Since first acquiring HW5, I have been testing my configuration (audio, midi, touch drivers, display adapters, etc.) on a 2018 i7 6-core MacBook Pro running Catalina. Everything was working fine, including a series of adapters to get from TB3 to Firewire 400 to drive an aging Echo Audiofire 12 audio interface. The latest published version of the Audiofire Console app (5.9.2) ran fine on this machine also.
I felt reasonably confident in moving everything to a newly acquired 2018 i7 64GB Mac mini. The mini and the MacBook Pro are very similar machines, except the mini has more Ram and more SSD and a little more processor speed.
First anomaly I observed after installing HW5 was a "tick" with a periodicity of about 3-4 sec. in the audio output using the St. Anne, and before upgrading the mini's memory to 64GB. The "tick" would sweep across the stereo sound field. Still present after upgrading RAM. I found that the Echo Audiofire Console would not run properly on the mini, even though both are running the same version of macOS, and even though it ran fine on the MacBook Pro. The mini is a dedicated HW machine — NO other apps, no wifi, I even shut down Spotlight, etc.
The other odd thing was that the HW "audio" indicator would go quickly to yellow and red with just a few stops drawn on the Zwolle, and would stay there long after releasing the keys. (No, I haven't pumped up the audio level beyond -10dB)
To make a long story short, it appears that the 2018 mini is simply not compatible with the Audiofire interface. It sees the interface, knows what it is, etc. Don't know why (or why it's different than the same vintage MacBook Pro), but it doesn't seem to be compatible. I reconfigured HW5 to play through the mini's headphone jack, and the "tick" was not present. So it isn't something inherent in some background process, or the mini itself.
I'm open to ideas … but it looks like a new interface is in my future. For clarity, I don't think this is a HW5 issue at all. HW5 has been running fine. It's some odd incompatibility between the Echo interface and the mini.
I felt reasonably confident in moving everything to a newly acquired 2018 i7 64GB Mac mini. The mini and the MacBook Pro are very similar machines, except the mini has more Ram and more SSD and a little more processor speed.
First anomaly I observed after installing HW5 was a "tick" with a periodicity of about 3-4 sec. in the audio output using the St. Anne, and before upgrading the mini's memory to 64GB. The "tick" would sweep across the stereo sound field. Still present after upgrading RAM. I found that the Echo Audiofire Console would not run properly on the mini, even though both are running the same version of macOS, and even though it ran fine on the MacBook Pro. The mini is a dedicated HW machine — NO other apps, no wifi, I even shut down Spotlight, etc.
The other odd thing was that the HW "audio" indicator would go quickly to yellow and red with just a few stops drawn on the Zwolle, and would stay there long after releasing the keys. (No, I haven't pumped up the audio level beyond -10dB)
To make a long story short, it appears that the 2018 mini is simply not compatible with the Audiofire interface. It sees the interface, knows what it is, etc. Don't know why (or why it's different than the same vintage MacBook Pro), but it doesn't seem to be compatible. I reconfigured HW5 to play through the mini's headphone jack, and the "tick" was not present. So it isn't something inherent in some background process, or the mini itself.
I'm open to ideas … but it looks like a new interface is in my future. For clarity, I don't think this is a HW5 issue at all. HW5 has been running fine. It's some odd incompatibility between the Echo interface and the mini.
Grant