bobthedog Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Hi Guys, I see lots of people having issues with El Capitan and the Helix audio over USB but I am also having problems on Yosemite. It doesn't matter what buffer size I choose after a while the audio just turns into noise, flipping the buffer sizes then makes it work for a while again. My HD500 never worked over USB with 3 macs, is the helix going to be the same or am I alone here? Cheers Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telewest Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 No you are not alone there are 7 billion people surrounding you but I transgress I have a similar problem but I am still using Maverick every thing starts off just dandy and them you play a chord and a little while later you hear the chord. Very annoying so I go into the preferences hit the audio button disable the core audio re enable it and Whala all back to normal oh and that's using logi x but if I use a different program no issue at all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fukuri Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 There is a seperate driver in the works Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthedog Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 Hi guys thanks for the info. I won't hold my breath, they never got the HD500 driver working properly so I don't have much hope for the helix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spikey Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 There is always many other audio Interface choices out there with mature drivers available. MOTU, UA Apollo, RME, etc etc... Just use the Helix for what it is, a kickass guitar processor. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthedog Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 That is what I will have to do, it is advertised as having 8 channel low latency USB Audio though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthedog Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 A bit of an update: I set up the Helix and my Apollo Duo as an aggregate device with the Apollo as the clock source and drift correction turned on for the Helix. This sorts out the input noise from the Helix, no more problems even at a buffer size of 32. The audio out on the aggregate device does suffer from the odd click though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amsdenj Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Well, that's probably a good indiction of clock drift in the Helix. I hope this isn't a hardware design issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hideout Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Does it work with Snow Leopard? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil_m Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Well, that's probably a good indiction of clock drift in the Helix. I hope this isn't a hardware design issue. / If that were the case, wouldn't it show up in pretty much any system with any OS? I've been recording with my Helix via USB on Windows 10 for a good 8 or 9 months now, and I've never had any issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spikey Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 / If that were the case, wouldn't it show up in pretty much any system with any OS? I've been recording with my Helix via USB on Windows 10 for a good 8 or 9 months now, and I've never had any issues. Nice to know- thanks phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncann Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 / If that were the case, wouldn't it show up in pretty much any system with any OS? I've been recording with my Helix via USB on Windows 10 for a good 8 or 9 months now, and I've never had any issues. Same here, Windows 7, since about October of last year. Tried in Windows 10 also with no problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthedog Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 OS X is very susceptible to bad clocking info from USB audio devices: CoreAudio is a multi client system, each client can use a different buffer size (as long as it is smaller than the driver ring buffer) to the same audio stream, therefore each thread will need waking at different times. It is important to note that in OS X there is a disconnect between the actual driver data and the client user space data, you do not have direct access to the hardware driver as it was on OS 9. CoreAudio uses a push model where it pushes the data to the clients, same data, different sizes at different times, so it is predictive in it's timing and this is based on the driver data. Timing issues are more general in USB interfaces and CoreAudio double checks the driver timings against an expected behaviour model, if the timings depart too much from the norm then CoreAudio will ignore them. ​What this means in the end is that the Client (Say A DAW) is woken at the wrong time to process the input audio leading to audio problems. Windows ASIO does not work (usually) this way as the audio system is single client, unless you are running a multiple client ASIO driver for example the steinberg one. It would be interesting to see if the steinberg one suffers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthedog Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 Does it work with Snow Leopard? At a guess it probably will. I have used the aggregate device all day here with zero problems, without it my audio descends into noise after a couple of minutes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hideout Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 At a guess it probably will. I have used the aggregate device all day here with zero problems, without it my audio descends into noise after a couple of minutes. I take it you're running 10.6.8? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthedog Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 Nope 10.10.5 On Snow Leopard you would need to set "resample" on for the helix. Hopefully that would work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d0stenning Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 There is always many other audio Interface choices out there with mature drivers available. MOTU, UA Apollo, RME, etc etc... Just use the Helix for what it is, a kickass guitar processor. :) that might be almost tolerable for a £300-ish effects unit like the Pod 500 HD but definitely not for a £1000+ unit. This is sold as a unit with top notch audio interface functionality. For that kind of money I expect it to do EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN ( as we brits say ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hideout Posted February 28, 2016 Share Posted February 28, 2016 I'm with Spikey on this one. Maybe it's because I already have a good studio interface and would actually prefer to send the Helix's analog output signal through my mic pres than go direct via the USB connection. It'll sound good, I know it and I know my mic pres. The Helix? Well, yeah it's marketed as being a very good audio interface - I wouldn't go as far as to say "Top Notch". That would imply that it could compete with the likes of Apogee, UAD and Burl... Not a snowball's chance in Hades. It is, first and foremost "a kickass guitar processor". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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