OS X Driver Issue

mid-2011 Mac Mini dual Core I5.
OSX Lion (10.7)
AXE FX II, FW10.02

Problems 1:
bitcrushing and heavy noise on output apperars after 10 min. to 3 hours use. Only using iTunes, noise appears late, after one to three hours use. Solved reseting AXE FX II.

Problem 2: noise on output using Logic Pro. Bitcrusing and crakling on output when recording using AXE edit as AI for input and output. Working with 256 buffer size. Reseting Logic or changing buffer size and back 256 solves issue momentarily. Noise starts crushing in minutes, sometimes 5 to 10 min., some times half and hour, but always appearr.

I own other AI gear. Never had the problem with zoom24, Line 6 X3 live or M-AUDIO Fastrack Ultra 8r.

Current configuration: AXE FX for input, M-AUDIO Fastrack Ultra 8r for output. Never had the problem. No noise on output.

Never had the noise in the recording.

I forgot to mention Problem 3)
Using AXE FX as AI for output, at high output level (using output knob 1 at full), everything distorts on headphones and speakers (currently using Yamaha HS50 at noon). When using MAudio Fast Track at full output volume with the same music material, sounds perfect, no distortion at all and a really high volume level.
 
What could the issues be?
The reason I ask is that my 2 weeks old Mac mini have "crashed" three times already with no obvious reason. It worked perfect before I installed the Fractal drivers.
Using RME Fireface 400, Logic Pro 9 and the most recent version of OS.
I cant say that its related to these drivers but I just wonder since there are no other obvious reasons.
If you're getting full blown Kernel Panics then it's likely to be a 'kext' exception (incompatible legacy driver or 'kernel extension').

I had Kernel Panic problems with MacOS 10.8.3 after recently updating to it on a used iMac i7 27 inch I got recently. I found the problem was that the previous owner had installed ProTools and a M-Audio interface at some stage and the extensions (kexts) were still lurking in the /System/Library/Extensions - these would have needed updating to suit 10.8.3 and the PT/M-Audio devices - but I just whacked them out and removed 2 M-Audio control panels I found in System Preferences. No more probs since.

Open your 'Console' app (Applications > Utilities > Console.app and look in the Crash logs - the Kernel Panics will be prefixed with dates - look at the top half of the Reports and the clues are likely to be in the 'Backtrace' and 'BSD process entries - you might see some indication of a kext that could be the problem (one thats not 'iokit' or graphics card related).

One of my logs caught a 'digDal' kext in the exceptions which is a digidesign driver - that pointed me to look for PT stuff.
 
It would be a great option to be able to set playback levels.
Like a sort of simple audio driver mixer. Because if you play back a
normalized music file and start playing along it's hard to prevent output clipping.
Also if you record guitar at near clipping it's hard to balance with background music without causing
output clipping.

That will be great.



With OSX 10.7.5 and Logic last USB driver worked fine, but after upgrade to OSX 10.8.(1.2.3) I get bitcrusher. Now Im using on 10.8.3 old driver released before 27. july but in Logic I notice lower quality of sound.
 
if i try to record into logic pro it will work for 10-15 minutes just perfect. then the signal is delayed about 5 seconds. i can play a passage and get nothing out of my monitors, and about 5 sec. later is all comes through. i have to restart everything to get it to work. then repeat and rinse. not sure if it's coming from logic or the driver or the axe?
 
So glad to hear this is getting looked at. In my case, I'm on a Mac Pro - 10.8.3, using Logic 9.1.8. When I switch my audio preferences in Logic to use the Axe-Fx for Input & Output things will work fine initially. Then at some point down the road which may be after a few minutes or could take longer, I get the "bitcrushed" audio - garbled. But it's not a latency issue - sounds different and bumping the Logic latency up doesn't affect it. I can fix it by power cycling the Axe-Fx and it will work again for a while. I also see a recording delay, where I have to slide my recorded Axe-Fx tracks forward on the timeline, usually from 10-50ms to get them to line up, even with low latency settings. I haven't played around with the recording delay settings yet. I have Software Monitoring unchecked (as that really causes a delay).
 
Hello,
well in Logic if i change to 48khz Song Setting it seams to work fine.
If my Project is on 44.1 kHz i get the problems mention above...

