Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Apple released a firmware update for new MBP's today. Supplemental Update 2. It addresses audio issues. I'm installing and will report back on any improvements.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

The firmware update was for anyone experiencing speaker issues on your MBP. It didn't address the battery manger bug causing a low latency coreaudio stream to overload.

I have had success in disabling the .kext file for the battery manager by renaming it to .xkext and rebooting. The OS doesn't load it.

From researching this, the battery manager merely reports the battery status to the OS, it doesn't affect charging or power distribution on the MBP. Those are handled by an embedded controller that works independent of the OS at the hardware level. This is why you can still charge your MBP with it powered off. Thermal management is handled by another system. The battery temperature sensors are still active after the hack.

I lost my energy saving features and battery status after booting up, so this is not a hack to do running on battery. You would have no warning if the battery was out of charge. I just make sure I am connected to the AC Adapter. The battery still charges in the background, just no readout of its state.

Without the battery manager running, I no longer get the coreaudio overload bug every 60 seconds when running a low latency active live track in Logic.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

53

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Thanks a lot for your effort entwolf! I definitely have same kind of issues. Usually just really short glitch, but in 1-2 hours or so longer and louder one. I've had my new 2018 macbook for a bit over than month now (I9, 32 Gb, 1Tb).

Somehow the issue is most profound in the studio with Rme UFX (old, got it soon after it was released). At home my adi-2 dac and ucx seem to be a lot better, there are occasional small glitches but not as bad. In the studio i'm using Satechi Type-C Multi-Port Adapter 4K With Ethernet V2 (4k hdmi display running 2560 x 1440), at home Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport with UCX (2560 x 1440 eizo via hdmi) and Apple USB-C - USB with adi-2 dac.

While the occasional glitches are almost ok for what i mostly have to do now (mixing) it's pretty bad for tracking and will not work in the long run. If there won't be solution i'll have to have the impossible question about which i should get rid of, apple or rme. A thoughts or questions to whoever who might have the time and knowledge to help:

Does somebody actually have a glitchfree 2018 macbook (or any usb-c mbp) with rme? Real cpu load not just stereo file playback? What kind of setup, dongles etc?

Would clean install help? Eg. reinstalling everything without time machine, would love try to but i don't have the time for a few weeks at least.

Which usb-c adapters are the recommended ones ? Is it stupid to connect rme to the same adapter the display is connected to?
What's the best practice with using usb-hubs (for more usb 2 ports for midi etc), and whats the best way to connect UFX?

BTW somehow the playback (pressing spacebar play and stop) feels different in new computer vs my old mid-2012 macbook pro, the playback starts and stops faster (almost immediately) but is almost always accompanied with hard sample clip sound. With old computer there was more lag but no clipping. This is not really dependant on buffer sizei guess, but haven't tested them all. Also present with simple software such as VLC player playing wav or mp3. Scrubbing or "manually rewinding" track in VLC results in vlc playing short snippets along the way the cursor is moved with sample clipping sound. To add to the weirdness, if the playback marker is moved all the way to the beginning of the song at once, the playback starts with lower pitch (wrong samplerate?) and then picks up after 4-8 sec. This "clipping scrub" happens with rme also but the pitch error only with internal sound.

I'll try disabling the battery manager next time i have session if i'm working on a heavy project.

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

I posted in depth on this VI control thread about cpu spikes on Macs.

One thing I just was reading is that FireWire might actually be a better format in this article. Since you have the original ufx, you could try Apple adapter hell, and go, thunderbolt3 to thunderbolt2 adapter and thunderbolt2 to FireWire adapter. See if that helps. The battery hack will definitely improve things too. I also setup a separate admin user I login to that has a bunch of things turned off. Like iCloud, Notifications, BlueTooth, Siri, etc through System Preferences. I then run the battery hack and use that user to minimize background system processes. Anything that runs on the system bus or part of the IOKit framework can potentially interrupt your low latency audio. If you get a lot of dropouts keep the console open in the background and have your clock open and note the time and check what happened around it. You should see an error that says CoreAudio IOWorkLoop Skipping Cycle Due to Overload. That’s basically the CoreAudio buffer timing out waiting for another single thread process to finish. The battery manager is the worst, but other things can cause issues too.

The MBP battery hack is pretty simple. You will basically trick OSX into thinking you are running a desktop Mac.

