Overbridge & Apple Silicon Audio Glitch (M1 Pro vs M3 Max)

Elektron Software Overbridge
#43

Thanks - the more info from various folks with an M1, the better. . I did another test last night with 2.3.9 and again, 5 minutes recording both DT and ST simultaneously in Live was crackle free (M1 Max, Sonoma).

I’ll give 2.7.3 a try today and report back.

EDIT: UPDATE
Ok, so I uninstalled 2.3.9, installed 2.7.3, rebooted, ran my 5-minute test again. With 2.7.3, the crackles (more accurately: periodic clicks/pops) were back. So then I uninstalled 2.7.3, reinstalled 2.3.9, rebooted, and ran the test again. 2.3.9 once again came up clean without issue and so for me, that’s what I’m rolling with. Ok, back to making some music. :slight_smile:

#44

There was a wider issue with those MacBooks in general where loads of people reported audio crackling from the integrated speakers just with general use.

People seemed to think the unified memory was causing it when under heavy load as it only happened when the Mac was above 50% RAM usage so it might be worth checking that in activity monitor.

For me it seems to come and go but I haven’t checked if I’m on 2.7.3 yet.

#45

UPDATE on the original post

Today I received the M3 Pro MacBook with Sonoma 14.1.1 and I had the Rytm running in standardalone with FW 1.70 and Overbridge 2.7.1. All the same cables and setup like the original post.

NO CRACKLING - FLAWLESS RECORDING

I think the issue is the M1 Pro chip in the Sonoma 14.1.1 environment

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#46

Yes that happened to me a lot and was very annoying. I think Ventura ended that issue for me though, since it has not happened since I installed it.

#47

Same for me. Seems to have been fixed with Ventura.

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#48

If I ever encounter this m1 pro issue is there a way to get an m3 at a discount if I have Apple care for my m1 and say it won’t function properly for what I’m trying to do?

Knowing Apple that’s probably not happening but I figured I’d ask just in case. So far though, my M1 Pro has been amazing. I’ll stay on Ventura.

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#49

Curious why you went from the M3 Pro over the Max? If I go to an M3 I want to make sure it’s a good chip that will work for me moving forward.

So far my M1 pro has been working really well but I was recording the DN last night and now and then I’d get a crackle. Made me think of this thread.

Also I ask because I am seeing that the M1Pro has more performance cores than the M3pro. That matters a lot when it comes to DAWs like Ableton that only use performance cores… Check this out:

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#50

I was about to post that video too, really intresting tests he had done. Seemingly cubase outperforms Abelton Live quiete a bit. About 25% more track count, because it can use efficiency cores.

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#51

Live beta testers should spam Ableton about this thing, the performance/efficiency cores are not new idea by any means and not exclusive to macs or silicon chips, it is a thing on intel as well, Ableton should utilize all cores possible, and they should do that in 12 as it’s probably going to span over the next 3 years. that means people will get newer, more expensive macs but performance will degrade.

I get it that Apple wants probably to reduce energy consumption by removing performance cores and provide better battery life, it’s not only them though, looking at intel i9-13900K for example, which has 8 performance and 16 efficiency cores, so the trend is not Apple’s alone, hardware wants to be more energy efficient in general, which is probably a good thing.
so software devs should really take that into consideration and adjust, if Live doesn’t utilize efficiency cores on mac, it probably doesn’t do it on pc as well.

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#52

Has anyone experienced crackling with a M1 chip (non-Pro/Max/Ultra)? I’ve noticed some crackling when using the Analog Heat VST over OB to record the master out from jams on my MacBook Air M1, played around with buffer sizes but still haven’t been able to get a clean recording out of it.

#53

This crackling and dropout issue you’re talking about are an Apple thing and not an Elektron or RME thing.

It seems to happen over anything usb or thunderbolt audio when a lot of memory is being used. Usually opening a lot of tabs in a browser can trigger it, or opening a cpu / memory intensive app like photoshop.

You’ll then poss hear dropouts and glitches in your audio even on your desktop with no daw open.

There’s countless threads around the internet documenting this, but no real solution anywhere.

I read a post where someone was getting crackling on a brand new m3 and a usb interface.

#54

I tend to disagree. I get flawless recordings every time of a Digitakt and Syntakt simultaneously on an M1 Max using OB 2.3.9 via standalone, Live, or Logic. Later versions of OB have clicks and pops. How is that not an Elektron thing?

