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Post by subspace on Apr 26, 2019 14:03:59 GMT -6
Question for you MOTU 16A via Thunderbolt peoples. When I record an analog loopback on that config under OS X 10.12, the new waveform is placed 41 samples behind the source track, in both PT 12.6.1 and Logic 10.4.4. This can be manually adjusted for in Logic but not PT vanilla (Amateur Tools?) There was a thread discussing this "feature" recently but I'm wondering if others are seeing a similar 41 sample base delay using the most recent MOTU driver before adjusting for it? On my Avid C400 via USB to a PT9.0 MacBook running Snow Leopard, the analog loopback's new waveform is perfectly aligned with the source track. Ah, the good old days...
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Post by adrjork on Apr 26, 2019 14:57:58 GMT -6
Look at the big picture: you have to have the Hack for your color-grading business. You know there are possible stability problems with USB. RME has the most stable drivers. Your trade off is: stability vs 2-3% gain (5% at most) in sonics. I’d take the stability, which means much more to your income, and move on. Agree!
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,943
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Post by ericn on Apr 26, 2019 20:19:22 GMT -6
I wonder, and this might sound insane but, people have figured out a hack for running thunderbolt cards on Macpro’s. You install the windows driver and boot in Bootcamp and dont shut down reboot in Mac OS and the Windows driver runs in the background. Might the same thing work on a Hack?
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Post by the other mark williams on Apr 27, 2019 0:13:13 GMT -6
I wouldn't build another Hackintosh. Not worth the trouble. I know guys. The fact is that in my specific case the Hack was a "forced" choice because it's made primarly for Color Grading. It has 3 recent Nvidia cards into its stomach, and that would not be possible with a recent Mac. I must say that up to now I haven't had too many problems (but the "drop down" phenomenon, of course!) I don't know... perhaps RME could give me the same issue via USB! But at least RME is famous to have bulletproof drivers (and no drop down is noticed in forums, even with Windows.)
So... (believe me, I'm so UNhappy to discard Sabre solution... I'm still hoping that someone with my HW tell me that 8A works fine as well...)
you could always go with an RME AES or MADI card, and then use whatever D/A you want. Stability + sound quality of your choice. But given what you’re describing re: stability, I would probably just go with the RME. Most stable drivers around, for both PC and Mac.
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Post by BenjaminAshlin on Apr 27, 2019 1:22:50 GMT -6
I wonder, and this might sound insane but, people have figured out a hack for running thunderbolt cards on Macpro’s. You install the windows driver and boot in Bootcamp and dont shut down reboot in Mac OS and the Windows driver runs in the background. Might the same thing work on a Hack? The reason that you have to boot into windows for a macpro is that the bios doesn't support Thunderbolt. Booting into windows allows the thunderbolt card to identify that a device is plugged in. To me this solution is to finicky to be used in a studio, but they have made great progress and hopefully can eliminate the need to boot into windows completely. On a Hack you just need a motherboard that is hackintoshable and that supports thunderbolt. The thunderbolt device will be initialized on boot...hopefully. I have run USB, firewire and thunderbolt interfaces on a hack. But.... If I was planning on building another hack in the future I would buy an RME USB interface for future compatibility.
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Post by adrjork on Apr 28, 2019 21:57:56 GMT -6
Dear guys, thanks really a lot for your replies! After a big web-wandering, I believe I got a fact: more than different brands and different drivers, the big drop-out issue comes from the USB itself. I mean, it's a drivers issue of course, but mainly related (if not "only") to USB-only interface: let's say your new USB audio interface can work perfectly now, but it could go in troubles at your next OS update, or simply after installing some Nvidia drivers (and it actually happened also to RME USB-only cards or Apogee Duet 2 cards as well... emblazoned and pricey cards that have in common the USB-only connection). All this is confirmed directly by some friends of mine and by many posts in various forums (and I can directly confirm that an old MOTU 896HD – connected via firewire-to-thunderbolt to a 2015 MacbookPro – never dropped-out during a 24-hours-long performance that I did live).
So, if all this is even barely true, even going for a "stable" RME interface seems to be an error if it's an USB-only interface (or simply if you plan to connect the interface only via USB).
