# Is There A Preferred External USB Preamp for Mac (OS X Lion)



## InfernoSTi (Oct 31, 2010)

I am having trouble getting my M-Audio Mobile Pre USB to have an input signal on my Macbook Pro. 

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/rew-forum/48491-no-inputs-showing-rew-osx.html



InfernoSTi said:


> I've just set mine up with M-audio mobile pre and have the same issue. I have signal going from REW (I can hear/adjust via REW), I have signal from my mic (I can "test 1-2" and hear and see signal and clip indicated). But I can't get the signal back into the Macbook Pro as input to allow testing. Suggestions on where to start?
> 
> John


If I can't find a solution (having just read that this may be partially a hardware issue, perhaps), is there an inexpensive USB pre that is know to work with a Mac? 

Thanks a lot for your help....

John


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

The following doesn't really address your question / but I thought I should mention these thoughts .

This last winter , I had a new Mbox (G3) Mini working properly ( with REW ) on a Mac Mini ( which was a fall 2010 vintage ) running 10.6.4 .

OTOH, recently( within the last month ) there was a poster who wasn't able to get the very simplistic Behringer UCA-202 working ( he had the same issue , no soundcard input was seen by REW ) . 
- That's fairly bizarre and inexplicable considering the UCA-202 uses generic USB drivers .

FWIW, my impression is that compatibilty ( between REW & the Mac OS ) has gotten worse over the last 12 months . I may be wrong / but that's my impression . 

Perhaps the success storys just don't get reported here , while only those with problems log-on and commit their experience to posterity .
- ( & therefore skewing the true stats, :dontknow: :scratch: )

<. EarlK


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## jlird808 (Nov 2, 2010)

Shouldnt any USB or Firewire preamp/interface work with a mac? I didn't really think they were preamps exclusive to PC or MAc


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

> Shouldnt any USB or Firewire preamp/interface work with a mac? I didn't really think they were preamps exclusive to PC or MAc



The issue here is whether or not they ( the interfaces ) work properly with REW .

The sad reality is that the list seems to be growing larger ( not smaller ) of interfaces that won't work properly with REW ( when those soundcards are used with the Mac OS ) .

<> EarlK


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

More specifically, Apple's JavaSound implementation has some bugs that cause the problems. For Firewire interfaces it does not make the inputs available (outputs can be accessed OK) and for USB interfaces with more than two channels the inputs are not available, again outputs can be accessed OK. Apple no longer support Java on OS X, Oracle are supposed to take that over at some point.


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

Does the Yamaha Audiogram 6 work?


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

> Does the Yamaha Audiogram 6 work?


 ( with REW on a Mac ) 

- No Not Likely, since this card has 6 inputs .

<> EarlK


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

But it can also be used with the Apple USB driver.

Or does Java have problems with the standard USB audio driver?


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

Java applications use the JavaSound classes to access audio devices. JavaSound doesn't know how the devices are physically connected, that interfacing is handled by the Java Runtime Environment for the platform. In the OS X case Apple have provided limited, buggy support for JavaSound, which is broken for Firewire-connected device inputs and USB-connected devices with more than one pair of inputs. 

The built-in audio interfaces on OS X generally work OK, so if you have a mic pre that produces a line level output you could connect that to the Macbook Pro's line in.


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

Well, the AUDIOGRAM6 only sends the stereo mix.


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

> Well, the AUDIOGRAM6 only sends the stereo mix .


- The problem ( as explained above by JohnM ) is on the input-side of JAVA/Mac ( not the output-side ) .
- Pay attention to the following underlined text .



JohnM said:


> snip,,,,In the OS X case Apple have provided limited, buggy support for JavaSound, which is broken for Firewire-connected device inputs and _ *USB-connected devices with more than one pair of inputs*_.,,,,, snip


- The AUDIOGRAM6" has 6 inputs / therefore it won't work with REW running on a MAC ( no input to REW ). 


<> EarlK "

PS ; Buy the card // just be prepared to use it with a PC so that REW will "see/initialize" both input & output data streams .


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

The AUDIOGRAM6 has 6 analog inputs and outputs only the stereo mix to the Mac USB input.

