio card - with several computers it accrued very few times very randomly and never reproducible ...
so i can only say that there must be a conflict of mac book pro and rme fireface ...

is clear to me rme support refuse here to see any problem in the hardware and i might be logic as well to check the usb/fw on the mac - the problem we have here is simply to understand why the computer losses the sound card for short moments.

A) usb cable
B) power of fireface uc
C) usb ports of mac book pro...
D) fireface uc

i would wish that rme would be interested to check on the random appearance  of audio dropouts just to make really sure that the hardware work all right and we have to look into the other components...

now, i bought a motu  to continue the tour... :-(
rme moves into storage

  • From: USA
  • Registered: 2010-10-20
  • Posts: 75

Re: Fireface UC / mac book pro 17 inch - audio dropouts in live context

My apologies. I didn't realize this was a usb cable issue.

www.toddbass.com
Macbook pro i7 15" (mid 2012) 8 gigs ram, Fireface UCX

gtodd876's Website

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 9,778

Re: Fireface UC / mac book pro 17 inch - audio dropouts in live context

alva noto wrote:

yes the same problem happen with my fireface 400 - we testes for several days the audio card - with several computers it accrued very few times very randomly and never reproducible ...
so i can only say that there must be a conflict of mac book pro and rme fireface ...

If it worked with no apparent problems 200 times, and the problem can not be reproduced now, and considering the lack of similar reports from other users, I think it is safe to say that there is no inherent conflict as such.

is clear to me rme support refuse here to see any problem in the hardware and i might be logic as well to check the usb/fw on the mac - the problem we have here is simply to understand why the computer losses the sound card for short moments.

My interpretation would be that it "drops" it rather than "lose" it. The interruption of the FW and USB busses can only occur on the computer side.

If there were a problem in the RME hardware, it would mean something is defecitive. In the case of the FF400, nothing could be found.

i would wish that rme would be interested to check on the random appearance  of audio dropouts just to make really sure that the hardware work all right and we have to look into the other components...

a) I would not refer to this as "audio dropout", but as loss of physical connection (USB and FW), and b) how can we possibly "check" this if the problem is not known and may simply never occur on any of our machines. 200 shows and your test just now also should indicate that nothing is fundamentally wrong. You might consider that something in the location where the problem occured could have to do with it, e.g. power supply issues or whatever.

now i bought a motu  to continue the tour... :-(
rme moves into storage

I hope you will let us know if a similar problem occurs again with this setup. You might be lucky, but IMHO this may be the wrong solution to the problem... But you will find out.


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

8 Reply by alva noto (edited by alva noto 2011-06-10 12:08:13)

  • Registered: 2011-06-10
  • Posts: 3

Re: Fireface UC / mac book pro 17 inch - audio dropouts in live context

i just spoke with byetone and rich hawtin how have and had similar random drop outs

we all wish to have a better support for that issue!

  • From: USA
  • Registered: 2010-10-20
  • Posts: 75

Re: Fireface UC / mac book pro 17 inch - audio dropouts in live context

Yeah there are many out there that have issues with live performance and macbook pro. Especially people that actually perform live, running audio through your computer in real time (need 128 buffer or less) My hunch is that it is OSX and/or the features of the i7/i5 mobile cpu's in the macbook pros.


Next time it happens. Go to your Utilities folder and open the program 'Console' in the search field type in "IOAudioStream" if you have the same problem as me and the other I am describing you will find a bunch of errors that are timestamped at the same time your glitch happened. Here is one for example:

5/4/11 6:21:47 AM    kernel    IOAudioStream[0xbaef300]::clipIfNecessary() - adjusting clipped position to (c075,fd9)
5/4/11 6:21:47 AM    kernel    IOAudioStream[0xbaf1d00]::clipIfNecessary() - Error: attempting to clip to a position more than one buffer ahead of last clip position (c073,fd9)->(c076,7e9).
5/4/11 6:21:47 AM    kernel    IOAudioStream[0xbaf1d00]::clipIfNecessary() - adjusting clipped position to (c075,fd9)

If it does happen please send this in to apple or at least to me. I have been bugging apple support about this for a long time.

www.toddbass.com
Macbook pro i7 15" (mid 2012) 8 gigs ram, Fireface UCX

gtodd876's Website

  • Registered: 2007-11-25
  • Posts: 68

Re: Fireface UC / mac book pro 17 inch - audio dropouts in live context

Hi Alva Noto, you can put the fireface 400 at the end of the chain with an firewire hard drive- so Macbook pro==>Firewire Hard Drive==>Fireface 400. This was it works pretty solid and no drop outs even at low buffer settings.

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 3,025

Re: Fireface UC / mac book pro 17 inch - audio dropouts in live context

Some things to mention here:

- Ableton Live is *very* susceptible to CPU power-saving features like Speedstep (clock-rate changes) and Core Parking (turning off cores temporarily, usually in combination with clock-rate changes). On Core2Duo CPU you can turn off Speedstep with a combination of removing the corresponding kext (will fix the clock at minimum frequency) and the application Coolbook (allows to manually or automatically change CPU clock and voltage).

- The 2010 17" i7 2.8 gHz Macbook Pro is a bitter *lemon* concerning low-latency audio in combination with OS X (bootcamped Windows is a lot better). It performed worse than my 2008/09 C2D 2.8 gHz ones! And the 2011 i7 2.3 gHz performs *worlds* better (like 8 vs. 40 tracks). My suspicion is that version 1 Core Parking really hit the fan on OS X, while version 2 works better (Windows only parks hyperthreaded cores anyway, so it's likely less affected).

Anyone who likes me to test his specific Live set on both OS X and Windows on the 2011 MBP just send me a PM and I can send it through both FW and USB Firefaces and return here with results.