Help with 002r and G5!!!

[tim_doyle]

Hey all,

I recently made the switch to Mac and Pro Tools (purchased a 002r and a Dual G5). I can honestly say it's been a headache since day one and was wondering if anyone can offer some advice as to what to do at this point... it's getting EXTREMELY frustrating! I can't get any work done, etc...

Since out of the box, I've not been able to record for more than a few minutes at any given time without running into Buffer Underrun errors (as well as a few others, but the buffer errors are constant). Now I'm getting audible cracks and pops when trying to record and they are LOUD - and this is just when trying to record through any one of the mic inputs, recording my acoustic guitar.

I've scoured the DUC for troubleshooting tips and have pretty much run out of options. At first, I had tried recording to an external FW drive, but then realized it did not have the Oxford chipset so purchased another internal HD just for audio recording - no help. Thinking that it might be an issue with the G5, I took it into the local AppleStore and they replaced the Logic Board as well as the front FW port. Got the machine back today, initialized the drive and installed a fresh copy of both OS 10.3.4 and Pro Tools 6.4... tried recording a SINGLE guitar track, with no plugins, and immediately started getting the Buffer errors as well as this new audio problem thats coming through both the headphones and my monitors!

I've gone through all the troubleshooting steps listed (setting processor to Highest / increased the H/W Buffer Size, the CPU usage limit and the DAE playback buffer size) - no change at all.

Any help at this point would be greatly appreciated. I bought this system based on the recommendations of several colleagues in the Music field and it's definitely not been a pleasant experience. Have I missed anything or is it time for a call into Digi Tech Support...

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[2224]

Hey all,

I recently made the switch to Mac and Pro Tools (purchased a 002r and a Dual G5). I can honestly say it's been a headache since day one and was wondering if anyone can offer some advice as to what to do at this point... it's getting EXTREMELY frustrating! I can't get any work done, etc...

Since out of the box, I've not been able to record for more than a few minutes at any given time without running into Buffer Underrun errors (as well as a few others, but the buffer errors are constant). Now I'm getting audible cracks and pops when trying to record and they are LOUD - and this is just when trying to record through any one of the mic inputs, recording my acoustic guitar.

I've scoured the DUC for troubleshooting tips and have pretty much run out of options. At first, I had tried recording to an external FW drive, but then realized it did not have the Oxford chipset so purchased another internal HD just for audio recording - no help. Thinking that it might be an issue with the G5, I took it into the local AppleStore and they replaced the Logic Board as well as the front FW port. Got the machine back today, initialized the drive and installed a fresh copy of both OS 10.3.4 and Pro Tools 6.4... tried recording a SINGLE guitar track, with no plugins, and immediately started getting the Buffer errors as well as this new audio problem thats coming through both the headphones and my monitors!

I've gone through all the troubleshooting steps listed (setting processor to Highest / increased the H/W Buffer Size, the CPU usage limit and the DAE playback buffer size) - no change at all.

Any help at this point would be greatly appreciated. I bought this system based on the recommendations of several colleagues in the Music field and it's definitely not been a pleasant experience. Have I missed anything or is it time for a call into Digi Tech Support...

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

did you turn of the sleep for the computer and the hard drives in the energy saver????

[Blake Henderson]

Tim. I am having a hard time as well. I take it you have followed all advise given and are still seeing this problem. Make sure to follow step by step theTechnical FAQ and troubleshooting guide in this forum. I have followed them all plus about a half a dozen other suggestions from members. the support and help is great, but Still can't find a solution.


Let me know what you find. I'll keep trying also.


blake

[MoreMeintheMonitors]

Go to System Preferences>Energy Saver
Set them all to 'Never'
Uncheck 'Put the hard disk to sleep when possible'

Click on Options and make sure processor performance is set to 'highest'.

[tele_player]

Do you have a G5 that's working correctly?

Go to System Preferences>Energy Saver
Set them all to 'Never'
Uncheck 'Put the hard disk to sleep when possible'

Click on Options and make sure processor performance is set to 'highest'.

[cali316]

Hey everyone,
Thanks for the responses. I'm actually helping Tim on this one... We've gone through pretty much everything at this point. After reinstalling OS X, that's one of the first things we did - disabling sleep, disabling the screensaver, etc...