It is not really an audio interface, but a minimal analog mixer with USB.


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

> The AUDIOGRAM6 has 6 analog inputs and outputs only the stereo mix to the Mac USB input.
> 
> It is not really an audio interface, but a minimal analog mixer with USB.


Ahhhh , Okay ! ( My Mistake )

If it's only outputting a stereo digital stream ( of inputs ), then REW has a better chance of "seeing" it show up in its' preferences window ( on a Mac ) .

That said, there's no guarantee that it'll work // it's just that the odds are much much higher that it will .

If I was Mac Based, I think I'd wait for the USB line of Behringer small mixers to hit the market, before jumping into buying this Yamaha . Release dates are just a month or two away . More people will buy them than the Yammies / therefore there will be a quicker groundswell of user reports about their viability .

<.EarlK


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

The 302USB does not have compressors or Hi Z switch, and it has only one mic/(instrument) channel.

The ones that have compressors are too big.

The only reason I'm looking at the Yamaha is because it is small and has compressors. Forget about EQ, it does not even have PAN.

The H4n has digital compressor, and maybe it would work in stereo mode, but I think the 3.5mm input cannot take a line level signal directly. It is nice, but also much more expensive.

I looked around a lot, and I haven't been able to find something that fits my needs.


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## InfernoSTi (Oct 31, 2010)

I gave up trying to get the sound card to work on my Mac so as a workaround, I updated my Parallels for Mac to 6.0 so it would run Lion and loaded REW for Windows XP and it worked fine for input/output. If I had to buy Windows, I would have used Windows 7 but I had a copy of XP laying around.

Now I just have to learn how to use REW correctly.... :whistling:

John


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

I am thinking of getting the more expensive Yamaha MW8CX because the medium sized Xenyx do not have high impedance inputs and the AUDIOGRAM seems too bare.


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

Seeing that an Alesis Multimix 8 USB FX is about the price of a medium Xenyx, and can send multiple tracks to the computer (but has no compressor), those others seem quite unattractive.

I think I'll finally get the Behringer MIC200 I was thinking about at the beginning, and connect it to my Creative X-Fi interface.


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

The MW8CX does not have Hi Z. I don't know where I was looking.


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

spinnaker said:


> ,,,,,snip,,,,and connect it to my *Creative X-Fi interface*.


I have to assume that this means your computers operating system is * not OSX Lion *.

That then begs the question ; 

Why are you posting your "search & discovery" blog ( about you choosing a sound card ) within this thread ?

Doing so , only serves to further muddy the waters ( on an already murky topic ) about what is a viable sound-card, that will work with the Mac OS (& REW) .

<> EarlK


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

Was the Lion part always there? I didn't see it.

I don't think Lion has any newer Java.

I didn't say any of the interfaces did or didn't work. I am only looking for stereo ones.

Anybody still on Snow Leopard looking for a Mac interface should make sure it also works on Lion.


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

Where does it say the Xmod does not work with Lion?


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

> Where does it say the Xmod does not work with Lion?



Here ;  *Sound Blaster X-Fi .* 

> To the best of my knowledge, Creative doesn't make any soundcard that's Mac compatible .


<> EarlK


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

The Xmod has always supported Mac. I have it on my PPC and Intel machines since 2007 (but never for input, and I have only upgraded upto Snow Leopard)


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

> The Xmod has always supported Mac. I have it on my PPC and Intel machines since 2007 (but never for input, and I have only upgraded upto Snow Leopard)


> That's quite interesting . That would seem to be an undocumented ,"success of usage" .

> Anyways, when it comes to choosing a new soundcard ( that'll work with REW ) pay close attention to what JohnM ( REWs author ) has said ( earlier in this thread ) about what card types will not work with REW, when it's running on a Mac ( ie; FireWire & Multi-Input types, don't work ) .

<> cheers


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

The Xmod is an official Mac interface. There's even a firmware updater for it (but it crashes under Snow Leopard, I have to try it under Leopard PPC).


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

The Xmod firmware updater also crashes on startup on Leopard PPC.

It's a 2007 program I didn't know existed.


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## spinnaker (Aug 6, 2011)

It's a 10.4 Tiger program.


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