1 Topic by jiggy (edited by jiggy 2019-10-18 10:08:48)

  • jiggy
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  • Registered: 2019-05-15
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Topic: RME UFX II crackling & distorsion (Mac Mini 2018)

Hi, I bought a month ago an UFX II. I have started to notice after some use that it creates pops and crackles with Ableton with 64 samples. The crackles and pops also remain if I increase the buffer size. Also yesterday all audio went suddenly distorted. I rebooted the UFX II which helped.

I'm wondering what might be causing this? I use Lindy's 3m cromo cable into the USB port of my Mac Mini 2018 (32 bit ram, 3.2GHz 6-core Core i7 with latest updates). I have not installed Catalina yet. Could it be the USB wire due it's length? 3m should be fine and Lindy's cables should be quality products though.

Anyone experienced anything similar?

  • vinark
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Re: RME UFX II crackling & distorsion (Mac Mini 2018)

Can indeed be the cable. I had a expensive 2m cable which looked great and sturdy for my external HD that read at 10mbs instead of 120. A cheap and thin 50cm one from china fixed this.

Vincent, Amsterdam
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  • jiggy
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Re: RME UFX II crackling & distorsion (Mac Mini 2018)

I tried the shorter cable and the problem remained. I actually did some research and found out it might got to do with mac mini 2018 gpu.

In a nutshell I have found that using gpu "heavy" programs and plugins (such ableton itself and vst's from fabfilter) causes high cpu and makes the audio crackle when the buffer is lower such as 64 samples when using my Samsung ultrawide monitor with 3440x1440 resolution. If I raise the buffer to 256 or higher the pops go away but come back if I add more plugins. This is crazy as with those specs I should be able to run quite large amount of plugins with low buffer without any glitches.

anyone else noticed the same?

  • Registered: 2018-12-21
  • Posts: 264

Re: RME UFX II crackling & distorsion (Mac Mini 2018)

Could be, as the GPU in the Mac mini isn't great.
I had to set Pro Tools to 1024 Samples on a Session with around 80 tracks (and some 5.1 Busses and a video track) on the 2018 Mac Mini i7 with a Fireface 800 and two screens (1x 4K, 1x Full HD).
I also was a bit surprised that it would not perform better as the overall CPU load is still quite low, will check the GPU load next time. and also try with an eGPU soon.

  • jiggy
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Re: RME UFX II crackling & distorsion (Mac Mini 2018)

I got eGPU (Razer Core X + Sapphire Radeon Vega 56) to test and all the problems went away with it. By all means, it should not be like this that one needs to spend extra dime to get a simple programs to work..