I used to work for Apple and have been using the 001 since pretty much day one, and this just has me completely stumped. I was starting to get in the market for an upgrade to the 002, but after reading so many negative posts and seeing firsthand what Tim is unfortunately going through, I'm not so sure I want to make that purchase just yet.

Is anyone having success with their 002? From my own experience as well as the studio I work in, the 001 has just been a workhorse - completely solid - and from what I've read and seen, it seems that the 002 has just been a nightmare for most (and what's up with the design? Putting those 2 tiny phantom power switches on the back???)

Think at this point, it might be time for a call into Digi. I'm one of the people that had talked so highly to Tim about Apple and Pro Tools, and he hasn't been able to get a single thing recorded in almost a month!

If anyone can think of anything we may have missed, I would really appreciate the feedback. Thanks again.

Chris

[FrankEEE]

Hi there,

I am having the follwoing setup:
G5 (1.6GHz, 1.2GB Ram) / DIGI002R / PT 6.4 / MacOSX10.3.4

I do not experience those buffer errors (or at least very minimal). I used to have them a lot more, especially after the second to last PT update - but since 6.4 and Core6.52 it's all pretty nice. I can now also run way more plugins than I used to be able.

For what it's worth I would also check for all updated versions of plugins - since they can become technically obsolete with every PT update we get.

I am pretty happy at the moment wih my G5/DIGI002/PT setup. Allthough I wish there would be a more 'integrated' solution for CoreAudiio - but at least it's multi client capable (since CoreAudio is nothing else but some audio server).

BUT what REALLY DEFINITELY annoys me is the funny crackling sound I get from CoreAudio (sporadically) on my outputs - not so in PT - therefore my Semi Pro Audio gear is kinda useless in a semi pro audio environment whenever I use it NOT involving PT - that sucks!

I never used an 001 - so I can not tell whether stuff used to work more fluently with OS9/001 based systems - but as far as I remember things from back then: develoipers definitely figured out OS9 in regards to audio ... but then god gave us latency ... and OS9 had heaps of it (not talking PT at all since I never used PT on OS9).
Since OSX I think latency is a word I use only in context mentioning my old G3 Powerbook.
But: oh well, oh well, it's still pretty young that OSX - and it is riping at the moment since more and more devs jump on the Objective-C train and GCC and abbreviations I never heard of. Now even with optimisiation for G5s etc pp.

Anyhow - I guess most underlying PT/CoreAudio problems that still persist are pending the actual development process - as far as I know it's carbon ... not cocoa. So if DIGI could change that in the future I guess we all would just benefit from it ... and I am not only talking a more user friendly interface but also Audio features that OSX could provide at startup, but at recent PT state inaccessible for the app.

Same thing I think could be the case for mandatory computation etc - meaning it might call resources simply in a different way (the carbon way) then any cocoa app. You guys get the same feeling, that a REAL OSX app launches quicker and runs smoother alltogether?

Wrote more then I wanted to do ... but anyway: if you got a prob with a G5/DIGI002 please check your computer's sleep setting, install more (good) ram, unplug all other usb/fw devices and run Disk Warrior every week or so. That's all I can recommend.

[tele_player]

It's good to hear that somebody has gotten a G5 to work with the 002, seems a lot of people have trouble. I have a PB, and it works fine.


I believe you overestimate the significance of cocoa vs carbon in terms of it's relevance to audio apps. There's plenty of good documentation on the Apple Devleoper's site.

[Carl Z]

I have an 002r hooked up to a dual G5. I'm using Panther and 6.3 (I believe) - actually haven't used PT in a month or 2. The only problems I had was the loosing connection bit where I'd have to restart. Didn't happen that often.

I too think some plugs screw things up. Autotune 3 on my G4 with the 001 crashed all the time. So I got rid of it and I make people sing in tune.

Guess I'm saying it's possible to get the 002 and the G5 to work. You should call DIGI. Maybe your 002 is screwy.

Good Luck.

C

[MoreMeintheMonitors]

Do you have a G5 that's working correctly?

Yes.

More than half the posts I see in this forum can be fixed by following the 'General Troubleshooting' sticky at the top of the forum and the instructions I posted.