Hackintosh, Universal Audio - Static Noise Problem

I just wanted to report that I'm having some audio clock/sync drift with the UAD Apollo 8 that seems to take a couple days to get "bad" as in mismatched sample rate/bit rate type of bad.

As you all may already know, UAD devices under normal operation will take, say a 44.1 KHz AIFF (file) playing in iTunes and will be flawlessly re-clock the signal on the fly to whatever the last (see the UAD Console) setting created by whatever DAW you are using. In my case, the last setting is almost always 48 KHz.

Today I was listening to a huge Schumann piano music playlist, and I noticed some unexpected wow and flutter once in a while. The signal degraded throughout the day and got only worse when I manually switched the sample rate in the UAD console to 44.1 KHz (no change) then to 96 KHz (output became muted) -I though I'd pass this along. Build signature is on the left. OS 10.14.6 v18G4032.

I may roll back to the previous firmware version since this only started since v 9.11.1. Luna doesn't even launch, so, meh?

Any thoughts on this?

Solved:

Stay on Mojave, update to the latest UAD firmware, disable sleep.

jiffyslot said:

I just wanted to report that I'm having some audio clock/sync drift with the UAD Apollo 8 that seems to take a couple days to get "bad" as in mismatched sample rate/bit rate type of bad.

As you all may already know, UAD devices under normal operation will take, say a 44.1 KHz AIFF (file) playing in iTunes and will be flawlessly re-clock the signal on the fly to whatever the last (see the UAD Console) setting created by whatever DAW you are using. In my case, the last setting is almost always 48 KHz.

Today I was listening to a huge Schumann piano music playlist, and I noticed some unexpected wow and flutter once in a while. The signal degraded throughout the day and got only worse when I manually switched the sample rate in the UAD console to 44.1 KHz (no change) then to 96 KHz (output became muted) -I though I'd pass this along. Build signature is on the left. OS 10.14.6 v18G4032.

I may roll back to the previous firmware version since this only started since v 9.11.1. Luna doesn't even launch, so, meh?

Any thoughts on this?

Click to expand...

Luna launched for me, had to get the ilok going also.

I had big issues like yours but worse, with a Silverface and a UA TB3 card in it. Problem solved with a UA TB2 card in the Silverface in the Hackintosh. Everything worked fine with my MacBook/real Mac and in windows 10 though. Honesty, I think the designare‘s tb is just bad all around. I’ve been using tb on hacks since tb1 and never had issues until i went with this board. I’m thinking of switching it out and getting the gb tb Titan ridge add-on card and a difiere the mobo. The fact that gigabyte said no way to this board ever working with tb1 devices says something....and I’m getting a lot of freezing with my graphics also but I’m not sure what that’s all about. Basically if it’s this difficult to make it work, then it’s not worth it, I’ve wasted months trying to make the designare work properly with audio and video as a hack. Others say it’s fine, but I guess they’re just web browsing or something.

FormerUser-50757 said:

Luna launched for me, had to get the ilok going also.

I had big issues like yours but worse, with a Silverface and a UA TB3 card in it. Problem solved with a UA TB2 card in the Silverface in the Hackintosh. Everything worked fine with my MacBook/real Mac and in windows 10 though. Honesty, I think the designare‘s tb is just bad all around. I’ve been using tb on hacks since tb1 and never had issues until i went with this board. I’m thinking of switching it out and getting the gb tb Titan ridge add-on card and a difiere the mobo. The fact that gigabyte said no way to this board ever working with tb1 devices says something....and I’m getting a lot of freezing with my graphics also but I’m not sure what that’s all about. Basically if it’s this difficult to make it work, then it’s not worth it, I’ve wasted months trying to make the designare work properly with audio and video as a hack. Others say it’s fine, but I guess they’re just web browsing or something.

Click to expand...

Oh yeah, when I first started my first build, I was trying to get a Z170, but no dice.
FWIW, UAD did send me an email regarding LUNA crashing on launch, so I have to give them credit for trying. But the LUNA thing is plugin-related. I won't name who needs to rewrite their eLicenser driver, but their initials rhyme with "Stein" and "Berg"...

GC TB wise, maybe it's the secret sauce in the GA-TB drivers, aren't all these TB chips from the same chip plant? I must admit that I was very naive in thinking that drivers would be updated regularly.

The Z390's got a slicker BIOS UI than the Z370, but there is something that's just a little off. Mojave was a lot easier to install on this system, but I can't toss my CS6 (AAM) or my 003R just yet. I'm still on Clover, too.

I'll run another test overnight to see if there's audio drift, but the problem could have been hotswap: Getting the Apollo 8 back without a restart may come at price: Sample rate drift over several hours. Maybe it's the new UAD driver. Too bad I bought the Avalon or I'd roll back to v9.x.x. The Digi 003R is very stable and has always "reloaded" after flipping the unit's power on/off/on. Maybe it's the Syba FW800 card. Maybe I'll trade the Apollo for a non-Thunderbolt RME device. It's disappointing that AVB networking is not supported in our builds. At least VEP7 Server works.

But I hear ya'. My GA7 Z370/8700K build has really settled down into something quite stable. I had the Alpine Ridge in it and thought it'd work better with a Titan Ridge. It just gave me another port to work with. My 2018 Mini is now a VSL node. The 2TB SSD in that is 2.5x faster than the 1TB 970 Pro for sample loading. I'll keep testing before I start recording. I'd really like to have this crazy-powerful 8-core machine for Pro Tools. -Unless using the Click Track plugin brings PT 2020.3 to its knees.