Yesterday i made some Test and get also this Problems mention above also with 48kHz
USB makes Errors after some time...
Also i got Processor Overload Messages on Presets where nothing heavy happened...
Restart Axe helped but USB seams useless @ the moment... :-(
I was recording 1 h piece over USB... but after 10 min the errors show up
switched then to XLR Out, disable USB, restart AXE and after that all worked fine...

So Recording over USB is not possible @ moment...
 
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Hello,
well in Logic if i change to 48khz Song Setting it seams to work fine.
If my Project is on 44.1 kHz i get the problems mention above...

That's a sample-rate mismatch. The problems here are seen with the DAW in 48kHz mode, but yes it's a similar sound. Maybe the sample rate is drifting off somewhere.
 
If I reamp the DI track over USB the new processed track isn't in phase with the first processed track and the phase drifts so instead of a powerful double track you have a tubby phasing unusable thing. If I mute the first processed track and record a second pass of the DI track over USB with the same preset it should be exactly the same (sample accurate). However if you invert the phase of one track when it should now be silent, instead you can hear it clearly isn't in phase and the phase drifts so again no double tracking. And really no single reamp tracking either because of the phase drift. Even if I record in small phrases. The phase drift always sounds weird.

I gave up this last year and haven't revisited it since.

Yep, was the same thing here last year.
With:
Prozessor 2 x 2,26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 20GB RAM
OSX 10.6.8
Logic 9.1...hmmm was 6 if i correctly remember...

I have tried ALL possible settings and things told here on the forum, but nothing helped. So i (very sadly) have not tried it again. Now i'm with:
Logic 9.1.8
OSX 10.8.3

Will be very happy when some re-writing helps.

Frank
 
im getting old,

one more thing...for the USB with Logic: After "some" time the guitar signal lost any synchronization and played the signal over Logic with a huge delay time. Maybe a second or so...

Frank
 
It's been quite awhile since I've tried using the Axe II as an interface, but here is what I experienced in the past:

2012 Mac Mini i7 Server
OS X 10.8.3 (although I may have been running 10.7.x at the time)
PT 10
Axe FX II connected via USB
Glyph audio drive connected via firewire

Issues:

Open up any session in PT
Set Axe II as Playback Engine
After about 30 seconds - 1 minute of playback, the bit-crush/distorted sound starts
Close session and reopen with various buffer settings....same thing happens
I also had various pops/clicks on recorded tracks, but the bit-crushed sound was the biggest problem I experienced.

I'm now using an RME Fireface 800 as my interface, and my system is super-stable with none of the above issues.

+1 here. Can't use the Axe II as an audio interface connected via USB with Pro Tools.
 
After "some" time the guitar signal lost any synchronization and played the signal over Logic with a huge delay time. Maybe a second or so...
Frank

I can second this. I'm on 10.6.8, but all I needed to do to fix that was to press play twice. It just seems to happen randomly every hour or so.

Not experienced any other issues.
 
Thanks for getting onto this!

I have a mid 2009 macbook pro with 10.8.3 and the latest axe drivers, although I had the same problem on snow leopard. I get pops and crackles on playback of any source through USB. This is a little more prominent while listening to music with large dynamic range e.g. classical music or raw unmastered recordings. Also, everything played through USB sounds like a ring modulator after perhaps 30 minutes of playback and I need to restart in order to continue.

I also have a mac pro (2006 I think) running the last version of Snow Leopard which had the same problem with pops and crackles the last time I used it with the axe. It's been a year or so though (got another interface) - this may have been prior to the most recent axe drivers.

I have always been running everything at the correct sample rates and all that too, btw.
 
IMAC 27 (2011) intel i7 3.4, 16GB RAM
OS X 10.8.3
DAW: Cubase 7 (but the same problem appears in 6.5 version as well)

I noticed the following problems when I use AXE 2 as main AUDIO INTERFACE or as aggregate device in combination with M-AUDIO Fast Track Ultra:

During the recording via USB (usually it's appears immediately but in very rare cases it's working well during the hours) the sound start to "digitalize" (sometimes it's like fast tempo tremolo effect) and fully disappear in couple seconds (the sound). It's affect the recorded track also, I mean it's not a sonic issue only and this bitcrash fully shows on recorded track.

