Apogee Ensemble + Ableton 8 + Mac Lion = Weird Buffer result

[Mononic]

Hey guys. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong.

I am running a new mac mini server with Ableton Live 8.2.5 & an Apogee Ensemble with the new Maestro 2 drivers.

20 odd tracks @ 512 sample buffer plays almost perfectly, with a few random clicks and pops when I try to insert external effects. It is a reasonably Plugin heavy mix with the CPU running at about 50%.

Increasing the buffer up to 1024 sample buffer results in totally unusable audio.
Increasing it further to 2048 sample buffer is just a joke. It sounds more like a bit crushed fart than my session.
Decreasing it to 256 results in more pops and clicks than 512... as you would expect.


What am I doing wrong? Why does increasing the buffer work contrary to how I would have expected it to (ie - cleaner audio with less clicks and pops).

Another thing I have noticed is, I spend hours setting latency on the external audio effect plugin based on the the buffer size and sample rate... saving presets for everything, then randomly half way through mixing a session every external effect slide about 40 samples out of sync again. Is the latency not a consistent value based on the sample rate and buffer size?

[Mononic]

In addition to this, the realtime audio mixdown/bounce won't work without drop outs... even with the CPU meter at 40%!!

Why is this happening??????

[Saber540]

Ok, the best trouble shooting solution for the Ensemble is to uninstall the drivers, disconnect the Ensemble firewire from your Mac Mini, then perform a reset on the Ensemble by pushing down the knob next to the power button as you reboot the Ensemble, after your Mac has restarted, shut it down and connecting the firewire back up boot up and install the drivers and follow the onscreen instructions, unfortunately the drivers for the Apogee stuff suck, thus the price for a high end audio interface. Good luck.