Audio Drops / Freezes since El Capitan

Nuendo
1

Hi,
I have a strange thing happening since updating to El Capitan. Both on N7 and now on N8.
Before N8 I rolled back to Yosemite and everything worked fine, so no issues until now.

I am now on Sierra and N8 and the problem is back.

When mixing a movie or just playing back a longer stretch at a time sometimes the performance meter starts peaking all of a sudden and the transport freezes including audio drops (stutters and complete silence) for about 2-3 seconds. It eventually returns to normal after that. But sometimes I have to reset the Sound Interface. That occurs sometimes after 20 minutes, sometimes every hour and sometimes after 3 minutes playing into the session. Never at the same position and completely random as of what I know.

What I have tried:

  • Higher Sample Buffer Size
  • Watching the CPU meter. While freezing no changes on CPU usage
  • App Nap disabled
  • Switched WCLK Clocking to Internal
  • Differens Interface (second Steinberg MR816x)
  • Different settings with Asio Guard etc.
  • Different File Sources (normally work from a server, but tried to copy locally)

My specs are:

DAW:
Mac OS 10.12.5 Sierra
Mac Pro 5,1 (Mid 2010)
16 GB Ram
ATI Radeon HD 5770
Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme 3D+

Controller:
Avid S3
Avid Artist Transport

Interface:
Steinberg MR816x


It does not stress me when I am doing work alone, but it is really not acceptable when doing voice overs or mixing with clients.

Has anyone heard of this issue?
I am clueless… :cry:
And about to roll back to Yosemite and N7 again :frowning:

2

only happening to me? No thoughts what could cause this at all?

3

I run the same Macs with the same OS (different BM card, though and RME PCIe solution).

All fine here.

The only thing I can think of at the moment is a firewire issue.
Would it be possible to test if the internal sound of the mac (I know…, just for testing) produces the same problems?

4

thanks Oliver, haven’t thought about firewire itself, yet.

I will try a Steinberg UR44 (USB) we have laying around an see if the freeze still occurs.
Thanks for the pointing in a direction :slight_smile:

5

I had the USB Interface running the whole night (12 hours straight) rerecording what was played and these kind of dropouts did not appear in the whole recording.
So I would say: success on getting down to the problem.
I am going to do the same with the FW Interface again on monday night, just to be sure.
So maybe its time to upgrade the old interfaces.

6

Bingo!

I am still very happy with my RME Raydat PCIe solution. I don’t know if you can actually use the MR816x as standalone ADAT converters. If this is possible it would be a good idea to keep the AD/DA converter part of it.

On my personal journey through pro audio land I have not yet seen an external interface that is as reliable as the RME PCIe solutions, that also offer the lowest latencies in the native part of the industry. I have not yet worked with thunderbolt solutions, though.