So... why not thunderbolt? The reason I was searching for USB cards is that actually my hack has 1 single USB-C/thunderbolt3 plug, and I use it to connect 2 big RAIDs in chain. I'd avoid to chain the audio-interface too, because it implies having both the RAIDs always turned on! (That means lot of noise and lot of wasted power.) Unfortunately, currently in the market there aren't hub with 3x thunderbolt plugs (1 for the computer, 1 for the RAIDs and 1 for the audio-interface). Unfortunately again, I discovered that I can't go neither for AVB directly into my hack-tower's ethernet plug, because my hack's motherboard hasn't AVB-qualified ethernet plug (damn...)
Anyway, I thought: my studio is so tiny that when I'm mixing carefully I always prefer to switch off my noisy hack-tower in order to use only my silent MacbookPro (I always disconnected my former audio-interface from the tower to connect it to the laptop). That was the reason why it was "acceptable" to me having an UNstable interface when I used it with hack-tower (for first audio/video sync and other "rough" things) that became stable once connected to the laptop (for crucial things like EQing or mastering).
This thought brought me to this: my tower and my laptop works together, or better, they are very near in the same room... so WHY NOT DANTE? I know almost nothing about Dante, but I gave it a glimpse time ago: if I understand correctly, Dante Controller free app should connect my two computers via ethernet (perhaps directly, i.e. with one single ethernet cable between the two) sharing the ins and outs of both. Then Dante Virtual Soundcard app should let me use the MacbookPro+AudioInterface as a tower's own interface in any DAW!
If it's true... then it's also the solution of my problem: I can buy virtually ANY firewall/thunderbolt interface (that should be stable simply because it's not USB connected!) and use it with my hack-tower even without physically connect it (using the thunderbolt-laptop as physical medium).
Could it work?
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Post by BenjaminAshlin on Apr 29, 2019 0:57:12 GMT -6
Dear guys, thanks really a lot for your replies! After a big web-wandering, I believe I got a fact: more than different brands and different drivers, the big drop-out issue comes from the USB itself. I mean, it's a drivers issue of course, but mainly related (if not "only") to USB-only interface: let's say your new USB audio interface can work perfectly now, but it could go in troubles at your next OS update, or simply after installing some Nvidia drivers (and it actually happened also to RME USB-only cards or Apogee Duet 2 cards as well... emblazoned and pricey cards that have in common the USB-only connection). All this is confirmed directly by some friends of mine and by many posts in various forums (and I can directly confirm that an old MOTU 896HD – connected via firewire-to-thunderbolt to a 2015 MacbookPro – never dropped-out during a 24-hours-long performance that I did live).
So, if all this is even barely true, even going for a "stable" RME interface seems to be an error if it's an USB-only interface (or simply if you plan to connect the interface only via USB).
Anything could stop working with the next MacOS update..... The difference between RME and other interfaces is that RME use a proprietary USB controller and program their drivers. Most other companies uses generic USB controllers and even generic drivers with custom GUIs. RME has probably the best driver support on the market. They still have up to date drivers for their 1999 pci interfaces. P.S. I thought Nvidia was dead on Hackintosh/MacOS?
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Post by svart on Apr 29, 2019 7:02:42 GMT -6
Dear guys, thanks really a lot for your replies! After a big web-wandering, I believe I got a fact: more than different brands and different drivers, the big drop-out issue comes from the USB itself. I mean, it's a drivers issue of course, but mainly related (if not "only") to USB-only interface: let's say your new USB audio interface can work perfectly now, but it could go in troubles at your next OS update, or simply after installing some Nvidia drivers (and it actually happened also to RME USB-only cards or Apogee Duet 2 cards as well... emblazoned and pricey cards that have in common the USB-only connection). All this is confirmed directly by some friends of mine and by many posts in various forums (and I can directly confirm that an old MOTU 896HD – connected via firewire-to-thunderbolt to a 2015 MacbookPro – never dropped-out during a 24-hours-long performance that I did live).
So, if all this is even barely true, even going for a "stable" RME interface seems to be an error if it's an USB-only interface (or simply if you plan to connect the interface only via USB).
