Audio Interfaces & Fusion Drives?

I am using the newest 27" iMac (3tb fusion drive) w/ an Mbox 3 interface. Every audio related program I have used works fine accept Pro Tools, both 10 & 11. I was hoping 10.9.2 would fix this, but it didn't unfortunately.
I get a crazy amount of error messages during recording and playback in Pro Tools. 6104 CPU Error Message, even though the system usage will be under 5%. Some other errors as well, but there are many threads about this over at the Avid forums, but a lot of people seem to have the same issue with fusion drives & PT.
I don't have an Apple retail store where I live so sending this iMac back and getitng a new one with a regular drive would take well over a month and would be really inconvenient for me.
So I'm wondering if anyone else has had luck with any different audio interfaces w/ fusion drives & Pro Tools (10 or 11).
Again, I have an Mbox 3 & iMac w/ fusion drive. I get error messages (6104 - CPU usage error messages and stuff). I was actually lookign at the Apogee Duet 2, but wouldn't wana get it and find that I get the same error messages in PT as i did with my Mbox.
So if anyone could reccomend an interface that works properly (ne errors) with fusion drives & Pro Tools & 10.9.2 that would be great!

So are there any comptabible audio interfaces that work with Pro Tools & Fusion Drives? Does anyone know?
Did anyone have luck with the Duet 2 & PT 10 / 11?

Similar Messages

Audio problems Fusion Drive

Okey, i've been surfing TOO MUCH TIME for answers and fixes with the known issues with Audio Interfaces + iMac 2013 Fusion Drive.
C'mon apple, I'm not paying too much money for a lame support. I bought the iMac for audio production and what i found? That I can't use it. And I want the Fusion Drive, so I'm not gonna buy a iMac with 1 TB SSD or 1 TB HD.
So, Apple, who is gonna pay the time that I can't work with audio? How am I suposed to work until you fix this issue that's not fixed yet since MONTHS ago?

Good News: I can confirm that OS X 10.9.2 fixes the issue with the Fusion Drive and MBox Mini (and possibly other USB Audio devices).
My Hardware:
27" iMac, latest version, 3.5 GHz i7
3TB Fusion Drive
8 GB RAM
Drobo 5D hooked up via Thunderbolt
2 24" LED Cinema displays, one directly connected to Thunderbolt, one chained off the Drobo's second Thunderbolt port
MBox Mini connected via USB on Cinema Display that is chained off the Drobo
Logic Pro X 10.0.6
Previous symptoms:
Audio drop outs after a few minutes in all sound related applications
Audio degradation in Logic
Both iTunes and Spotify Apps could (and often) froze machine (no mouse or trackpad or keyboard input until hard restart)
None of these issues occured when switching all audio to go through iMac's built in speakers.
Last night I installed the Mavericks 10.9.2 Combo Update (13C32) available right now only to developers, but you can find it, it's out there.
Everything works just fine now.
Stress test:
Before I went to bed I put a large Spotify playlist on shuffle and repeat, did the same for an iTunes playlist, and looped a 32 track Logic project all at once (yes, this sounded horrible!) and turned the volume down on my MBox Pro. When I woke up and turned the volume up on my MBox Mini, all was still playing through my Event 20/20 speakers. I have worked all day today in Logic and it works great.
I thought I was going to have to send my iMac back for one with just an SSD or perform the Fusion Drive split that people were talking about, but all is well.
Hopefully this update will be released soon for everyone.
Hope this helps. I personally was heartbroken for a couple days as my new machine was pretty much useless and I had already given my awesome early 2011 quad-core MacBook Pro to my brother.
Keep the faith

Firewire audio interface and drive on Macbook Pro?

