Mac REW versions 5.19 and 5.20 compatability with MH audio interfaces

[D. Tester]

On the Mac, most people who run software have now upgraded to Mojave 10.14 (if not yet Catalina, 10.15). The engineers at Metric Halo (MH) make excellent audio interfaces and write generally good/stable mac drivers. In their current interfaces, they have implemented audio over ethernet (as well as USB C) with their own driver. MH devices with their Mac software driver doing audio over ethernet worked with REW 5.19 on the last release of High Sierra (10.13.6). However, 5.20 beta versions of REW (at least starting in 2018) did not work on the same machine running 10.13.6 with the same MH hardware/software, i.e., when selecting to test levels from the preferences menu in REW 5.20, audio is seen being generated on the REW level meter, but audio no longer shows up in the MH software mixer window (as it did with REW 5.19).

Similarly, on Mojave's last release (10.14.6), the latest beta version of REW 5.20 has the same issue. The current version of REW 5.20 also displays a notification that the microphone cannot be accessed on the machine even though the audio input in REW is set to be the MH audio interface. Giving REW permission in the Mac system preferences to access the microphone does not prevent getting this notification. I have tried making the MH audio interface the default audio device in the Mac system preferences, and then for output selecting the default device (or the default audio device) in REW 5.20 preferences instead of directly selecting the MH driver. But none of these (3) selections in REW for an output device causes audio to show up iin the MH software mixer window with REW displaying output level in test mode. The above makes it seem like REW 5.20 does not see the MH audio interface at all for input or output.

Since REW 5.19 is listed to not run on Mac OS 10.14, then it seems I would need to revert back to running Mac OS 10.13. That would be difficult to do now as we finally had to uprgade from MacOS 10.13 to 10.14 to run current versions of other applications. So happy to learn if there are any workarounds to run some version of REW with MH drivers on Mac OS 10.14.6. I do have access to a machine running Mac OS 10.15 which I could try, but from the above I was not expecting REW 5.20 to work any differently running on 10.15 compared to 10.14.

 

[John Mulcahy]

The main change from 5.19 to 5.20 in REW for Mojave was just not to time out on the interface availability too quickly to allow time for the prompt allowing mic access to be acknowledged. There weren't any changes on the output side. I believe there may have been changes to the way audio drivers behaved for 10.14 and later, but that is outside of REW. REW should be able to access any interface that appears in the Audio Midi Setup app list. The way the interface is configured in Audio Midi Setup (channels & sample rate) might have an influence. There is a file that can be generated to list what interfaces and formats are available, the Generate Debug File button on REW's soundcard preferences will do that.

 

[120bpm]

Hi, I experienced the same issues with REQ V5.20 on Mojave – but only when working in 96K. Switching to 44.1kHz in both MH and REW solved it.

 

[numin audio works]

The main change from 5.19 to 5.20 in REW for Mojave was just not to time out on the interface availability too quickly to allow time for the prompt allowing mic access to be acknowledged. There weren't any changes on the output side. I believe there may have been changes to the way audio drivers behaved for 10.14 and later, but that is outside of REW. REW should be able to access any interface that appears in the Audio Midi Setup app list. The way the interface is configured in Audio Midi Setup (channels & sample rate) might have an influence. There is a file that can be generated to list what interfaces and formats are available, the Generate Debug File button on REW's soundcard preferences will do that.

Hi John,
I'm always looking. My mac 10.5.8 OS makes things very tricky, so I figured I'd just ask.
Can you suggest a REWish that will run on my 2008 macbook?

Btw. Love the work being done here.
Regards.

 

[John Mulcahy]

Been a long time since I used 10.5. There are builds for 10.4 - 10.6 on the History page of the site. The Apple Java runtime had pretty flaky audio support and could cause problems, sometimes only working at 44.1 kHz, for example.

 

[numin audio works]

Thankyou John,
I'll look to see what runs for me.

Doing live sound in the 90s, I used an ANSI class2 dynaudio RTA that could save 6 measurements and then combine them to an average.
Since 2006, coming to the northern hemisphere I've been catching up on computers.

I have to admit to longing for reel to reel machines often from a tone point of view, but then maybe it's easy to forget that set of problems.

Love the work.
Regards..