#55

Do you mind sharing the 2.3.9 version link? I can’t seem to find it and was going nuts in the last few days with this same issue. Thanks!

#56

I think you are right. I was recording my Digitone with a browser open, who knows how many tabs and then more plugins slathered all over the project.

Whereas I recorded a full 5 minute track from my Digitakt into Overbridge standalone with zero issues.

So I think my problem was user error. Don’t give up on these M1 Pros so quickly folks - they are powerhouses for running a DAW and I would be surprised if Elektron can’t or won’t iron out any possible issues with them.

Also - stay on Ventura as long as possible. Much more mature OS for devs like Elektron.

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#58

@voidspacetime Here ya go: https://cdn.www.elektron.se/media/downloads/overbridge/Elektron_Overbridge_2.3.9.dmg

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Syntakt audio glitches over USB Audio
#59

@BassesAndPads Yeah, it’s odd. Besides mucking around with bleeps and bloops for fun, I play drums in a band and have 24-tracks of mic preamp recording capability where we rehearse via a MOTU 8M plus 2X 8-channel tube mic preamps light piped into it. I’ve multitracked the band rehearsals for an hour and a half straight a zillion times using this M1 MBP without issue. Even just a Digitakt and its 8 tracks crackles and pops with OB past 2.3.9 for me. Luckily, in my case, 2.3.9 works without issue to track both my Digitakt and Syntakt simultaneously. I was about to sell them before someone suggested 2.3.9 to me and to my surprise, fixed the issue. I hope Elektron fixes this - I thought about buying an AH+fx but it requires a newer version of OB which I know won’t work so I’ve given up on that idea for now…

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#60

Thanks a bunch mate!! Super curious if this fixes the issue. If that’s the case, then Elektron has to address this in a future update.

#61

Thanks for posting this. I am glad to have it just in case I need to roll back.

Not sure but does this work with the newest Digtione and Digitakt OS?

#62

I don’t have a Digitone, but I can confirm 2.3.9 works with the latest Digitakt and Syntakt firmware.

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#63

I can confirm on macOS Ventura 13.6.2 with M1 Max that this is a real issue: Overbridge 2.7.3 stutters occasionally with Analog Rytm MK2 1.70. Because of this firmware version, the old Overbridge 2.3.9 cannot be used.

Now, I happen to know a bit about the context here so let me share. Maybe an Elektron developer will see this. Long story short, this isn’t Elektron’s fault and probably Elektron can’t really fix it themselves. They need to contact Apple and complain that the new driver model is broken with a subset of Apple CPUs.

Apple requires new drivers to be implemented not as kernel extensions (aka “kexts”) like Overbridge 2.3.9 and older, but with so-called DriverKit. This moves audio processing from the kernel (very high priority) to user space (normal priority – fighting with other processes on the same system).

Some people are able to minimize the stuttering effect by disabling background processes, turning off networking, or issuing terminal commands like:

$ sudo renice -20 (pgrep Overbridge)

But the core of the issue is really that anything on the system that causes a temporary flurry of activity can cause audio buffer underruns, this includes plenty of periodic activity by the operating system like Spotlight indexing, iCloud synchronization, checks for software updates, and so on. You cannot harden your macOS enough to fix this yourself.

This isn’t an Elektron specific problem. Other companies making audio interfaces struggle with exactly the same issue:

The problems described in those threads are exactly the same as the Overbridge problem here. I personally witnessed the issue with all three vendors. M1 Pro and M1 Max computers can’t deliver glitch-free audio with DriverKit drivers. There is no problem with legacy kext drivers, those work flawlessly.

For my RME UFX II the workaround is to use an older driver, one that is still a kext, and isn’t based on DriverKit. I wish I could do the same with Overbridge but Rytm 1.70 doesn’t work with that.

If Elektron could release one last kext-based Overbridge that works with Rytm 1.70, that would be amazing. That would be a workaround for those of us who can’t easily switch computers in the foreseeable future.

Ultimately, I believe Elektron, RME, and MOTU should team up on this issue and reach out to Apple about an official solution. Clearly, the three companies have stellar software developers, it can’t be that they all failed to implement the driver correctly, right? There is an issue on the Apple end here.

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