Apologies if this is in a FAQ which I can't find.
I have been recording on the internal drive of my MacBook Pro up to now, with a MOTU896 (notHD) but want to buy an external drive, partly to save wear on the internal.
My last experience of this was in the days of bronze G3 swhere it was advised not to run a drive and an audio interface on the same firewire bus - in fact, I experience glitching when I tried to do this. Perhaps this is no longer an issue? I'm recording at 44.1/24 but do want to be able to record 8 simultaneous tracks.
Is it best to get an extra FW port via the slot on the side of the computer?
Thanks
Gorwel

Exactly the same question was posted yesterday, here is the link to the thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9649795#9649795

Is any one having audio glitches with the new iMac 2013 (fusion drive)no matter what audio interface they are using?, is any one having audio glitches with the new iMac 2013 (fusion drive)no matter what audio interface they are using?

Hello I recently purchased a new imac 2013 with fusion drive about five weeks ago I am currently using sounddevices usb-pre2 as my audio interface every 2 to 3 minutes i get audio glitches in the audio whether its itunes or the internet doesn't matter I checked on the internet evey on says its the fusion drive.it *****, I wonder if an update can fix this???

Have you read for possible solutions over in the "More Like This" thread over here?----------------------->

Hard-drive and audio interface set-up - Advice please

Hello,
Please offer me some advice if you can. I have the new 13" macbook pro 2.26Ghz with Logic Studio. I am going to get a hard-drive that has both usb and firewire 800 interfaces and need to decide whether to get a usb or firewire audio interface. The crux of my problem is in what configuration to use the devices, which will determine which audio interface I choose. E.g.
1. Firewire 800 hard-drive to record tracks onto and back-up + usb audio interface; or
2. Firewire 800 hard-drive as above + firewire 400 audio interface daisy-chained; or
3. Record onto the internal hard-drive and use a usb audio interface; or
4. Record onto the internal hard-drive and use a firewire 400 interface.
FYI, the audio interfaces I'm looking at are the E-Mu 0404 USB or Focusrite Saffire LE, both of which have had excellent reviews.
Questions to consider, please, are: Which configuration will offer the best performance and least latency? Is it worth recording onto external hard-drive (7,200) or will the internal drive (5,200) be faster/as fast? Will daisy-chaining cause a significant drop in performance? Do you have any alternative configuration suggestions? Plus any other comments you can think of.
Thank you in advance
Jamie

The good thing about #2, if the drive enclosure also has a USB 2.0 interface you have the option of using/trying that configuration as well. I know a few that get away with using USB drives for recording.
Make sure the audio drive is formatted Mac OS Extended, with Journaling OFF.
Don't trust the drive formatting as it's delivered.
pancenter-

Problem running a FW 400 audio interface at same time as FW 800 drives

I recently installed snow leopard (10.6.2) on a macbook pro 2.4 core duo. I have a couple firewire 800 drives connected. I ran into problems when I hooked up my audio interface to the firewire 400 port. I have the same problem with 2 different audio interfaces - Presonus Firebox and M-Audio Firewire Solo. Basically they refuse to work unless i unplug the firewire 800 drives. I found this information on M-Audio's website:
"Computers that have both a FireWire 400 and a FireWire 800 port may be sharing the same FireWire bus internally. When using both, the 400 and the 800 port at the same time, you may experience problems like audio drop outs or loss of connection to the M-Audio FireWire interface. There's a variety of possible reasons for this including but not limited to bandwidth limitations, clocking issues (400/800) and bus master problems with the devices connected to both ports. M-Audio recommends using the M-Audio FireWire audio interface on the computers original FireWire port while adding a separate FireWire interface card (with a Texas Instruments chipset) to the system (PCI, PCIe, ExpressCard, or PCMCIA). Connect any third party FireWire 800 devices to the added FireWire interface card. If your computer does not have expansion slots for a separate FireWire interface card there are 2 possible alternatives: If your external hard drive has FW400 connectivity, you can daisy chain the hard drive to the 2nd FireWire port* (if available) on your M-Audio Device. If your external hard drive has USB 2.0 connectivity, you can connect the hard drive to a USB 2.0 port on the computer"
This is exactly my problem. The audio interfaces work fine when hooked up to FW 400 port as long as no FW 800 devices are connected. It appears that my only solution is to buy a secondary FW interface card. However, I would like to know if there is a fix on the Apple side of this.
(note: I did not have this issue on my G5 running OS 10.4x, which is what I was on before I switched to this new laptop setup - the laptop is a 2007)
Anyone else have this issue, or know about a fix for it from Apple?

