Topic: Distorted sound on FF800 - possible clock issue.
Hey everyone!
I'd love your advice.
I'm on OSX Mojave on a Mac Pro. I have to FF800's running as a aggregate but have scaled back to just the one Fireface to better isolate this problem.
About once to about five times a day, I hear my audio slowly deteriorating into a robotic distortion that sounds like a sample rate problem. It has been going on for about a year and I've tried a lot of things to fix it.
The thing that usually (temporarily) fixes it, is switching to a different sample rate and switching back again. It works for now, but it's not ideal and feels like cheating a bit. I'm also worried about the overall clarity of the audio. I work as an audio professional in broadcasting and can't really afford a lot of downtime.
I've tried:
-Clocking from my second FF800 (can't use that as main unit, since both FW800 ports broke off)
-Clocking from external AD-converter (Behringer ADA8000)
-Reinstalling OS
-Reinstalling drivers and Totalmix numerous times
-Bought a Digiface USB to use as a clock
-Different computers (this is the second mac with this problem)
-Different FW800 cables
-Different FW cards in my mac (yes, really)
I've ordered a UFX II at my dealer last May (and reserved one at another store last month just to be sure) but I'm not sure if I'll ever get lucky so I'm looking for a solid solution that can keep my studio afloat in the meantime. I don't really want to go with another brand, because apart from this problem and the shoddy FW ports on the FF800's RME has been solid as a rock.
Does this issue sound familiar to anyone?
Thanks in advance!