First make sure you are plugged into the AC Adapter. You also need to disable SIP (System Integrity Protection) to have access to change the system files. Restart the MBP and hold Command+R before the Apple Logo appears, and boot into Recovery Mode. At the menu bar, select Utilities>Terminal and type this command and hit Return:

csrutil disable

Restart your MBP and login

Open Finder and go to System/Library/Extensions/AppleSmartBatteryManager.kext

Right Click>Rename

Change .kext to .xkext and enter your password

Open Terminal and type this command and hit Return:

sudo kextcache -system-caches

Enter your password

This will flush the driver caches. It takes ~15-20 seconds. You will get a new Terminal prompt when it completes.

Once complete, Reboot your MBP

When you log back in you will no longer have a battery readout. You can verify the hack by opening Terminal and typing this command and hit Return:

pmset -g batt

This typically tells you the state of the battery charge. It should read "AC Power" if the hack worked.

To undo the hack, simply rename the .xkext extension back to .kext, run the kextcache -system-caches terminal command again, and reboot.

***Don't forget to turn SIP back on once you verify the hack, through booting back into Recovery Mode Utilities> Terminal: csrutil enable and Reboot***

So the downsides of the hack is you get no battery status in OSX, so I don't recommend running it while you are on battery power only. You also lose your energy saving features.

The upside is the battery driver doesn't cause the coreaudio dropout in this mode. The battery power state is maintained by an embedded controller in its hardware, so OSX doesn't actually control the charging or power distribution. This is the reason you can charge your MBP with it powered off. Also the thermal management is not affected by this, and the battery temp sensors are still active. I bought a simple usb-c power meter that I connect to my MBP port and plug the power adapter cable into it, giving a readout of the voltage and current. Everything looked normal with ~ 2x more current when the hack was active vs without. Voltage remained constant between both setups.

This is obviously a hack messing around with system files, so do this at your own risk. There is potential here for corrupting the OS or instability. For my system, I've run this setup for several days with no issues. I'm on a 2018 MBP i9 32GB 1TB SSD with a RME BFP.

There are a few other services I've noticed that can cause some coreaudio related issues, and might help desktop users too. These are the watchdog events and apsd (Apple Push Service Daemon). I'm still experimenting with turning those off. I'll report back if I can remove them without any issues.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

55

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer, i'll try disabling battery manager tomorrow in the session.

However i still don't understand why UFX has more problems than UCX or ADI-2 DAC. Also still a bit unclear for me if different usb-c  to usb adapters make a difference or not - I'll try all options i have as now i have a project that definitely has problems with the "basic" configuration. Trying firewire is definitely a good idea, need to find tb2-firewire adapter for that though.

I also don't get why batterymanager is causing a cpu spike and audio dropout with 2018 mbp and not mid-2012.

I wonder what the chance is for this getting fixed and when. I've understood theres no issues with motu or uaudio interfaces, no matter if apple is actually to blame for this or not.

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Just before hacking a new MacBook Pro with all the software i need clean installed...
Is it a way for RME to develop a driver to avoid the problems with battery manager and the glitches or it's not possible cause of the hardware of the UFX?

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

I just got a new 2018 2.6 MBP Running High Sierra 10.13.6 with a UCX. Having the same issues, I also tried CC mode but this doesn't resolve the problem.

I hope this gets resolved soon, my 2013 MBP never had a glitch with my UCX.

58 (edited by duke_kennington 2018-09-03 13:11:04)

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Hello, I‘m new here.

I just wanted to report that I‘ve also been experiencing some really heavy, but very sporadic/occasional glitching while performing  using Ableton Live 10. Under light load, only using Live for Looping/Mixing/Keyscapeplaying, after having done fine for 30 minutes, all audio on all outputs will suddenly scramble really hard, distorting&buzzing like a broken printer for 1 second, then the sound will resolve to normal again after some buffersize-too-small-esque crackling (0.5secs). The issue appears absolutely voluntarily. After having had those issues 2-3 times in an hour and then being unable to trigger the glitch again during a 6 hour session, I‘m really clueless, especially as I didn‘t have those issues with my old MBP 2013.

Now using:

MBP i9 2.9 2018, High Sierra (2nd Supplemental Update for MBP18)
RME UCX (via direct USB-B-C cable), 3.09
Ableton Live 10 Suite
Installed Plugins: Keyscape, Soundtoys, NI Komplete 11, Waves Tune Real Time, u-he Diva, and some small things.
Used Plugins in this session: Keyscape, Soundtoys Little Plate, Live‘s External Instrument.

