USB Audio, 48 khz, Logic Audio (crackling discussion seems never resolved)

Luth2000

Luth2000

Inspired
Hi everyone - sorry to bring up a subject that seems to have been discussed over and over, but in my studies of the web, and experimentation on my own with a Fractal Axe FX II XL+ and a brand new FM3, my opinion is that clean USB recording with Logic doesn't exist. It was great to get the FM3 yesterday, and try all the USB hookups with the latest/greatest hardware and updates, with new different cables. But here I am reporting similar facts to the rest of the world.

The only way I've reached satisfying performance out of my FX II XL+, has been to run analog out of the unit into the analog IN of my Apogee Element 24. Everything runs clean, and all audio is undistorted. It is run at 44.1.

As soon as I run that unit thru USB, or the new FM3 through USB, (which requires 48 kHz) the digital artifacts appear. I've tried:
a) Making sure that the units are plugged into the same source, which is a FurmanPL-Plus.
b) Replaced USB cables, and tried different ports on the MAC (direct, no hub)
c) Tried various buffer settings on the MAC in Logic, as high as 512 with no luck.
d) I've read that "the fractal wants to be the clock source" but can't see how that happens. My Apogee Element 24 options are: Internal, Optical, and Word Clock. FM3 options seem to be default (visible on Apple/MIDI Setup dialogue box).
e) I tried running in/out thru the FM3 today and monitoring through the FM3 headphones (to take as much out of the loop as possible), and still had occasional artifacts (cracking).
f) Obviously levels are fine, not distorting, guitar sound is awesome, except for the artifacts.

So when I search these problems, as stated before, the web has many many cases like this, and the threads never really seem to state a resolve. There are a lot of suggestions, some progress and reductions of crackling, but we never get to the clean "no noise" goal that we are searching for.

Perhaps the "FM3 Status Update Nov-6" thread below will address the above and have a fix. I hope so - it seems like we need to come to a conclusion about this issue.

thanks,
Luther
 
Simeon - thanks for that! Now when I did that the apogee red light came on indicating "clock mismatch". What is it sensing to "match" to?

Regardless, the other change I just made which is perhaps my problem all along, is that I went to the "project settings" of Logic. and finally found the "sample rate" setting, and it was indeed set to 44.1. I switched over to 48 and no artifacts! Yippee! I hope that is truly the resolve, for I've battled this USB problem for well over a year. Glad, but also a dumb discovery after such a long time.

Now my email looks silly, but I should leave it, as I've stated, way too many people are having this issue, and it has been a bitch to figure out.

thanks,
Luther
 
Yeah Fractal USB audio is fixed at 48 kHz, 24 bit. Many DAWs can resample on the fly, but you'll almost always take a performance hit doing so. Best to always use 48 kHz, 24 bit projects with the Axe FX or FM3 as your interface to eliminate all the extra resampling.

Looks like the USB buffer setting might be a Axe FX only thing.
 
it's a good idea to turn on the advanced settings in logic and also customise the control bar and display to show the sample rate. it's also a good idea to create a template (or several) that have all the correct settings already employed.
 
Luth2000 said:
Simeon - thanks for that! Now when I did that the apogee red light came on indicating "clock mismatch". What is it sensing to "match" to?
Click to expand...

sorry - i misread your post, i thought you were trying to connect via spdif, not usb
 
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