Apogee Duet and Crackling Problem

[NealF]

I just got the Duet and am having endless crackling problems that seem to have something to do with having 2 other external Firewire drives. I use those drives for my sampling libraries.

From searches I've done I found out I've got to have the priority set to low in DP, but that didn't stop it. Apogee says to try different ways of hooking up the drives. Daisy chaining, or different ports, but so far no good. They also said some people get a PCI (?) card so you can have another bus for the Firewire devices.

Anybody have any thoughts on this? Am I going to have the same problem with a MOTU FW interface as well?

I was using a 2408 mkII for the last 7 years but it's on the fritz. Maybe I should just send it in for repair.

[Frodo]

Hmm. It could be firewire buss clog-- two busy fw drives on one buss can be one cause. I agree with the PCI host solution. Your machine is a G5, sounds like a 2.5 Dual or similar. That would be PCIx, in which case there are some very affordable solutions.

What I did was to bypass firewire altogether. As long as I was going to "eat" my only available PCIx slot (G5) and PCIe slot (Intel), I decided to go all the way with eSATA II for the heavy lifting.

With this, there are two options:

1. Get an eSATA enclosure, maybe a two-drive version, and put fresh drives in it (transferring the data from your fw drives to it and then keeping the fw drives for backing up.

2. Go for something like this: a firewire-to-eSATA convertor:
http://firmtek.stores.yahoo.net/spyderhub.html

But, if that's more than you want, then a firewire host card would probably work just fine. I would recommend Sonnet because I've tried different brands and got burned with wonky drivers and ended up replacing them with Sonnet versions.

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/allegro400.html

There's also a version for fw800.

Now-- regarding DP's work priority-- unless you are running standalone instances of VIs, I would think that raising the WP to Medium or High would be the way to go. Also-- try raising your buffers in DP, if it doesn't cause too much of a headache with MIDI latency.

Make sure to turn off Pre-fill Buffers For Quick Start in Configure Studio Settings-- if it is active. I know this sounds backwards, but that recommendation came from MOTU and works well.

Also, if your firewire drives are pretty full-- with 20% or less available-- you might want to defragment and optimize them for faster seek times.

Check your VIs' preferences as well. I don't know which you are using, but often the sample-based VIs will often have some sort of a streaming buffer setting as well. You can raise those, if available, so that your sample data can at least get from your drives to your VI easily enough. That can take the load off of DP and stop those clicks and pops, too.

Keep us posted on your progress...!

[NealF]

Thanks Frodo.

I'll be checking into all of the above starting tomorrow. I'll get back to you.

[Tobor]

I know you're on Leopard but a couple of us on Tiger have had crackling problems that may be due to Safari 4.X. There is a current thread on this issue. I thought it was a problem with my two firewire drives, but when I reboot the computer, and don't launch Safari but go straight to DP, I don't have the crackling issue.

Out of curiosity you might restart your computer and boot up DP and see what you get.

Of course all of Frodo's suggestions are great too.

Tobor

[NealF]

Wow. That's a weird. Who would think Safari would have anything to do with crackling sounds.
I almost never run my browser on that computer, but I'll give it a shot.

Thanks.

[waxman]

"yeah what Frodo said"
I have an Appogee Ensemble. Same issue with any FW audio interface. I settled on eSATA and it was the best option for me. I also added a Sonnett card. There is no other way around the FW buss issue. Your Duet must not have to compete for bandwidth with another device. Also do not be fooled by the multiple FW ports on the mac. There is only 1 FW buss.

[NealF]

I just ordered the Allegro FW400. It'll take a few days to get here.
My music dealer also told me to try taking out the 2408s PCIe card. He thought it might be possible that it's getting in the way of the Duet.
I'll try that today.

More to come.

[JES]

Good luck with that. One obvious question in case it helps: if you're on a desktop, can you run everything off internal drivesZ? Made a big difference on my laptop.

--JES

[NealF]

If I got the data right, I think I've heard that it's better to have your session on a 2nd internal, then use separate drives for the libraries. Keeps the head from working so hard. Sounds logical.

[NealF]

This is interesting.

I took out the PCIe card (I think it's called 422?) that was for my 2408 mkII.
So far, no more crackling.

Even if that's all it was it's probably a good thing to have the FW card for the extra busses.
I'll report back next week when it comes in.

[Frodo]

This is interesting.

I took out the PCIe card (I think it's called 422?) that was for my 2408 mkII.
So far, no more crackling.

Great going, Neal.

The card # is 424, btw.

One other bit of info, fwiw:

G5 and early Intel Firewire busses run at 33Mhz
PCIx runs at 133Mhz or 166Mhz, depending on the model or slot in use
PCIe runs at 2.5Ghz-- (about 15 times faster than PCIx)

Note: Intel models have adopted a PCIe-type buss for firewire-- not a card slot, but the actual FW buss on the latest Macs run as fast as the card slot does.

Apparently, there is a PCIe v3 in the works which will run at 4Ghz, but who knows when that will be adopted. All this means is that we are moving away from slower busses to the point where data buss clog *should* become less of a source for the usual snap-crackle-pop.

[Phil O]

...to the point where data buss clog *should* become less of a source for the usual snap-crackle-pop.

I heard that Snap, Crackle, and Pop were gunned down. Must have been a cereal killer.



Sorry, someone has to fill in during Monkey Man's absence. Right?

Phil

[NealF]

Thanks. I needed that.

[Frodo]

Must have been a cereal killer.

Oh, ouch... That was punny.

[James Steele]

...to the point where data buss clog *should* become less of a source for the usual snap-crackle-pop.

I heard that Snap, Crackle, and Pop were gunned down. Must have been a cereal killer.

GROOOOOAAAANNNN!!!!