I‘m really hoping for a solution to this issue, as I really don‘t wanna ditch RME for it‘s stability (normally), but also can‘t use this setup for pro-level-live situation, which it was intended for...

Cheers

59 (edited by ewtwolf 2018-09-03 13:35:50)

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

cesarhanssens wrote:

Just before hacking a new MacBook Pro with all the software i need clean installed...
Is it a way for RME to develop a driver to avoid the problems with battery manager and the glitches or it's not possible cause of the hardware of the UFX?

Keep in mind my posts are unofficial for both RME and Apple, I am just a curious user sharing my research to hopefully help out. However, I do think there may be hope for a workaround without the hack. Though it really should come first from Apple. I have a feeling which ever supplier made the battery controller chip also wrote the Smart Battery Manager code and used a dated coding poll() method. This video is a WWDC Session done by one of the two original Apple architects that designed the IOKit framework. It was super interesting and covered things like thread prioritization and the WorkLoop. At 29:35 he talks about not recommending developers use the poll() method, which is what the battery manager uses. This process cycle runs longer than other processes, at a higher priority stopping the coreaudio data.

Granted the video is from 2003, but it is still very much relevant today. He does elude to developers being able to set different priority bands for their driver processes, but it sounds like a tricky balancing act since real-time audio can be very aggressive on the system, and if its priority is too high it will stop other important system processes. Also I understood that a driver's WorkLoop is shared in the sense it is recursive through all the different loops within the IOKit. So each system bus has a workloop associated to it when instantiated. So if I understood correctly, drivers essentially create their workloop, but it belongs to the tree of other IOkit loops down to the base IOKit system workloop. Like a USB driver will have its own when instantiated, but the system dispatcher reads through the tree and sees the priority states of each then schedules things out to the cpu. But these all end up treated the same by the dispatcher that just looks at the priority.

Perhaps your CPU on the 2012 MBP had some better threading capability, and that changed in the newer intel chip architecture. I definitely had the problem on my late 2013 i7 MBP.

One thing for sure though, is Logic Pro definitely needs a recode for multithreading. There is another newer OSX thing that is an improved scheduler/dispatcher called the Grand Central Dispatch, and things are migrating to it for system improvements. Not sure if the IOKit stuff has been moved over yet.

Also, I use the Apple USC-C to USC-A adapter with my BFP factory cable straight into a MBP USB-C port. So I do not have it connected to a hub. Not sure why the older UFX has more issues.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Not every dev profiles his code and thinks about the big picture and near realtime demand of recording. Biggest killer of "quality" from our perspective will be project plans and priorities and product managers thinking more about reinventing GUI and icons which is of course extremely important...

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

duke_kennington wrote:

Hello, I‘m new here.

I just wanted to report that I‘ve also been experiencing some really heavy, but very sporadic/occasional glitching while performing  using Ableton Live 10. Under light load, only using Live for Looping/Mixing/Keyscapeplaying, after having done fine for 30 minutes, all audio on all outputs will suddenly scramble really hard, distorting&buzzing like a broken printer for 1 second, then the sound will resolve to normal again after some buffersize-too-small-esque crackling (0.5secs). The issue appears absolutely voluntarily. After having had those issues 2-3 times in an hour and then being unable to trigger the glitch again during a 6 hour session, I‘m really clueless, especially as I didn‘t have those issues with my old MBP 2013.

Now using:

MBP i9 2.9 2018, High Sierra (2nd Supplemental Update for MBP18)
RME UCX (via direct USB-B-C cable), 3.09
Ableton Live 10 Suite
Installed Plugins: Keyscape, Soundtoys, NI Komplete 11, Waves Tune Real Time, u-he Diva, and some small things.
Used Plugins in this session: Keyscape, Soundtoys Little Plate, Live‘s External Instrument.

I‘m really hoping for a solution to this issue, as I really don‘t wanna ditch RME for it‘s stability (normally), but also can‘t use this setup for pro-level-live situation, which it was intended for...

Cheers

This describes exactly the same problem I'm having.

62 (edited by duke_kennington 2018-09-03 14:48:01)

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

gozk wrote:

This describes exactly the same problem I'm having.

Bummer, although it's good to know I'm not the only one, as the other glitches described here appear to be more of a regularly recurring nature.

I really don't know where to start looking first, if the error lies on Apple's, RME's or even my own side of things, if it has something to do with a weird USB-B to C conversion or some other weird thing. I've yet been unable/unwilling to test it with my old Focusrite 18i20 1st Gen, and I don't currently have the possibility to test a USB-C/3.1/Thunderbolt-Native interface...

