Bug reports & end-user support for Akai's MPC Software 'controllers' including the new MPC Studio 2, the MPC Touch, MPC Renaissance & original MPC Studio and MPC StudioB lack.
By Almost Lazy Fri Dec 12, 2014 11:56 am
Yea so my 'performance Laptop' is not perfroming well it seems.. 2 gigs & its happened both times. Harsh as hell distorted crackling on the outputs.. MBP running 10.10, not much else. Updated drivers, 1,7,2,
sometimes it happens straight away.. other times a cpl songs into my set..
never had this on my MacPro tower for production at home..?
CPU is 14 bar, Using all UAD plugins from laptop.. audio leads are fine, comin out headphone jack also..
USB cable seems fine too

hope someone can assist with troubleshooting to see if i can play 20th Dec for 2 hrs without a hitch.. Respect any legends comments.. Bless
By Almost Lazy Sat Dec 13, 2014 1:06 am
es-k wrote:what's your input and output set to, buffer size, etc

if you have a different in /out set there's often problems like this

set your in and out to the same thing and see if it fixes it

just one idea



sheers, yea ive been experimenting with the settings in audio, when producing ive been using Bit Accurate for both, round 64 but thats on an 8 core Mac Pro.
This MBP is 3ghz i7, 8 gig RAM,

on the laptop ive started on Bit accurate, bout the same.. songs were playing fine..
when this started to happen i began swapping to 256/512 & adjusting the latency to keep it clocked tight.
because it doenst happen to a song immediately always i felt it wasnt the audio settings cos that would create these artifacts from the start.
Ive changed USB cables a cpl times, including using my production one which has still created the issue..
ive noticed that it has also occured in a song after adjusting the effects that i have on it? so im gonna test today if it happens without any song adjustments & just play them.. one after another..

ive noticed that if it happens & i turn off the Ren and back on again it can stop it...

doin my head in no doubt!

NOt sure if its the Yosimite (mac pro is 10.8.5)
not sure if its the UAD card i run for fx? ( doesnt happen on my Mac Pro UAD cards?)

are there better USB cables to run with audio equipment? ( all my recording mixers are firewire)
NOt sure if its the number of Midi connections i have running into the back that take up information transfer?

basically not sure..
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By fdodds Sat Dec 13, 2014 1:13 am
USB is USB, it's a digital cable so it either works 100% or 0%, there's no 'faster' or 'more reliable' cables. (**I think there are some cables that can carry different levels of electrical current for applications like charging phones, but thats not relevant to the ren which has its own power supply)

the problem sounds to me like it's the usb 3 driver problem that occurs to users with usb 3 ports, especially since you say the crackling stops when you reset the ren but creeps back in, that was my experience as well - whenever the audio driver was reset (either by restarting the ren or just switching the audio driver back and forth in the mpc software) the audio would clean up, but then the crackling would always come back.

I'm not sure how to get around the issue on a MBP, if it is the usb 3 conflict. On my computer I was able to turn the usb3 driver off, which immediately solved my problem.
By Almost Lazy Sat Dec 13, 2014 3:55 am
fdodds wrote:USB is USB, it's a digital cable so it either works 100% or 0%, there's no 'faster' or 'more reliable' cables. (**I think there are some cables that can carry different levels of electrical current for applications like charging phones, but thats not relevant to the ren which has its own power supply)

the problem sounds to me like it's the usb 3 driver problem that occurs to users with usb 3 ports, especially since you say the crackling stops when you reset the ren but creeps back in, that was my experience as well - whenever the audio driver was reset (either by restarting the ren or just switching the audio driver back and forth in the mpc software) the audio would clean up, but then the crackling would always come back.

I'm not sure how to get around the issue on a MBP, if it is the usb 3 conflict. On my computer I was able to turn the usb3 driver off, which immediately solved my problem.



ive searched for USB 3 conflict for mac 10.10 but havent come up with anything other than Kext that i have no clue about.. they dont seem to describe why they want to change it so im not sure if their reasoning will assist with this?

however so far having not tweeked any of the effects during song plays i havent had any of the sound quality issues .. gonna run with this for a bit & keep ya informed.. if anybody got more details to the above comments its always welcome ;0 bless
:worthy:
By bo:em Sun Dec 14, 2014 2:25 pm
I had exact the same problem.

Mavericks, MacBookPro, REN.

You can try to turn off your Wifi. Since i turned it off its way better. I forgot to turn it off a few days ago and had the same problem with the crackling sound again.
By Almost Lazy Thu Dec 18, 2014 9:24 pm
hey guys! i have a question regarding the CPU usage of MPC when im using an external UAD 3/4 express card. its supposed to take the weight off the CPU for effects processing but with the thunderbolt reader i got for my new MBP its choking the CPU incredibly! http://www.sonnettech.com/Product/echoe ... rbolt.html

do you have any ideas why this would be happein?
ive changed the latency settings & audio buffer but from adjustments to the song ir even opening up a new application will cause a static / crackle in the Ren thats impossible to play live shows off.. seems i have to turn off the Ren & back on again to reset it.. real hassle for sure!
during my settings searches to fix this issue i have also found under the MPC app info a 'low resolution mode' can you please explain this to me?

if you have any ideas as to how i can limit the bottlenecking of info i would be most appreciated!
By Almost Lazy Thu Dec 18, 2014 9:25 pm
bo:em wrote:I had exact the same problem.

Mavericks, MacBookPro, REN.

You can try to turn off your Wifi. Since i turned it off its way better. I forgot to turn it off a few days ago and had the same problem with the crackling sound again.



im gonna try this mate! respect!
By Almost Lazy Fri Dec 19, 2014 5:04 am
83dude wrote:Also, try not using the exact same interface for system sound. That mostly helps.


not entirely sure what you mean by this? the Ren is my soundcard, if you mean the finder sound ive always used the built in output for alerts.
ive also been noticing that Bit Accuracy has been more prominent for causing the glitches.. ive had core audio as the selected sound & it still tweaks out if i change fx or open other applications..

tried increasing the buffer size from 64 ( which i wld expect this processor to be able to handle) to 128/256/512/1024 but found the CPU level in MPC was just rising to far & wasnt keen to continue..
im wondering if the USB 3 ports are conflicting with the sound card?

& im also noticing in Mac Activity Monitor that the MPC app is using a but load of CPU.. 80-110%... is this normal? all audio & midi tracks (rare plugins )
This seems crazy inefficient! especially with UAD running every effect in my seq..
any ideas on whats causing such high CPU usage when nothing else is running>?
BySILIS101 Mon Mar 16, 2015 3:54 pm
Got a brand new MBPro. i7 2.2 16gb RAM.
Crackling sound happens after 20 minutes. I change the buffers, sample rates, and it always comes back on both Bit Accurate and Core. I have the latest driver from the Akai site.

Keeps happening. Turned wifi off and it still comes back.

Has anyone been able to beat this yet?
By Obtainius Tue Mar 17, 2015 11:34 am
SILIS101 wrote:Got a brand new MBPro. i7 2.2 16gb RAM.
Crackling sound happens after 20 minutes. I change the buffers, sample rates, and it always comes back on both Bit Accurate and Core. I have the latest driver from the Akai site.

Keeps happening. Turned wifi off and it still comes back.

Has anyone been able to beat this yet?



I'm also experience the exact same problem...