audiofire 2/4 + mbp user ? please read this

nonnus · Post by **nonnus** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 5:31 am

hi

i have found a strange issue running a audiofire 4 on a macbook pro:

just playing a track in loop in live,
audio out set to channel pair 1/2,
latency 512 samples:

after a random amount of time (it can be 5 or 30, or 60 minutes...) the sound from on of the chanells, usually the 1, just stops playing thru the speaker and on the audiofire console...

i have later found that the audio that should be playing on channel 1 has switched to channel 3

how weird is that ?
i have out set to channel 1/2
only possible combinations is 1/2, 3/4 or 5/6(spdif)
but i have audio out on channel pair 3/2 !!!!

i have tested with audio set to channel pair 3/4 and the same happens only it swaps channel 3 for channel 5 (spdif!)

after i found this issue my first audiofire was replaced and i also exchnged my previous mbp core duo 1.83 for a new core 2 duo 2.16,
i am not sure if previously i tested in osx 10.4.7 or was already 10.4.8 but it was at least a different build as they where bundled with different machines...
even live has changed from 6.0.3 to 6.0.5 !!!

but after some testing the problems are still present so it seems there is some serious problem with audiofire on mbp as i have this happening on totally different systems

i noticed the are some more people here with mbp and audiofires,
i suppose the audiofire 2 should be similar to the 4 so your experience is also precious

so i would really like to know if any of you have experienced these issues ?

your help would be very appreciated

thanks in advance

nonnus

serotoninsteve · Post by **serotoninsteve** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:52 pm

Hi nonnus,
mine didn't do it for 3 days now,
I was happy, hopped the damn thing, fixed itself,
but played out in our local pub yesterday and after a while a mate said that
their is a problem with the PA system, only plaing on one side.
I knew it wasn't the PA, but the damn audiofire.
Pulled the volume down on the mixer,
switched from 44100 to 48000 and back in the console,
attention, it makes some weird noise and the audio is back.
Sounds not very proffessional if you have to gig in front of a huge crowd.
Have you already contacted the echo support?

robin · Post by **robin** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 5:56 pm

Audiofire2 with MB here. Not noticed this behaviour yet. I have noticed that the MIDI stops working sometimes if the machine sleeps while the FW is connected.

Maybe newer firmware will make these things more consistent.

(I could do with a way to control the input volume too but that isn't possible either).

nonnus · Post by **nonnus** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 6:15 pm

yep, serotoninsteve
its exactly that

i also do the sample rate chang to get the sound back...
when this happens again check the next pair of outputs on the consoe to see if you missing channel did not jump to another out like i described...

sad to know it happened to you on a live performance

be sure to report the situation to echo audio
this surelly seems to be a not isolated situation
and for sure it will not go away,
sometimes it may seem to be over but the next day it can happen 5 or 6 times easy

i already contacted the tech support 2 months ago (!)
when it happended first,
i can forward you the last mail
i recieved wich has all communications i did with them...

the most i got from them was a very lame and forced "it sounds you have a flakey unit" wich was returned right away...
only to get the same issue with a different audiofire and a different mbp...

osx driver is still 3.0.2 since december

robin, you seem to have not noticed this,
are you on osx 10.4.8 aswell ?

robin · Post by **robin** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 7:13 pm

nonnus wrote: osx driver is still 3.0.2 since december

robin, you seem to have not noticed this,
are you on osx 10.4.8 aswell ?

Yes I am. I've not had anything like that though will report back if that changes.

I thnk there was a firmware update recently that was pulled later because of problems. When they get that right maybe things will improve. The device does feel a little rough around the edges at times.

nonnus · Post by **nonnus** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 7:38 pm

robin

for how long have you been using the af2 + mb ?

robin · Post by **robin** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 9:01 pm

nonnus wrote:robin

for how long have you been using the af2 + mb ?

Since November. I've only gigged a couple of times though.

serotoninsteve · Post by **serotoninsteve** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:25 am

I emailed tech support this afternoon,
lets see what they write back.
It shurely isn't the unit,
perhaps a bug in the firmware,
as it seems only to happen on the MBP.
Otherwise it could be the core audio driver perhaps,
as Dr Zoidberg has instable latency problems with his xonemixer too.
How is your both latency?
Useable under 512 with 70% load?

nonnus · Post by **nonnus** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:26 am

serotoninsteve:
good luck with the support !
i tried that, no one really seemed to bother,
at least not the marcel mauri guy that answered my emails

heck, he didn´t even reply me if i was the only case he knew about...
i suggest you try the same

about this problem,

it seems the issue happens on both audifire 2 / 4
so far it only seems to happen on macbook pro (both core duo and core 2 duo) but not on the macbook (really need more people to report, please....

)

i must say i really doubt it is the core audio drivers causing the problem,
they are really not new untested stuff and seem to be quite standart
i can understand their latency to be a bit higher but i really don´t expect the core audio drivers to show this kind of erratic behaviour we are experiencing

i am pretty convinced it has something to do with firmware or even hardware

but i am even more convinced echoaudio are not caring too much as i reported this to them 2 months ago and still no sign of new firnware or update

about latencies:
i was a little dispointed with the latencies i got,
256 seemed almost ok but it would glitch too frequently
512 seems to be pretty stable, artifacts only happen at 80-82 %
i have been able to work at 384 samples with no major issues
(my tracks are using 40-50 % cpu on the new machine)

maybe i was expecting too much but i really tought i could reach a stable 256 samples @ 48khz on a modern 2,16 core 2 duo mbp...

robin:
it doens´t really mather if you gigged alot,
only if you used the audiofiref on a regular basis,
if so it would have been pretty easy for you to have noticed this issue hapenning:
you are going ok and all of the sudden the sound from one of the speakers just goes away...

i can never say enough
thannx a lot !!!!

robin · Post by **robin** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 7:47 am

nonnus wrote:robin:
it doens´t really mather if you gigged alot,
only if you used the audiofiref on a regular basis,
if so it would have been pretty easy for you to have noticed this issue hapenning:
you are going ok and all of the sudden the sound from one of the speakers just goes away...

Yeah it's used all the time. No issue like that.

In terms of latency, 256 samples here no glitches. I don't huge amount of resources though.

btw. it's a C2D macbook.

nonnus · Post by **nonnus** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 9:20 am

robin wrote: btw. it's a C2D macbook.

so no luck with bus power then ?

i used to be able to use it with my old cd mbp but not with the c2d...

robin · Post by **robin** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:11 am

nonnus wrote:
robin wrote: btw. it's a C2D macbook.
so no luck with bus power then ?

i used to be able to use it with my old cd mbp but not with the c2d...

huh? running bus-powered with no probs at all.

The MBP and MB are so close in architecture that I'd be very surprised if the MB was ok and the MBP not. Maybe I have problems to come.

As for the earlier CD machines, anything could happen there. That's the reason I waited for the C2D macbook. I just couldn't take the chance on the CD.

nonnus · Post by **nonnus** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 9:47 pm

do the mb have fw 800 ?

i think the problem is there...

if i remember it started with the 17" mbp cd, the first mpb featuring fw800 and then spread across the entire range on the c2d upgrade that features fw800 on all mbp

nonnus · Post by **nonnus** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:51 am

serotoninsteve:
have you had any reply from echo tech support ?

robin · Post by **robin** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 8:39 am

nonnus wrote:do the mb have fw 800 ?

i think the problem is there...

if i remember it started with the 17" mbp cd, the first mpb featuring fw800 and then spread across the entire range on the c2d upgrade that features fw800 on all mbp

The MB doesn't have fw800. Good theory.