All time it's happens I "swipe" my Cubase app to any other app ore desktop for driver release (I put a checkmark in the "RELEASE DRIVER WHEN APPLICATION IS IN BACKGROUND" for this configuration). Usually it's helps for a couple minutes…

======================================================================

Agregate device solution (I hope)
-------------------------------------------------

Also I found that marking "RESAMPLE THIS SUBDEVICE" in AUDIO-MIDI setup utility by right button (or ctrl+click) mouse clicking (don't be confuse with format menu in right side) solved the problem! The black quadrate with wave image will appear in the right of AXE-FX II Audio after marking. For the moment (about a week) I didn't noticed ANY crashes with this configuration. But this ("RESAMPLE THIS SUBDEVICE") works only with aggregate device mode. So aggregate device must be created for this function. There is any combinations of devises you can create and it's very easy and you don't need second Audio Interface. You can combine AXE with internal MAC's sound card, but the goal is to mark "RESAMPLE THIS SUBDEVICE".
 
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iMac 27, Intel i7 2.8, 8 Gt
OS X 10.8.3
Apogee duet (older firewire version)
Logic Express and others...

Everything else works great but Axe-Edit can not be used to monitor the sound. I have proper midi & I/O monitors settings! Pushing "Test" button gives signal. If I recall correctly, old AE versions had some kind of button to activate monitoring in the main window? When that button was removed in next versions, I could get monitoring work by messing with tuner & mute buttons on/off a couple of times. Now it don't work. Maybe it is just AE and I'll wait for 3.0 or it is one of the driver issues and this hopefully helps for tracking all problems.
 
macbook osx 10.7.5, midi driver installed. protools le 8, fractal bot installed, axe edit installed. ive never had axe edit load up and recognize my axe fx one time in 9 months. axe edit either doesnt load, quits responding, or loads after like 10 minutes but is a blank screen and you can do nothing with the axe fx2.
 
I do have a problem with my Macbook Air 2012:
I've 93%CPU usage with USB connected and it bitcrushes the hell out, even louder than the signal itself BUT when I press "Store" and then "Enter", the Axe Fx asks if i want to overwrite the Patch and here ALL of the bitcrushing stops immediately.
 
Same problem here with logic, playback after 10 to 15 min triggers distortion. have to restart the Axe II after that and sometimes my computer.
It happens even faster when I use a lot of VSTIs as if the USB bus was saturated or desynchronized somehow.
I don't use the axe as a soundcard anymore, using my MOTU UltraLite-mk3 Firewire

MacBook Pro
13-inch, Mid 2009
Processor 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63)

USB Bus:

Host Controller Location: Built-in USB
Host Controller Driver: AppleUSBOHCI
PCI Device ID: 0x7fff00000aa5
PCI Revision ID: 0x7fff000000b1
PCI Vendor ID: 0x7fff000010de
Bus Number: 0x04
 
I dont know if my issues is Driver related or software related.

I am running 10.8.3, iMac, Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56

When i am using the Axe fx 2 with Reaper (current or any previous versions) the sound will go robotic after a while, Will crackle on recordings and also when trying to load up a patch (preset) the sound turns robotic and i have to switch off Reaper, Axe Edit and the 2, reboot in same order for it to start working OR restart the iMac.

I have the exact same issue.

2011 MacBook Pro 15"
OS X 10.8.3
16 GB RAM
512 SSD Samsung 6G hard drive

Use both Ableton Live 8 & Logic 9

To me it's like the driver goes "stale" - and this is only when using the axe-FX II as my sound card. It reminds me of when you have a default buffer set too low, though I have no idea how to change that as the OS level.
 
iMac 27" OSX 10.8.3, Logic Pro latest version. LOTS of troubles with Axe Edit not recognizing the Axe FXII through USB every 10 minutes or so; when changing sounds on the AXE, sound starts crackling. Have to move away from the USB input in logic. Move back and the sound is normal. Yes, the cables are double checked.
 
Exact same issue. Robotic sound.

I have the exact same issue.

2011 MacBook Pro 15"
OS X 10.8.3
16 GB RAM
512 SSD Samsung 6G hard drive

Use both Ableton Live 8 & Logic 9

To me it's like the driver goes "stale" - and this is only when using the axe-FX II as my sound card. It reminds me of when you have a default buffer set too low, though I have no idea how to change that as the OS level.
 
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