Retina MacBook & Eleven Rack?

[jc7]

Any one using a Retina MacBook & Eleven Rack? What's your system like? External drives? USB hubs? Etc?

[adamqlw]

Not sure what possible compatibility issues you might be thinking of here, unless you mean *ProTools* with the Retina MacBook.

[nst7]

There shouldn't be any problem. Other people have reported that PT10 works great on the Retina Macbook Pro, including HD systems (via Thunderbolt).

As for drives, you have a few options. You can get USB 3.0 drives, which work fine, or if you have existing firewire drives, you can use the $29 Apple Thunderbolt to firewire adapter with the Macbook's Thunderbolt ports, which also work fine.

And USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with 2.0, so there shouldn't be an issue with plugging in the Eleven Rack. You will need to separately download the drivers for the Eleven Rack, but that's the case with all interfaces with PT10.

[j2fly]

I was trying to do some voiceover work with the mic input of the 11r the other day and I couldn't record for more than a few minutes without pro tools or studio one reporting an error (something along the lines of cpu overload if I remember right).

Even when I'm just playing guitar with pro tools open, the audio will 'hiccup' or digitally skip, like it lost it's clock or something. It's way worse when plugged in directly to the usb 3.0 port of the 15" retina mbp, running through a Belkin USB 2.0 hub first seems to lessen the dropouts / spikes / skips somewhat, but it's still bad.

I don't know what to try to make it work as reliably as my old 003 did via firewire. It seems the core audio drivers for the 11r are not able to handle as much as the digi drivers for the 003.

So my current solution? I bought an Apollo Quad Thunderbolt interface and am going to just go spdif out of the 11r into the Apollo. I think you loose the ability to embed the 11r settings to the track that way, but hell, I can't use it at all currently.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by j2fly

I was trying to do some voiceover work with the mic input of the 11r the other day and I couldn't record for more than a few minutes without pro tools or studio one reporting an error (something along the lines of cpu overload if I remember right).

Even when I'm just playing guitar with pro tools open, the audio will 'hiccup' or digitally skip, like it lost it's clock or something. It's way worse when plugged in directly to the usb 3.0 port of the 15" retina mbp, running through a Belkin USB 2.0 hub first seems to lessen the dropouts / spikes / skips somewhat, but it's still bad.

I don't know what to try to make it work as reliably as my old 003 did via firewire. It seems the core audio drivers for the 11r are not able to handle as much as the digi drivers for the 003.

So my current solution? I bought an Apollo Quad Thunderbolt interface and am going to just go spdif out of the 11r into the Apollo. I think you loose the ability to embed the 11r settings to the track that way, but hell, I can't use it at all currently.

Uh oh, another USB3 interface hassle. That is not good. But if you have time it might be good to exclude other things... (yes I know you have an Apollo (great interface) now so may no longer care).

What Pro Tools and OS X version are you running?

What audio disk drive (make/model/spec/interface) are you recording to?

Just recording the wet guitar track? How many other tracks? Any plugins? Any VIs?

What playback engine settings are you using? All the properties in the playback engine dialog panel would be great.

You are not trying to use an aggregate IO audio device right? And the Eleven Rack is not a part of an aggregate device and/or also set say as the system sound device?

And have you carefully checked all the Pro Tools systems optimizations for OS X have been done (seriously double check them -- e.g. I've found spotlight turned back on on more than one occasion when I was *sure* I had turned it off.).

Even if USB3 is a problem here, these other things may make it worse.

Darryl

[DAR Fritz]

I'm using a MacBook Pro (the model just below the retina) with Logic Pro and a Focusrite Pro40 interface connected via FireWire to the Thunderbolt port with an adaptor. The 11r connects to the Pro40 via SPDIF. It all works great with no latency. I also have a Lexicon 300 which has optical in/outs that also connects to the Pro40 digitally.

Fritz

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by DAR Fritz

I'm using a MacBook Pro (the model just below the retina) with Logic Pro and a Focusrite Pro40 interface connected via FireWire to the Thunderbolt port with an adaptor. The 11r connects to the Pro40 via SPDIF. It all works great with no latency. I also have a Lexicon 300 which has optical in/outs that also connects to the Pro40 digitally.

Fritz

OK, but I guess a relevant question is did the Eleven Rack work as a USB interface on the Mac or not? (were you forced to go this route to get anything working?).

Darryl

[DAR Fritz]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

OK, but I guess a relevant question is did the Eleven Rack work as a USB interface on the Mac or not? (were you forced to go this route to get anything working?).

Darryl

Yes. I had to reboot my Mac every time I used my 11r as a (USB) interface. It was a PITA! I never have to reboot now using the Focusrite Pro40 as my interface. The 11r connects via SPDIF which is great, plus I have many more ins/outs and routing options especially for my outboard gear. The convertors and pre's also sound better to me and there's no latency when tracking. While I miss the 11r GUI using Logic, the trade off was worth it to me not having to hassle with the expensive ProTools updates, AXX plugin changes ect....

Fritz

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by DAR Fritz

Yes. I had to reboot my Mac every time I used my 11r as a (USB) interface. It was a PITA! I never have to reboot now using the Focusrite Pro40 as my interface. The 11r connects via SPDIF which is great, plus I have many more ins/outs and routing options especially for my outboard gear. The convertors and pre's also sound better to me and there's no latency when tracking. While I miss the 11r GUI using Logic, the trade off was worth it to me not having to hassle with the expensive ProTools updates, AXX plugin changes ect....

Fritz

The need to reboot was likely due to you manually sleeping/suspending the laptop or not disabling management and was not related to USB3. But did you ever have it working at all on USB3 on this Mac with Pro Tools?

Trying to understand how well the standard Pro Tools and Eleven Rack setup works at all for folks looking at moving to Macs with USB3.

Darryl

[DAR Fritz]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

The need to reboot was likely due to you manually sleeping/suspending the laptop or not disabling management and was not related to USB3. But did you ever have it working at all on USB3 on this Mac with Pro Tools?

Trying to understand how well the standard Pro Tools and Eleven Rack setup works at all for folks looking at moving to Macs with USB3.

Darryl

I didn't put PT on my new MacBook Pro. Not even sure it will work on my MacBook. The only version I have is what came with my 11r which I think was 8.0. Does anyone know if PT 8.0 will work on my MacBook Pro?

Fritz