Thanks for that info, but that is not the problem. Obviously the first thing I did was check the FW cables and connections and shut down my computer and rebooted. And like I said, the FW 800 drives work fine when no FW 400 device is connected, and the FW 400 audio interface works fine when no FW 800 devices are connected.
The problem is that when the FW 800 drives are connected AND the FW 400 audio interface is also connected on the same bus (as this is a laptop there is only one bus with both 400 and 800 ports). The drives still seem to work fine, but the audio interface does not work. It's connection lights flash and will not hold a connection or process sound (there is either no sound, or clicks and dropouts). The flashing lights indicated a failed clock sync. M-Audio is aware of this issue as is apparent from my quote on the original post, but the only work around seems to add a secondary FW bus via an adapter card.
This problems seems to be a MAC issue with FW 400 and 800 and the internal clock sync.

My midi/audio interface Edirol PCR 1 won't work with Yosemite and Roland have no driver update. Is this the end of the line for this device.

My midi/audio interface ( Edirol PCR1) will not interface with Yosemite 10.10 and Roland have no driver update, is there any fix for the problem or is the end of the line for this device.

Same problem here, what a shame as this has been my favorite portable keyboard for ages. Whenever I see one in a store(very rarely) I'll grab it.

Audio Distortion on FW400 Audio Interface Daisy Chained to FW800 Hard Drive

Hi everyone! I’m an experienced Mac user in need of help resolving FireWire device issues.
I received my 27” i7 iMac a couple of weeks ago running 10.6.2. After a long process of migrating over from my 9+ year old Dual 500 MHz G4 PowerMac tower, I was excited to set up two 1TB drives inside an OWC Mercury Elite Quad-Interface Dual HD enclosure via FW800. I then daisy chained my Focusrite Saffire 10 audio interface (FW400) to the HD enclosure via a FW800 to FW400 converter cable. To reiterate:
i7 iMac (FW800 port) --> OWC Mercury Pro Quad-Interface Dual HD Case with 2X 1TB drives (FW800) --> Focusrite Saffire 10 audio interface (FW400)
Although a lot of people may disagree, I wasn’t concerned about having my FW800 hard drives drop down to FW400 speeds because of the slower audio interface. I have read enough about the 1394 FW protocol and its ability to use something called beta clouds, allowing both FW400 and FW800 daisy chained devices to operate at their maximum speeds. So far, so good. The drives are reading/writing data fast.
As many studio audiophiles have said, you should separate your audio recordings and projects from your startup disk. I’ve done so. However, call me naïve, but I did not imagine that every time my external drives read or wrote data, my audio interface would go into a state of distortion (like raising the gain on a track as high as it can go). When the activity of the disk drops below a certain level, the audio interface usually switches back to clean pristine audio. I am experiencing this within a studio environment and with simple CoreAudio iTunes playback via my audio interface. How is this possible? Am I doing something wrong or is there a blatant limitation with the FW chipset Apple is using for their single bus in the new iMacs? If anyone can provide me with a solution or a convenient work around, I will be very grateful!

Thank you for the feedback, Rick. To shed some light on daisy chaining FW800 with FW400 devices, I provide the following quote from one FireWire technical article I came across on the web:
+"The concept of beta clouds allows FireWire to keep all devices on the bus to operating at their maximum speeds. Devices are cluster together on a logical level in a cloud. The cloud operates as a single block at 800 Mb/sec. The borders of these clouds are where legacy devices are connected, operating normally. Each device operates at its highest speed."+
In short, beta clouds allow both devices to operate at their highest speeds.
Both the audio interface and the external hard drive enclosure has its own, connected power source.
I wish I had the option to use USB2 with my audio interface, but it only has a FW400 connection.

