CoreAudio + FireWire Solo - No more than 1024 buffer...?!

[pinnocio]

Hey there,

I seem to be having a very irritating problem with the CoreAudio drivers.
Since i'm mixing with my MacBook, I need a 2048 buffer and I don't have that option. First I thought it has something to do with my FireWire Solo but after bootcamping, I saw that with the ASIO drivers I CAN set it for 2048.

I run OSX 10.4.8 (with the latest Intel M-audio Drivers - (10.4.7).

I've tried installing (yes, it does sound stupid right now) the DIGI CoreAudio Driver v7.0 and as you can imagine, couldn't use it...

There has to be a way, it's unthinkable that I will be able to set a 2048 buffer on XP with ASIO and won't be able with the amzing Apple's Core Audio Driver.

Any suggestions?

Thanks alot,
Yoav

[AndyH]

So the Apple's specs result in audio problems? Or is it just that the larger 2048 k byte buffers are for doing some special thing?

[pinnocio]

First, thanks man, and no, I don't even have the option of 2048, that's the fu$%ed up thing, I can only choose up to 1024 AND what's scary is that when I put the ONBOARD Audio IN (Macbook's) as the audio device I could choose 2048. I'm realy lost here...

[AndyH]

What I tried to ask is "so what?" Is there something that won't work correctly with the buffer settings available?

Does the manufacturer advertise that the soundcard will work properly on your platform? If so, perhaps there is some other kind of adjustment that makes the larger buffer setting moot. In general, larger buffer settings are often not the path to solving recording problems. If the M-Audio guy here doesn't answer, perhaps you can get something by contacting M-Audio support on their website.

[David Muniz]

The question remains, why do you need to go to 2048 buffer?
Typically, we want to lower the buffer settings.

David

[pinnocio]

sorry guys, I guess I didn't realy see the question.

Well, my plan was to use my PC as a mixing station and a recording/synth rack station. But after sitting in my home (not my studio) and doing a small mix, I saw that my 1.83 Ghz Macbook can handle the job, and we all know that making the sample buffer higher gives us more CPU power, so basically, if I mix (ONLY) with 2048 I will have more "space" and CPU Power to handle the FX and plugins. That's why I want to set the buffer so high, and I can't.
(When I sequence or record Audio I usually between the 256-300 - something - buffer).

Now, what was weird to me as I said is that with the Asio drivers in XP (and using Sonar 5) I could set it to 2048, but with Logic Express 7.2.3 and the CoreAudio drivers, I couldn't... And since I love apple and M-audio, I don't beleieve it's not possible to do it...

[pinnocio]

oh and David, one more question please (which is most certainly not the important one), I shouldn' t have any problems installing the 10.4.7 driver on 10.4.8 right? Or should I always for you guys to get the latest drivers and then update the osx?

btw, I don't remember if i've included my audio interface so, i'm using a brand new FireWire Solo.

Cheers and thanks alot
Yoav

[AndyH]

we all know that making the sample buffer higher gives us more CPU power ????? always something to learn, I guess.

[pinnocio]

Andy, don't tell me you didn't know, dude, whenever you're maxing your cpu usage during a mix you should always set the Sample Buffer as high as you can - as long as you don't record anything (which includes both Audio and MIDI).
Saved me a lot of money on a new computer once...

Now, I never tried that when mixing to picture so I have no idea on the matter but still, it gives me enough power to complete a whole 32-4 channels mix on my 1.83 (and keeping me away from my PC).

[AndyH]

Looking up the subject in my program's documentation, I find

A greater buffer size will allow for increased multitasking while audio is being played, at the expense of taking more of your computer's memory.

I guess this is your point? Of course I may misunderstand something, but I guess I just never ran into this, probably because I don't do any multitasking in this circumstance. I subscribe to the ‘dedicated machine' philosophy because I get annoyed at problems. I just try to avoid them by not letting other things run when I don't want the chance of interference.

I'm not saying that other approaches aren't valid, only that this particular concern never arose for me.

[pinnocio]

hey Andy, my XP is optimized, I never run anything besides the Sequencer (although in mac it's different, I find myself actually wanting to open more stuff...), but still, when I mix and need more CPU, that's the best option and it shouldn't give you any trouble and if you have a fast CPU, you will never hear the word FREEZE (blah!) again. What I didn't know is the exchange with memory thingy, are you sure about that? Cause i've never seen a big change in the memory usage... Though it doesn't realy matter since i'm not loading anything to the RAM when I mix.

Sorry for doing this but what about my question? M-audio guys?

[AndyH]

I'm sure the documentation says this but I suppose something else might actually happen. However, the buffers have to be somewhere and RAM seems the only reasonable place. If disk were being used, why bother. The data is already on disk so it could not get any faster.

The 1024 setting is to reserve 1 meg of RAM, 2048 for 2 meg. You would have to peer closely to see the difference on a modern computer. I think mine has always been set at 8192 K, the install default for the program. Since I don't use Macs, I don't know about their software.