So... why not thunderbolt? The reason I was searching for USB cards is that actually my hack has 1 single USB-C/thunderbolt3 plug, and I use it to connect 2 big RAIDs in chain. I'd avoid to chain the audio-interface too, because it implies having both the RAIDs always turned on! (That means lot of noise and lot of wasted power.) Unfortunately, currently in the market there aren't hub with 3x thunderbolt plugs (1 for the computer, 1 for the RAIDs and 1 for the audio-interface). Unfortunately again, I discovered that I can't go neither for AVB directly into my hack-tower's ethernet plug, because my hack's motherboard hasn't AVB-qualified ethernet plug (damn...)
Anyway, I thought: my studio is so tiny that when I'm mixing carefully I always prefer to switch off my noisy hack-tower in order to use only my silent MacbookPro (I always disconnected my former audio-interface from the tower to connect it to the laptop). That was the reason why it was "acceptable" to me having an UNstable interface when I used it with hack-tower (for first audio/video sync and other "rough" things) that became stable once connected to the laptop (for crucial things like EQing or mastering).
This thought brought me to this: my tower and my laptop works together, or better, they are very near in the same room... so WHY NOT DANTE? I know almost nothing about Dante, but I gave it a glimpse time ago: if I understand correctly, Dante Controller free app should connect my two computers via ethernet (perhaps directly, i.e. with one single ethernet cable between the two) sharing the ins and outs of both. Then Dante Virtual Soundcard app should let me use the MacbookPro+AudioInterface as a tower's own interface in any DAW!
If it's true... then it's also the solution of my problem: I can buy virtually ANY firewall/thunderbolt interface (that should be stable simply because it's not USB connected!) and use it with my hack-tower even without physically connect it (using the thunderbolt-laptop as physical medium).
Could it work? I don't know about your specific issues, but sometimes windows USB drivers have a "USB-idle-state" or "USB-suspend" that can happen which causes devices that don't expect idleness to disconnect. I've seen it happen on non-audio gear before, but I don't have any USB audio gear, so I've never had the issue. I've always been a Windows person at heart but used a mac back in the mid 2000's for a couple years until I couldn't stand sending it in for repair anymore.. So I don't know how that relates to hackentoshes at all, but I assume it's related. I'd try disabling this stuff in a number of different ways: helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/prevent-windows-from-powering-off-usb-device/www.windowscentral.com/how-prevent-windows-10-turning-usb-devicesAlso, I actually don't know how hackentoshes work, so I don't know if you're running MAC OS on a normal PC platform, or windows on a MAC, but I assume that there has to be something similar to turn off power throttling to the USB in MAC OS, right?
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Post by adrjork on Apr 29, 2019 12:45:25 GMT -6
The difference between RME and other interfaces is that RME use a proprietary USB controller and program their drivers. Most other companies uses generic USB controllers and even generic drivers with custom GUIs. Ah! I didn't know that! Does MOTU have proprietary USB controller too? (It could be interesting.)
P.S. I thought Nvidia was dead on Hackintosh/MacOS? Well... dead after Sierra: on High-Sierra, Nvidia drivers seem work only on Davinci (Adobe apps crash) and on Mojave the party is over! I'm on Sierra now. What is the benefit of having an hackintosh? Basically, OSX on Nvidia! That's the greatest benefit! Davinci works also on AMD, obviously, but with CUDA-only cards can greatly speed up preview and render thanks to GPU process! If you make some 3D with Cinema4D, you know that the fastest render engine – Redshift – works only on Nvidia machines. Very probably, my future/next workstation for video will be forcedly a Windows machine, but at the moment I enjoy my system I simply find THIS, and from various forums it seems not solving the problem. It seems to be an OS problem that is not fixable by the user (perhaps some brilliant coder, but not me ).
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Post by the other mark williams on Apr 29, 2019 13:06:27 GMT -6
FWIW, there are reports that the Nvidia situation may finally be resolving as of macOS 10.15. Who knows if it's true or not, but it would be great to have Nvidia options again for GPUs.
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Post by adrjork on Apr 29, 2019 15:14:38 GMT -6
FWIW, there are reports that the Nvidia situation may finally be resolving as of macOS 10.15. Who knows if it's true or not, but it would be great to have Nvidia options again for GPUs. WOW!!! Really?!? I'd love this would happen!!! I strongly hope so! (Personally I can see a HUGE performance improvement when working on Davinci with 3 "even-old" TitanX-Maxwell instead of a couple of new AMDs...)
