Important Note: Apple's operative system macOS Sierra or later, ensures full compatibility and stability for all our current audio devices, thus preventing the issues described in this article. Therefore we recommend affected OS X 10.9 - 10.11 users to perform an update to macOS's latest available update.
There are known performance issues that affect the audio signal during the operation of our products as well as third-party products under the operating systems OS X 10.9 (rare occurrences), OS X 10.10 (occasional occurrences) and OS X 10.11 (most occurrences, compared to the aforementioned OS versions).
Symptoms
The symptoms include the following:
- During audio playback within an application (frequently during usage of Traktor Timecode vinyl / CD playback via a Scratch-certified interface), the audio signal suddenly drops for around 3 seconds.
- Traktor Timecode users will experience a delay of around half a second in the Timecode signal after the initial drop-out.
- During audio playback via System Audio or within an audio application the sound quality progressively distorts and degrades.
- Other symptoms include random audio crackling and drop-outs.
The issue occurs while using both "class-compliant" and older devices with specific drivers.
Note: Read this article to view a list of all class-compliant and driver-specific devices.
Since the release of the latest OS X versions, these problems have been increasingly reported by several sources including third-party companies.
Pre-Emptive Measures
We strongly recommend to verify the following points in order to avoid audio performance issues in your OS X 10.9, 10.10 or 10.11 system:
- Disable your WiFi and Bluetooth connection as explained in the chapter 'Wi-Fi and Bluetooth' of this article. In case you use a LAN connection, additionally make sure to disconnect your network cable.
- Disable the function AppNap globally. You will find several contents instructing on how to do this by performing a search in Google or other search engines.
- Reboot your computer before you start using your audio application.
- Do not open any other applications other than your audio application during your mixing / performance session. It is also adviced to keep your audio application in the foreground and in full-screen mode at all times during the length of your session.
- If possible, use only a Macbook model that offers a dedicated USB port. Read the chapter 'USB Connection' of this article in order to learn how to identify suitable USB ports.
Restoring the CoreAudio Driver
Should you experience the aforementioned audio performance problems during the operation of one of our products, resetting the CoreAudio driver may improve the issue:
- Go to your NI application's audio settings (for Traktor users this is the Audio Setup menu in the Preferences) and move the Latency slider to another value, then restore it back to its original position.
- It is also possible to restore the audio signal by reconnecting the audio interface. However, this will cause the audio playback to switch automatically to the computer's internal soundcard and in some cases it may lead to a total shutdown of the application.