What should I check if I am experiencing audio problems with my Duende?

The majority of audio issues experienced with the Duende unit are due to the way the system uses the firewire bus. The Duende, like most other firewire processor units, requires a significant potion of the available firewire bandwidth to operate. This can cause problems on systems who have their bandwidth already limited by other devices.

The first thing to try if you are experiencing problems is to remove all other firewire devices from the computer, then test the Duende on its own (please use internal sound if your only audio I/O is firewire). If the Duende works you know that the problem is firewire bus related.

The best way of solving these issues is to use the Duende on a separate firewire bus. A separate bus will require a separate PCI firewire card and NOT just a separate port on the computer. On a Mac the front and back firewire ports are on the same bus and on a firewire card all the ports share the same bus.

Issues can also be caused by other PCI cards (such as the TC Powercore) and their slot order in the system. If you are still experiencing problems after installing the PCI card it may be worth experimenting with re-ordering the PCI cards.

Other things to consider are the audio application H/W settings. We recommend a H/W buffer of 1024 samples, 85% CPU usage and Level 2 playback buffer.

Currently on Intel Mac systems unsing Pro Tools LE, 2048 and 1024 buffer sizes are not supported. Please use a buffer size of 512 or below.

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