Presonus Firebox Audio Interface AND LaCie 1T "Big Disk" hard drive

I just bought a G5 primarily to edit video with FCP 5. But of course I also want good audio and want to upgrade my audio interface for recording music. I've read great things about the Presonus Firebox.
I want to connect the LaCie drive to my Firewire 800 port.
The question is: Can the computer handle the Firebox going into a FW400 port AND the LaCie drive going into the FW800 port? I have read murmurs that this is actually a serious problem.
If the G5 and Tiger can't handle both these at the same time, what do you suggest for a solution?
Thanks!
Paul S.
Power Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

I just bought a G5 primarily to edit video with FCP 5. But of course I also want good audio and want to upgrade my audio interface for recording music. I've read great things about the Presonus Firebox.
I want to connect the LaCie drive to my Firewire 800 port.
The question is: Can the computer handle the Firebox going into a FW400 port AND the LaCie drive going into the FW800 port? I have read murmurs that this is actually a serious problem.
If the G5 and Tiger can't handle both these at the same time, what do you suggest for a solution?
Thanks!
Paul S.
Power Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

FW audio interface and FW drive Q's

Hi all, we're planning on upgrading our home studio with a quad g5's and have a couple questions regarding the audio interface. We currently have a MDD with 2 internal ATA drives running in RAID as the scratch drive. We're planning on putting them in a RAID firewire 800 enclosure to continue using them as a scratch disk. We also run a PCI audio card which will have to be replaced. Since I've seen no PCI-E audio cards, I'm looking at firewire breakout boxes. Are we going to run into problems with running both a firewire audio interface and a firewire scratch disk?

Well I ran xbench and our current scratch disk scored consistently about 70 : ( The only high score (144) was the random uncached read with 256k blocks. The only thing is that xbench changed their base computers. I have a saved xbench file from a year or so ago and it scored a 116 with nearly equal speed if looking at MB/s/. If you still have your detailed xbench results, can you post how well it compares with mine?
Disk Test     67.92
          Sequential     76.94
               Uncached Write     97.63     59.94 MB/sec [4K blocks]
               Uncached Write     96.64     54.68 MB/sec [256K blocks]
               Uncached Read     47.45     13.89 MB/sec [4K blocks]
               Uncached Read     96.88     48.69 MB/sec [256K blocks]
          Random     60.79
               Uncached Write     27.89     2.95 MB/sec [4K blocks]
               Uncached Write     143.74     46.02 MB/sec [256K blocks]
               Uncached Read     97.80     0.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
               Uncached Read     78.35     14.54 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Audio interface and external hard drive config for new imac 21"

Hi. Just got the new imac 21" and I'm considering using it as my main daw with Logic Studio as an upgrade from my old sonar mobo. I usually run up to 40 tracks of recorded audio with fx plugs. I hope to do this at 24 bit 96 instead of 24bit 44 like I did on the old system. I also run the occasional softsynth and sequencer which I don't mind bouncing down to .wav to conserve cpu.
I really like the specs on the m-audio profire 2626 (I need the 8 mic inputs for recording drums) which needs firewire. But at the same time I'm reading a lot of recommendations about using an fw800 external drive for audio. I've read a little about daisy chaining and I'm wondering if anyone's gotten this type of configuration to work. I'm also open to any other configuration options you have to share that would enable my goal of successfully using this mac with logic.
thanks in advance for the help,
dave