But if the 6,1 8-core and the 6,1 6-core Mac Pro's didn't throw major kernel panics everyday back in 2018, I wouldn't have had the pleasure of being in this community.

I feel ya ion all fronts. The TB on the MB has different firmware than the add-on card, which looks like it’s been updated multiple times. I haven’t tried this board with Mojave yet, but if I do and it’s flakey under pressure also, I’m ditching it and moving on. Too many lost days this year with it. it’s easy enough to swap it out for a different one. Seriously, I had really vanilla setups with minimal Kexts running for years with no issues ever except for the odd USB issue. with this board, everuntime there is a kept update, or an OS update its Like a whole different rig ...sometimes it works, but then it just goes back to total crap. I’m trying to be patient, but I don’t want to be a computer hardware tech, that’s a different occupation.

Just disabled the C states and EIST and i'm getting better results. Keep in mind that i'm using a hi gain amp sim with a guitar plugged in to test as i've been living with this since forever and finally decided to see what I can do about it.

Mouse polling
turned it down to 125Hz on my razer deathadder, previously was 1000 which made noise when mouse is moved

Computer
turn it off and the noise stops, some inherent amp plugin noise still present

UA Console window
strange, but some instances when the UA console window is open the noise gets louder

Power supplies
anything connected to the extensions, even if not turned on, are part of the system, and putting the 1/4 jack near it will produce a hum. But I found that the computer's power supply / plug head is the only one that replicates the same noise frequency. So i guess the source of clock/chirp noises still come from the computer.
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Things should be alright on lower gain guitar sounds, single coils are still having some of the noises, and humbuckers are performing a lot better than previously.

Does the noise change if you move the guitar around with the volume pot wide open and the noise gate off? The guitar's always an antenna, especially with single coil pups.

jiffyslot said:

Does the noise change if you move the guitar around with the volume pot wide open and the noise gate off? The guitar's always an antenna, especially with single coil pups.

Click to expand...

Yes it does, the further away the better, but if it's still angled at the computer it will pick it up. I can't let myself be in a constant angle anyway so i'm just gonna have to deal with some noise.

Volume pot down will have zero noise.

Is the case glass, metal, or plastic? I wonder if you could shield the outside of the computer case with foil. Like a hood you could drop over the sides that wouldn't interfere with cooling. And secured so that it doesn't buzz from room volume. My machine is to my left, farthest from and not in line with the face of my guitar. But the LED monitor can be a problem. I use a click track and a 2 bar pre-roll for recording: I spin my chair to the quiet spot and wait for the cue. Once I'm "punched-in" I can spin back a little bit so I can see the Bar|Beat|Div -It really works and any pre-roll from the guitar will have the least amount of noise. FWIW, multiple wall warts can create big EMI blobs. Distance is your friend.
WiFi/BT/Cellular/AC lines are not. Take pictures if you mod!

I tried some aluminium foil which i think doesn't do much at all and damn right it didn't. The case is a Bitfenix Prodigy Black, metal case with front and top (removable) mesh. My monitor is a simple one that doesn't add any noise. Tested the power extensions which also didn't seem to add much noise, as evidently all noise falls to zero when the computer is turned off.

This morning i reenabled the C states and EIST, as I felt like the computer was running a higher load for no reason, causing the fans to be 10-15% more noisy which is a little annoying to me. I also put Mouse polling back to 500 or 1000Hz as i preferred the smoother response. Anyway when i'm recording the mouse doesn't get moved anyway.

As mentioned in the previous post I was testing all this with a extra high gain amp sim setting that I don't always use, so checking again with the usual settings I'm content to accept the noise for now.

FormerUser-50757 said:

I see, I see. It sounds to me like you’re getting audio glitching due to bad sample rate management and tb incompatibility, not audio line interference. Here’s what I think, and what I’ve found.

With this mobo (Z390 designare) and the way the Thunderbolt has never been updated or ‘fixed’ - I get the Apollos in any Tb card configuration (except for the UA tb1 card on this mobo in any OS) working when in windows 10, or on a real Mac - no issues at all. On a real Mac, any UA tb 1,2 or 3 card and any tb 1,2 or 3 Mac will work just fine.

When in Hackintosh mode, I get an Apollo x8 with a tb3 card working perfectly, but when I put a tb3 card in my silver face Apollo, it also glitches a lot when on the Hackintosh, but not when on a real Mac or in windows. It has taken me months to figure this out As I was blaming everything else in my computer or OS first.

I think there is some sort of incompatibility with the silver face Apollos maybe, as they were produced during the tb1 era and this mobo has no compatibility with tb1 devices at all. So the solution is to put a tb2 or tb3 card in it to make it work right? Well, it sort of works but sort of doesn’t for me, so I’m guessing there’s still something behind the UA tb2 or tb3 card in the silver face Apollo that is not being controlled properly by this Thunderbolt controller.

I’m sure you’ve seen others have flashed their Thunderbolt controllers on this Z390 designare motherboard and had success in their tb devices working much better, including uad gear, but still have a little strangeness. Seems like a huge pain overall with this motherboard.

im going to try a UA tb2 card in my silver face and see if anything changes. If not, then I’m going to switch motherboards and Thunderbolt controllers or get a new Apollo. I haven’t got much choice at this point as I’ve been on the uad platform for 15+ years now.

Click to expand...

Hi,
I just finished my build and have Apollo twin Quad with tb2 connected to apple tb3 adaptor into my z390designare, static noisy, increased noise with mouse movement, sounds very much like an earthing issue, but is weird to see so many with the same problem..