Maschine MK2 > Soundflower > Traktor Issues

Hey all!

So as the title says I am running the Maschine software then routing it through and aggregate card using soundflower that uses:

• Soundflower (2in/2out)
• Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 (2in/4out)

I route the audio of of Maschine through the Soundflower Out and then in to Deck C in Traktor with the Soundflower In. I am on a MacBook Pro (mid-2012 13"//3rd Gen i5 Dual Core 2.5GHz//16GB 1600 MHz RAM//480GB SSD) and in the Audio/MIDI Setup Utility I have the virtual card and my 2i4 routed together with the 2i4 as the clock source and it's on 44.1KHz Sample rate.

In Maschine I have it sync'd to external clock source coming from the Traktor Virtual Out on a Generic MIDI device (the clock is stable so no worries there). I have my audio out as the aggregate device and I have it set for 44.1KHz with a 512 Sample Buffer and overall latency of 23.2ms.

In Traktor I have the very same settings with 11.6ms overall latency.

When I first set it up every session it runs great. Stable clock. Good audio. No worries. Then as I continue playing, at a random time interval I just suddenly lose audio and/or my main out gets WICKED crackly. No software crashes and the Maschine software is still sending audio, but nothing comes through to Traktor, and Traktor gets very crackly. However, if I move the sample slider in Traktor it all fixes and continues flawlessly for a bit then drops out.

Does anyone know what causes this? I can supply more information upon request and thanks in advance!

EDIT: I fixed the issue 5 posts in. Scroll down and read there.

Shameful-I-Really-Need-Help-Bump

Hello Professor Strangeman,

I ran exactly into the same problem as you while trying to sync my traktor with maschine using soundflower. While i cant certainly say what's the issue with the degrading, crackling sound, I believe it has to do with the sample rate in traktor and the (maybe?) different sample rate of some of the samples on the maschine pads.

I still have this problem from time to time, but far less since my maschine got its own audio interface, routing physically into the input of my s4 (and deck D live input). In your case you could go for an NI audio2 or, what i use, a behringer XENYX 302 USB or anything similar. Syncing the midiclock is done through the IAC in my case, virtual.

Before, the degrading of sound started after a couple of minutes - now i can play a full 6 hour set without the crackling maschine. BUT - once in a while it starts again, and i can't narrow down what exactly causes it - and only a reboot can solve it :/ In this case i fire up my Back-up ipad on through my s4 and reboot quickly. I would be happy to eliminate these rare occurrences - But the sepereate audio-interface definitely helped a ton.

I hope this could your (permanent) solution :)

cheers

Thank you!!! That could certainly be it!! As much as I want to fix the problem I'm not really able to plug in another sound card. :/

Anyone else that does this maybe have a software solution???

UPDATE: So I fixed it, and here's how. After reading clockwise's response I stewed for a while about how to work another sound box into my setup. Sometime later, like an IDIOT I recalled that I use a damned K2 as my mixer, WHICH HAS A SOUND CARD. So I jump into action (after oversleeping by like 4 hours today.) and start running cables. I ran the RCA's out of the back of the K2 in to ONE input on my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 and hey presto! A bit of routing and we have sound.. really odd distorted sound. After playing for a bit battling with Gain, Line/Mic settings, Db Pads, I finally got it. Basically the issue was the Right channel (RED) was distorting high freq's. Now I don't know why, and I don't really care seeing as I'm running Mono Audio to Traktor ANYWAY. So I unplug red and hey presto again! It works! So my audio routing went from this:

Maschine > Soundflower Out > Soundflower In > Traktor Deck C In > Traktor Main/Monitor Out

Now it is:

Maschine > K2 (LEFT) Out > Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 In 2 > Traktor Deck C In > Traktor Main Out

and I am still using a virtual MIDI loop between Maschine and Traktor and that works wonderfully! Thank you very much to Clockwise! :D

in my experiences with routing masch & traktor, i found the sound quality of soundflower it be soooooo terrible. it crackled, dropped out, didn't work. jack osx works fine tho. and the osx IAC driver is much more reliable for virtual midi clock than that traktor virtual out.

glad you found an alternate solution :)

I'll check out Jack OSX! And IAC was giving me some issues that I remedied with the Traktor Virtual Out.

I am VERY pleased too. Just in time for my next show.

I'm glad I could help :) Seems like you didn't saw the forest for the trees, concerning your K2 with an excellent soundcard oboard :D

Your problem with the red channel is strange,maybe a hardware defect? But if it doesn't matter - it doesn't matter ;)

For me jack & Traktor virtual out were far to unreliable, IAC works best for me - i guess this is specific for the system it runs on.

How do you like your DJ/Maschine - Combo so far? ;)

Could be! But it all worked out! I may switch back to IAC so I have one less MIDI device flying around Traktor.

It is wonderful!! Really keeps the funk moving when I can just add in little percussion things to breakdowns and transitions!