I run three firewire audio interfaces daisy chained together, 2 Presonus FP10's and an Alesis Multimix8.
This gives me 24 simultaneous inputs. I normally record 24 bit at 88.2 . My iMac has a FW800 and a FW400 port. What I tried to do was run all the interfaces through the 400 and record to a FW800 external hard drive but I it kept dropping out interfaces, even if I used only one interface. I switched firewire cables on the hard drive to a 800/400 so that the hard drive was now operating as a 400 and I did not have any more interface drop outs.
Even though the iMac has 2 firewire ports, they connect to a single cable to the i/o inside the Mac. If I try recording to an external hard drive, that is 24 tracks going into the Mac, back out to the hard drive, back in to the Mac and then back out to the interfaces and on to the monitor speakers. That is a lot to ask of a firewire connection.
So, I record to the internal drive and use the external for backing up and saving the projects.

Firewire chain for external audio interface and hard drive

I use Logic Studio 8 on a Macbook Pro with a Presonus Firebox, an external Lacie Firewire hard drive for audio recording, and another Lacie Firewire drive for backups.
Is there a recommended chain order when chaining my Firewire devices together? I read somewhere on a ProTools forum that they recommend putting their Firewire audio interface Mbox2Pro at the end of the chain.
So right now I have Macbook Pro -> Backup Drive -> Audio Drive -> Presonus Firebox. I once had it in a different order with the audio drive first, but I found it was reading more slowly from/to the audio drive when it was in that order. I have no idea technologically why this would be the case.

I just found and joined this great forum. Following up on Ray's comments about his MacBook set-up, I have a similar MacBook 2ghz, 4mb ram, 9400 chipset, and am exploring getting into Logic Pro 8 and was wondering if my MacBook was underpowered, and whether I needed to step up right away to a MacBook Pro because of my lack of PCI slots for recording audio to an external eSATA drive.
I was encouraged to hear that the USB 2.0 connection for Ray's external WD 7200 hard drive has worked and improved things and his audio isn't getting choked and he is not getting the clicks and other problems.
I'm wondering if Ray or anyone else has any other tips on using a MacBook for Logic and for optimizing one's setup. And Ray, did you notice a point at which the clicks started? .. in terms of number of tracks? Or were they present from the outset? I'm wondering how many tracks you are running now on your system.
I might mention that I don't have an audio interface yet but was impressed with what I've read about the Apogee Duet. Any comments on interfaces and the Duet?
By the way, I'm just recording one instrument/one track at a time and perhaps occasionally two instruments at a time. And right now, my main purpose for getting into Logic is for editing and mixdown of pre-existing tracks that have already been created on a standalone hard-disc based DAW. If all goes well and if I like the whole Logic experience I'd expect to get a more powerful MacBook Pro or even a Mac Pro or whatever higher end iMac exists in the future.
To summarize, all I'm intending to do initially with the MacBook is:
1) transfer individual digital tracks from a standalone hard disc-based DAW into Logic for mixdown and mastering.
2) Record a few extra new tracks one at a time - probably not using any instrument plug-ins but relying on external synth/sampler/guitar sound sources ..in each song (maybe 3-4 tracks at most), and
3) apply standard effects like reverb and EQ and panning to the mix down and master songs, each song containing a of approx 25-40 tracks.
My basic question is, can a MacBook 2Ghz with firewire 400, 4gb memory and USB2.0 to external hard drive handle this or is it underpowered? Thanks.
Derek

Bus power (firewire): both Audio interface - and - hard drive ? Risk

Is there a known risk to damage to the firewire controller (MacBook Pro April 2008 rev) if I connect both a Motu Traveler bus-powered audio interface and a G-Tech 5400 rpm bus-powered drive.
I seemed to recall seeing if one does this, there is a risk of "burning out" the firewire port on the MacBook Pro. Is this a real risk ? Is anyone doing this ? More generaly, what are the risks of chaining multiple bus-powered devices together ?
Thanks up front ...