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Post by BenjaminAshlin on Apr 29, 2019 21:07:48 GMT -6
FWIW, there are reports that the Nvidia situation may finally be resolving as of macOS 10.15. Who knows if it's true or not, but it would be great to have Nvidia options again for GPUs. WOW!!! Really?!? I'd love this would happen!!! I strongly hope so! (Personally I can see a HUGE performance improvement when working on Davinci with 3 "even-old" TitanX-Maxwell instead of a couple of new AMDs...) I know that Nvidia are working on their Linux drivers in a big way. I'm not sure if that will make its way to MacOS but it would be great if it does.
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Post by adrjork on Apr 30, 2019 18:27:22 GMT -6
WOW!!! Really?!? I'd love this would happen!!! I strongly hope so! (Personally I can see a HUGE performance improvement when working on Davinci with 3 "even-old" TitanX-Maxwell instead of a couple of new AMDs...) I know that Nvidia are working on their Linux drivers in a big way. I'm not sure if that will make its way to MacOS but it would be great if it does. Great Expectations!
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Post by sirthought on May 1, 2019 6:59:08 GMT -6
adrjork This video may or may not be of interest for future Mac builds.
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Post by svart on May 1, 2019 7:18:02 GMT -6
FWIW, there are reports that the Nvidia situation may finally be resolving as of macOS 10.15. Who knows if it's true or not, but it would be great to have Nvidia options again for GPUs. WOW!!! Really?!? I'd love this would happen!!! I strongly hope so! (Personally I can see a HUGE performance improvement when working on Davinci with 3 "even-old" TitanX-Maxwell instead of a couple of new AMDs...) I love Davinici Resolve. I run it on an Intel/Nvidia machine and it's great. I think the CUDA acceleration is amazing.
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Post by stratboy on May 1, 2019 9:16:22 GMT -6
Cool that we have a couple of color correction folks here. I worked as a video engineer and telecine manager when DaVincis were actually full hardware units, and VERY expensive. Not that it has anything to do with audio... Chris (Svart), you never cease to amaze me.
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Post by adrjork on May 3, 2019 16:20:27 GMT -6
At the end of the journey... I just ordered RME UCX. MOTU guys please don't get angry, I love you! (And I love my old 896HD too!)
Thank you all for your advices and your patience (and thank you sirthought for the video tutorial, very interesting indeed!)
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Post by gwlee7 on Dec 8, 2019 18:44:09 GMT -6
Bumping this thread up in order to ask if any of you are using the 828es connect with USB instead of thunderbolt. Have you encountered any problems? This looks like it could be the interface I move to next and I have a windows 10 machine with no thunderbolt connectivity. I do have USB 3 and have been running an Apollo twin with a focusrite octopre.
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Post by indiehouse on Dec 8, 2019 19:41:08 GMT -6
Bumping this thread up in order to ask if any of you are using the 828es connect with USB instead of thunderbolt. Have you encountered any problems? This looks like it could be the interface I move to next and I have a windows 10 machine with no thunderbolt connectivity. I do have USB 3 and have been running an Apollo twin with a focusrite octopre. Thunderbolt here, but the 828ES has been pretty solid. I’ve got it paired with a 16a.
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Post by wiz on Dec 8, 2019 19:55:15 GMT -6
Bumping this thread up in order to ask if any of you are using the 828es connect with USB instead of thunderbolt. Have you encountered any problems? This looks like it could be the interface I move to next and I have a windows 10 machine with no thunderbolt connectivity. I do have USB 3 and have been running an Apollo twin with a focusrite octopre. Thunderbolt here, but the 828ES has been pretty solid. I’ve got it paired with a 16a. notice much difference in sound AD DA wise?
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Post by indiehouse on Dec 9, 2019 6:00:29 GMT -6
Thunderbolt here, but the 828ES has been pretty solid. I’ve got it paired with a 16a. notice much difference in sound AD DA wise? I haven’t done an A/B comparison. I probably should someday.
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