First second of playback consistently lost with USB audio interface

Audacity 3 Help Forum macOS
1

First second of playback always missing with M-Audio M-Track Eight (macOS)

I’m trying to work out if this is a bug or if anyone else has seen the same thing.

I’m on a 2013 Mac Pro (“trashcan”) running Monterey with Audacity 3.7.7, using an M-Audio M-Track Eight (class-compliant, no driver).

Every time I press Play, the playhead starts moving immediately and the output meters show audio straight away, but I don’t actually hear anything for about the first second. That first second of audio is just gone.

It happens no matter where I start playback from, and it happens every single time.

The strange thing is that if I switch Audacity to the Mac’s built-in output, playback is instant. The M-Track also works perfectly in Pro Tools and Ableton Live, so it doesn’t seem to be an interface or macOS issue.

I’ve already tried changing the buffer length, matching sample rates, and even routing through a Multi-Output Device with BlackHole, but none of that made any difference.

Has anyone else come across this with the M-Track Eight or another USB interface? Any ideas before I log it as a bug?

2

You are not going to like this answer. “That’s just the way it is.”

I back up a little bit before the part I want to hear.

3

With this soundcard in particular or do you mean this is the way it is with all USB soundcards…? I mean its instant playback on built-in.
Pro Tools, Ableton and Logic all playback instantly through the M-Audio as you would expect.

Thanks

4

I think it got worse when real-time effects were added, but correlation is not necessarily causation.