A big problem seems to be that the problem doesn't appear when I "want" it to and recreation seems impossible. And when working I can't have all kinds of monitoring running waiting for a glitch to appear...

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

I'm using the standard usb cable with an apple adapter as I thought it may be a cable thing, it's really annoying but agree I'm glad it's not just me then hopefully it can get sorted.

I tested with my Sound Devices Mix-Pre D which is fine. I thought it could be an Ableton thing but it seems that people are having problems with Logic too.

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

If you are comfortable with renaming a system file, try my battery hack above. It's just turning off OSX SIP, rebooting, renaming the AppleSmartBatteryManager.kext to .xkext, running a Terminal command to flush the driver cache, and rebooting. It's advisable to run the hack while always plugged into the AC Adapter, since you can't see the charge status. I also have Ableton 10 and without the hack I get a lot of dropouts, with the hack it is smooth sailing, at least on my RME BFP. Without the hack running one Omnisphere 2.5 patch would get constant glitches. With the hack I had 7 running without issues, and probably had plenty more overhead to add tracks.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

65 (edited by ewtwolf 2018-09-03 17:14:19)

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Simple version of MBP battery manager hack:

  • Make sure you are plugged into the AC Adapter

  • Reboot and hold Command+R for recovery mode.

  • Open Utilities>Terminal and type: csrutil disable

  • Press return and then reboot

  • In OSX go to System/Library/Extensions/AppleSmartBatteryManager.kext

  • Right Click>Rename>Change .kext to .xkext

  • Enter your password when asked

  • Now open the OSX Terminal: Applications>Utilities>Terminal and type: sudo kextcache -system-caches

  • Hit Return and wait for the new terminal prompt showing it processed

  • Reboot

  • Check that the hack is working by opening Applications>Utilities>Terminal and typing: pmset -g batt (It should return "AC Power" and no battery info)

That's it. To turn it off, just rename the .xkext back to .kext, run the Terminal cache command again, sudo kextcache -system-caches, and Reboot. Check it is off by running Terminal command: pmset -g batt (It should return battery charge info)

Turn SIP back on by booting into recovery mode and type csrutil enable in the terminal and reboot.

*You will not get any battery readout with the hack. So best to run it with the AC Adapter.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Hi Ewtwolf,

I'll try the hack and report my experience with Live 10 and the Fireface UFX tomorrow.

Thanks a lot for your great advices here!

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Thanks for these instructions.

Could you please clarify what I would do to 'run the Terminal cache command again'

Thanks

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

gozk wrote:

Thanks for these instructions.

Could you please clarify what I would do to 'run the Terminal cache command again'

Thanks

Check my post #65 on the simple version of the hack. I reformatted so the terminal commands are clear. My post #54 explains things in more detail.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

ah, of course. I misread things—all sounds clear. Thank you.

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

The hack is not working for me... It's still glitching...

71 (edited by ewtwolf 2018-09-03 22:43:45)

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Do you have the latest Apple firmware installed? There have been two supplemental updates for High Sierra 10.13.6 for new MBPs: https://support.apple.com/downloads

If you run osx console in the background it will log your events, when you get a glitch event what is happening at that time? Open your system date and time and watch the clock for the second that the audio glitch happens, then reference that time in the Console. You should see something with CoreAudio in the name, and maybe a Skipping Cycle due to Overload message.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

72 (edited by ewtwolf 2018-09-03 22:55:23)

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

I saw your earlier logs you posted. But try and grab the second before and after too without searching anything. Just copy all the messages. The overload thing is something on your system bus taking cpu priority from the coreaudio data stream. Do you have any monitoring software running, like a fan controller? Those cause issues. I also find iCloud to be a pain, and check your network devices and make sure there is no BlueTooth PAN installed or Thunderbolt bridge. Turn off Siri too.

Did you verify the battery hack went through? You can also do Apple menu, About this Mac and System Report, then click Power on the left column. It should just say AC Power if the you booted without the battery manager.

FWIW, I did a test run with Ableton 10 today on MBP, and it was solid. No drop outs and running a bunch of heavy cpu Omnisphere 2 patches at 64 sample buffer size. I have my RME BFP directly plugged into the apple usb-c adapter, left side closer one to me.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Reporting back, I was listening to music on iTunes, through my RME BFP, and browsing in Safari and had a big audio stutter and drop out. Checked my console log and saw similar things to yours, with webkit stuff being referenced around the same time. Now I am thinking maybe it is Safari causing the grief. Were you using it for your youtube viewing?

