Logic devs: you have a safety problem

Its been a year or two since it happened to me, but what I can say is that when it happened I didn't have a lot of stuff happening....I think it was a particular release of LogicPro that gave me problems, don't remember which now. For a while there I thought it was being caused by VePro, but then it happened later when VePro wasn't in the picture. There are a lot of theories on the internet about what could be causing this, but frankly nobody really knows. I personally think its just some kind of software glitch related to the audio buffer...that might come up under some situation...that nobody has been able to exactly pinpoint. It does happen. There are enough people complaining all over the internet about it. Near as I can tell, it affects some other DAW's too, but truthfully I did see it mentioned more about LogicPro, FWIW.

Could be a bad plugin player...sure. Could be bugs in LogicPro DSP handling that allows a junky audio buffer to get out...sure. Could be audio drive related...sure. Could be hardware related...ok...sure...that one I think least likely because too many people have experienced it and software SHOULD be smart enough to detect that problem and not allow it to blow our speakers. but ok...sure... Could be VePro over network...sure.. still comes down to the audio buffer getting filled with junk by some component... it is an impossibility of any of us to know who the guilty player is that is filling the audio buffer with junky data, that sounds like a cardiac arrest waiting to happen. Theorize all you want, but the truth is...there is no way for us to know how or why its happening...and the situations that have been mentioned about it happening all over the internet have been quite varied.

If you use ice9 or SigMod you will stop it from hitting your ears. After having it happen to me a dozen times in a week, I will not start a project without ice9 in the master bus. And I will be doing that for any and all DAW's I happen to be working with...not just LogicPro. You only that to happen to you twice to know we better use our own intelligence to protect our ears and our heart muscle because whatever the reason...it can happen.... if it hasn't happened to you yet, you're lucky..hope it never does...

by the way, the only way the fuse works is by making sure that all the rest of your project is keeping the levels under 0db. If you routinely set your audio and instrument levels to something less than 0db always...then its simply a matter of ice9 detecting +2db and it does it cuts off the audio before it gets to the speaker. It cuts off everything else too! If it happens a lot, then you need to start troubleshooting to see if you can isolate the guilty party that is causing it to happen... I've never been able to find any particular guilty party myself....but its still worth the effort. In any case, ice9 absolutely blocks the bad audio buffer full of junk from destroying your speakers and your soul.

Feedback loops are something else entirely...

by the way, the only way the fuse works is by making sure that all the rest of your project is keeping the levels under 0db. If you routinely set your audio and instrument levels to something less than 0db always...then its simply a matter of ice9 detecting +2db and it does it cuts off the audio before it gets to the speaker. It cuts off everything else too! If it happens a lot, then you need to start troubleshooting to see if you can isolate the guilty party that is causing it to happen... I've never been able to find any particular guilty party myself....but its still worth the effort. In any case, ice9 absolutely blocks the bad audio buffer full of junk from destroying your speakers and your soul.

 

Feedback loops are something else entirely...

So you think that Ice9 can save our souls? Well, quite a statement I thought that Jesus save souls, but now we have not only Jesus, but also Ice9 and SigMod!

Except sigmod does it for the money!

Good point.

How does a plugin break the audio engine? I don’t think that is possible. An audio plugin can edit the audio buffer. So a plugin may have generated the blast sound data but that would be one very dumb plugin if so. But possible sure.

I don’t fully understand your description of what you think logicpro or some plugin put into the audio buffer so I can’t comment but if it’s loud then why wouldn’t ice9 catch it? Maybe you needed to change Ice9 to a lower threshold?

At the moment these blasts from hell hit our speakers it’s pretty hard to say exactly what it is other then very loud static noise. In my mind that means random data in the buffer or data that is not actual audio…some other non audio data got into the audio buffer.

Ps if you experiencing something similar but you can hear a tone in it, a specific frequency such as from feedback or other known audio properties, that is not actually “the blast from hell” that some have been reporting. Seperate problem.

Still ice9 will cut off the audio if it exceeds a certain threshold of db so I would think those kinds of scenarios could also be possibly blocked by ice9 theoretically but mainly the reason it works for the blast from hell is because the non audio random static noise is very loud and trips the wire easily whereas feedback can be annoying well before hitting 0db, for example

Hey all,

Me and my partner have both experienced similar problems when working in Logic Pro X. We both use RME interfaces that have "hot" outputs as well, which made the noise bursts (700+ dB in the red on the Logic master output!) even more excruciating.

After looking for a solution and finding the Ice9 on this forum (thanks for that!), I seem to have found a solution that seems to be working really well for now. When you put Ice9 at the end of the Logic signal chain, you still risk the extreme noise somehow happening post plugins, bypassing the Ice9 and defeating the purpose. Although, within a systemwide audio control plugin like the Rogue Amoeba 'SoundSource' it is now possible to add AU/VST plugins into your systemwide audio. I have now set up my output from Logic Pro X through the SoundSource audio controller and I've put the Ice9 fuse on there, as well as on the general system output.

I have just tested it by first clipping the master output in logic and I'm happy to report the Ice9 works! It shuts down immediately. After that I wanted to go a bit more extreme by putting 100+ gain plugins in Logic to achieve 670db of clipping on the master output, and it still works. It shuts down the output coming in from Logic. I now think that this could actually be used in a safe manner, potentially in conjunction with the Ice9 loaded on the Logic master output. I feel that a systemwide Ice9 has been the thing I had been looking for for so long because I was always worried for the noise to bypass any limiters or the Ice9 in the Logic output chain itself. The only thing I yet have to discover is whether or not the SoundSource audio controller does anything to the audio in terms of bit-depth or quality. I don't think it does any harm to the signal so far.

I hope this will help some of you as well.

Here's to no more noise death waves (hopefully)

Thankyou @Dewdman42 for bringing to our notice Ice9. I've never had the misfortune to experience such an assault on the ears and I never want to. Now installed on my system. I've just left it on its default setting. Is there anything else I need to do?

So greatful for this little plugin .

Noise blast from hell hasn't happened here since maybe a year ago, but I keep Ice9 Automute plugin on my master. I don't use lots of 3rd party plugins, so I was able to trouble shoot easily. I never could pin it down; it was so random.

I also use Studio One, they have the same issue going on over there. Go check out the Reaper, Protools, Cubase forums, they also have the noise blast troubles. Not just a Logic problem, so what the heck is going on?

Is there a System-wide software of something similar to Ice9? A software that mutes the signal if it's louder than a set threshold, no dynamics processing so would be extremely low on CPU.

No, unfortunately there's no such thing on the Mac.