Is there a known risk to damage to the firewire controller (MacBook Pro April 2008 rev) if I connect both a Motu Traveler bus-powered audio interface and a G-Tech 5400 rpm bus-powered drive.
I seemed to recall seeing if one does this, there is a risk of "burning out" the firewire port on the MacBook Pro. Is this a real risk ? Is anyone doing this ? More generaly, what are the risks of chaining multiple bus-powered devices together ?
Thanks up front ...

Driver Wars - DP5/Audio interfaces vs. Core Audio

Dear Digital Music Users:
Is anyone currently using Digital Performer 5.0 and/or using an outboard audio interface to record vocals and guitars on a Mac Mini? Audio/Midi Set-Up recognizes my MOTU micro express for midi routing, but on the Audio side, it "sees" the Tascam US-1641, but the input and output level controls are grayed-out. Also, the facility inside of Digital Performer for accessing the driver config shows only Core Audio as a choice.
It looks as though there is a download for an update that has Core Audio implications listed on the apple.com downloads page, but I don't want to download anything until I hear that someone is actually using this machine for digital music production successfully. I love this Mini, but it has to make music.
I just read the thread from earlier this year re: Firewire audio devices; the Tascam
is a USB device but, perhaps, you've had other connection/driver experience since then ?
Any suggestions would be really appreciated.
Thanks,
SuckerFish

I agree about the Saffire. It is an amzing interface!
The other way that I used to get around latency is this...
1/ Direct monitor on the card. That is, set your USB/Input balance on the Mbox
2/ In logic record enable a track. Set up a send to a reverb bus, and set it to 'pre fader'
3/ Turn your fader right down to kill the direct signal.
You will have your system latency on your reverb but hey... it's reverb. If your latency isn't TOO big this should be acceptable.
But trust me, you'd get amazing results from the Saffire! The EQ and Compression strip on the inputs (optional) sound great. I loved mine, going to buy it back!
D

FW 400 audio interface + FW 800 drive simultaneously?

Hi,
I have:
Presonus Firestudio Mobile FW 400 audio/MIDI interface
iMac Intel 24-inch Mid 2007, OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard
2.4 GHz Intel Core Duo, 3 Go 667 MHz DDR2 RAM
I'm looking to get an external drive to host (and record to and edit) my Presonus Studio One music files.
The obvious option appears to be a FW 800 drive, like a G-DRIVE (or OWC or Glyph, but I'm not sure you can get OWC and Glyph easily in Europe).
My question:
Is it possible to use the Firestudio and external drive at the same time, performancewise?
The iMac has one FW 400 port and one FW 800, so the devices would NOT be daisy-chained, but it seems that the two ports are on the same bus internally?
Would this possibly cause a hiccupy performance?
If so, would an adapter such as Sonnet Yin-Yang solve the problem?
Thanks a lot for any input.
Message was edited by: hammett92

Thanks for answering,
actually the Firestudio does have an external power cord, as I recall the notice says the device will pick the "stronger" power source automatically, between FW-powered mode and external.
And the G-DRIVE and other mentioned drives have external power supply.
I'm ruling out USB as it is unanimously said to be too slow when the drive plays back N tracks and writes new track(s) at the same time. I don't have USB 3.
I've read of people having problems with a FW x 2 config, one of them said setting the clock source in Audio MIDI setup to "Mac" solved it.
Could you please explain briefly how do I use Ethernet? Is that what's called a NAS drive?
As I understand from what you said, it's the only alternative to switching to a non-FW audio interface, but that would be USB, i.e. too slow?
If that is correct, I fail to see how I can use my setup to create multitrack songs, other than using the main internal drive to house the music files, which is not recommended.
Or going the Ethernet way, which I practically never heard of related to home recording. Or do I have to assume that's what all FW audio interface users do?
I'm sorry, I know next to nothing about hardware and stuff so I may not fully understand how the whole setup is supposed to work. Please bear with me! :|

Audio Interfaces & Fusion Drives?

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