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

74 (edited by cesarhanssens 2018-09-04 06:53:11)

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Yes, it was with Safari...

And yes, the two updates are installed.

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Did someone tried the new firmware from RME? Something to expect for the problem?

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Is this a case of waiting to see if anything gets done to resolve it then?

77

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

So far anything shown here is not under the influence of a third party audio driver. RME's driver 3.09 includes an undocumented workaround to re-sync after error, therefore the ongoing bit-crusher is replaced by a short glitch/crack. But that's all we can do.

Only Apple can fix the problems highlighted here. The good thing is that they can be reproduced with Apple's own driver (Class Compliant mode), so Apple most probably will fix them.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

78

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

JL wrote:

I've understood theres no issues with motu or uaudio interfaces, no matter if apple is actually to blame for this or not.

Says who?

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop … mp;t=65227

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

79 (edited by ewtwolf 2018-09-04 13:28:16)

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Not using Safari for YouTube or browsing while iTunes is playing stopped my overloads in that scenario. I’m running the Opera browser which appears pretty light in cpu use. The Apple WebKit stuff safari was using caused drop outs. Also browsing while you have your DAW open can cause issues.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Yes but with just the DAW opened it's making glitches too...

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

You are right, it sucks. Ableton and the background stuff cause all sorts of issues the longer I have my session open. I’ve tried disabling a bunch of services and it doesn’t matter, it’s still easy to overload the CoreAudio with minimal cpu usage. The battery manager was at least predictable. I’m trying Bootcamp now to see how Windows performs on the MacBook. This sucks since I’m out of my 14 day return. Apple needs to get it together for pro audio use.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Windows 10 Pro on Bootcamp runs better for audio. At least for my setup with the BFP. You need to do the usual performance tweaks in windows, but otherwise I can run the same Ableton setup I was testing in OSX without any of the dropouts at the same 64 sample buffer. Not an elegant solution, but it works. My fix until Apple gets their OSX audio stuff sorted out.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Thank you so much ewtwolf for doing all of these diagnostics. This is so disappointing and I hope Apple will address it soon.

84

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Yep, MC you seem to be right, (un)fortunately other manufacturers hw is not problem free either. Did not have time to test disabling battery manager after all, i just had a somewhat glitch free session using apple usb-c - usb adapter instead of satechi hub. I did not get to work on the project i had the problems with before, i'll definitely test the battery manager hack next time i have have glitching that happens all the time.

Just to be clear i have exactly same kind of glitching duke_kennington described, i guess these massive glitches happen regardless of cpu load, safari audio, vlc, itunes, etc... In addition to those there's also smaller glitches, the heavier the cpu load (still something that i guess should be manageable) the more frequently the glitches occur. These sound like sample clip in a wave file with no crossfade in the beginning. Still weird that 5 years older computer did not have these, same os, almost same everything (time machine). BTW ableton was just updated to 10.0.3, according to notes there's something improved regarding the graphics rendering (less cpu & gpu usage).

Somehow all this brings back memories from times when soundblaster was sharing IRQ with SCSI controller or something. At that time rme multiface fixed all the problems for 10 years and after that switching to mac fixed the remaining ones. Anyway thanks so far and good luck for everyone. I'll report back about the battery manager hack or using firewire when i have time to test more!

85 (edited by cesarhanssens 2018-09-05 13:35:34)

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

So... i don't want to talk too fast but...

I did a total clean install of my computer this morning.

I didn't disabled anything (such as Siri, Icloud, dynamic screen...) and since 3 hours, no glitches...

It's not something i can't explain... but actually, everything is ok...

I'll report again if the problems are back.

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Problems are back...

I'm in contact with an Apple Engineer from the Support Team.

I've given my console logs and the links from the Rme forum and from the Motu forum.

He'll come back asap with news from the development team about the problem. I'll report here.

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

cesarhanssens wrote:

Problems are back...

I'm in contact with an Apple Engineer from the Support Team.

I've given my console logs and the links from the Rme forum and from the Motu forum.

He'll come back asap with news from the development team about the problem. I'll report here.

So it doesn't make too much sense for me to contact Apple as well, right? Better to wait for further info...

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

duke_kennington wrote:
cesarhanssens wrote:

Problems are back...

I'm in contact with an Apple Engineer from the Support Team.

I've given my console logs and the links from the Rme forum and from the Motu forum.

He'll come back asap with news from the development team about the problem. I'll report here.

So it doesn't make too much sense for me to contact Apple as well, right? Better to wait for further info...

Old rule of thumb: the more customer complain the higher the prio / attendance.

Would not hurt if he posts his Apple case number that your issues can be linked to his case.

Advantage for Apple and you, that there are more customers available to check / validate any upcoming hotfix from Apple, so that Apple can be more confident to include this hotfix into the next official release upgrade.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

89 (edited by cesarhanssens 2018-09-06 20:40:10)

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

I think it's better to contact Apple to explain the problem... If there's more than one guy with exactly the same problem, they could think "Ok, it's really a problem, not just a bad user"...

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

K.

So how do you actually log everything? In the console? How?

Cheers

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

So, i’ve been called by Apple today.
The answer: cause there is only problems with a thirdparty interface, the problem is not from Apple but from the thirdparty developper ( here, RME)... no reason from the engineers from Apple to consult my console logs...
So RME says it’s Apple, Apple says it’s RME... and no solutions to expect actually...
I dont know who is to blame but it’s sure that I will have to change the computer or the UFX to have a solution to work... so bad to have two good tools that don’t speak the same language...

92 (edited by ramses 2018-09-07 17:26:59)

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

You should have showed them the link to UAD forum where also UAD user are having problems.

It's at minimum already 2 different 3rd party vendors.

BTW My wife told me that iPhone doesn't charge anymore the batteries. For security reasons they screwed it up. Now you need to login to iPhone 1st before you can charge it !!!

What brilliant company with such a 1st class support. If the devices at least would be cheaper / adequate to such poor service ...

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

I gave the link of the motu forum. Could you send me the link of the uad forum where they report the same problem?

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

I just hope that the developpment team from RME is talking with the Apple engineers and don’t abandon the problem...

95 (edited by ramses 2018-09-07 18:17:07)

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

MC sent the URL in this post and it was on Motu forum.

https://www.forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopi … 49#p133849

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

cesarhanssens wrote:

I just hope that the developpment team from RME is talking with the Apple engineers and don’t abandon the problem...

Apple simply gives bad service here. The problem is on their side. Also Motu user have issues.

What really wonders me is that one guy gets support for this issue, but not you. Isn't it strange ?!

Is one of the bigger Apple shops near you? Maybe you should talk to them face to face.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Check out this quick 1:30ish video I created: https://youtu.be/DckloW_tG3Y I show how to disable the battery manager and other background processes on your MBP and Mac for low latency DAW performance. I was able to run a pretty good sized Ableton session with my BFP at 64 sample buffer on my new 2018 MBP -- And QT screen capturing in the background no less. Hope this can help other users out there.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Thanks for the video, I'tried before to disable batterymanager but the glitches stayed... Is your system ok after those settings? No glitches anymore?

99 (edited by ewtwolf 2018-09-08 16:19:24)

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

Yeah, glitches are gone. At the end of my video I show the Ableton session I used for the background music. 14 virtual instrument tracks, fx on each, plus Waves SSL Comp and Kramer Tape on the master bus, all running realtime at 64 sample buffer setting on my RME BFP. And I was running QT screen capture in the background.

The downside is you lose some Apple OS X features with those things turned off. Obviously the no battery manager means no readout of the battery charge, but turning off iCloud, and Push services, and Spotlight, makes for a lean OSX experience. But you can easily turn those back on and then reboot to normal use. Though iCloud is best left off of your user you login with for audio use. I made a separate user with that active. It's just a resource hog. That, Spotlight and quitting Safari and iTunes. Safari just causes grief with audio. I recommend the Opera browser and streaming music from Spotify on the web vs Apple Music and iTunes. Try the hacks out, it sounds like we have the same MBP. I'm super picky though about what I run and don't so I have things at a bare minimum. I also recommend the free Onyx app for OSX maintenance. It has features for turning off background stuff like Spotlight indexing, or extra screen animations etc. And can purge your system caches. And one last thing if you haven't tried is resetting your SMC. Power off then on holding Shift+Control+Option for 10 seconds, the system will come on then power off again. Just power up like normal after that cycle.

MBP 2018 i9 32GB RAM 1TB SSD - RME BabyFace Pro - Logic Pro X - Ableton 10 - Cubase Pro 9.5

Re: RME UFX II weird bit crusher distortion problem

It's odd, there used to be a time when one could avoid audio glitches on laptops with Windows XP by turning off battery surveillance. Apple is about 10 years behind on that "feature"... :-P


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME