NI approach Mountain Lion with caution

July 25, 2012 By 19 Comments


In true lemming style, I’ve jumped headlong into the Mountain Lion abyss today, and have installed it onto my main iMac and mobile MacBook Air too. So far so good, but I’ve yet to do anything mission-critical. I feel I might be in for a few surprises when I plug in various lumps of  DJ hardware though. But Native Instruments have pre-empted my future rants with a compatibility update.

I didn’t report this previously, but the last round of MacBook Pro updates while gorgeous, did chuck a hefty spanner in the NI hardware works. Older audio interfaces stopped getting along with the new USB 3 ports, and 10.8 seems to be doing similar things too.

Read on for NI’s take on things:

MAC OS X COMPATIBILITY INFO

This page provides information about the compatibility of Native Instruments products with Mac OS X 10.8. It was last updated on July 25, 2012.

Audio interface compatibility

Native Instruments has conducted compatibility tests with its hardware products under OS X 10.8, connected to USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports of both recent and current-generation Mac computers. Some NI products are experiencing a degraded audio signal caused by USB driver issues present in Mac OS X 10.8. The same issues are also present under Mac OS X 10.7.4 on current-generation Macbooks with USB 3.0.

The following products have shown to be affected:

AUDIO 2 DJ / AUDIO 4 DJ / AUDIO 8 DJ
AUDIO KONTROL 1
GUITAR RIG MOBILE
GUITAR RIG SESSION
KORE 1
RIG KONTROL 2 / RIG KONTROL 3
TRAKTOR AUDIO 2
TRAKTOR KONTROL S4

The following products have shown to be unaffected:

KOMPLETE AUDIO 6
MASCHINE / MASCHINE MIKRO
TRAKTOR AUDIO 6 / TRAKTOR AUDIO 10
TRAKTOR KONTROL S2

Native Instruments is currently in contact with Apple in order to find a solution. To address the issues in the meantime, Native Instruments is providing a set of beta drivers that circumvent the problem.

Further information and download files for these drivers can be found on our Drivers and Updates page.

I’ll be plugging stuff in tomorrow morning and will test. But I’m fairly confident that NI won’t be the only ones effected. As ever, caution is advised. If you depend on your DJ computer to just work and keep on working, keep the  Mountain Lion caged for a while.

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  • sinjintek

    it saddens me a bit to see how so many people are freaking out over this… obviously it’s not great news, but it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise to see compatibility issues arise with a new operating system.

    i’m interested to check out the new OS X, but for now i don’t suppose i’ll be able to see what all the USB 3.0 fuss is about since my old mac doesn’t feature this I/O type

    • vjakira

      to late for me i have installed mountain lion and bad very bad noise going out :(

  • vjakira

    today i just upgrade to mountain lion , and when i arrived to the club to work with my audio 8 , bad timing , the sound with lots of noises , i try all stuff i remember and no chance nothing work . please help me i need the mac ready to work saturday.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1412210322 Carlos Hernandez

    I said before and I say it again: “The latest and greatest always comes with a price”, and that price is always compatibility issues! Be careful and wait until Software/Hardware companies ( and Gizmo ) sort out all the bugs first, and then, enjoy the passage into the promise land!
    I already upgrade to Lion myself, but I loaded it on my 2010 MacBook Pro. I have no USB 3 ports on my maschine, hence I haven’t had any issues so far ( knock on wood! ). But if the stability of your maschine if imperative, I will recommend to wait a little for the compatibility fog to clear.
    Other than USB 3 issues ( which I don’t have ) everything else seems to be running faster and smoother.
    Oh yeah, I forgot, battery issues are also being reported ( which also doesn’t apply to me, or any other dj for that matter, since 99% of djs play chained to their power adapters ).
    In my opinion, so far, so good.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1412210322 Carlos Hernandez

    Hey Gizmo, it seems to me that the Title this article is not really being correctly illustrated by the photograph. It seems to me that, according to the photograph, Native Instruments is running ( away ) for its Life, instead of cautiously approaching [The] Mountain Lion.
    In my humble personal opinion, this photograph is not the most fitting illustration for this article, or at least this article title. It just seems contradictory.

    • http://www.djworx.com Mark Settle

      You try finding a picture of an actual mountain lion troubleshooting his Audio8 and MacBook Pro setup.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1412210322 Carlos Hernandez

        Oh Pleeeeeaaaase!!!!! You know you could have photoshop something better! You know ( and any graphic designer for that matter, or common sense will dictate ) that the picture contradicts the title.
        “NI approach Mountain Lion with caution”=Title
        NI ( rabbit ) running away from Mountain Lion= Photograph. There is no approaching in this picture, and there is no caution either. Wrong picture for the title!
        It’s just Constructive Criticism. Don’t get mad at me if you didn’t expend enough time finding or photoshoping the right illustration for the Title. I love the website, I love the articles, I love the community, but a little criticism once in a while doesn’t hurt anybody… or does it?
        If you need a picture of mountain Lion troubleshooting and Audio8 and MacBook Pro setup, I can probably photoshop something for you if need it. I am always willing to help! Cheers!

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1412210322 Carlos Hernandez

        Oh look what I found! A Mountain Lion trouble shooting an Audio 8 on his MacBook Pro setup!
        http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=28612&d=1343321999

        • http://www.djworx.com Mark Settle

          Isn’t a lemming installing Mountain Lion onto a MacBook Air enough animal based photoshoppery for one week? I’ve already moved onto the next article and review, more gainfully using my time to bring quality content.

          • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1412210322 Carlos Hernandez

            Good for you! I hope to see more appropriate article illustrations in the near future! Keep up the good work!

  • DJ Jdub

    I purchased a brand new nonretina macbook pro and let me tell you I am so dissapointed with traktor that I have yet to use it at any of my gigs. I changed to traktor last summer, bought an audio 10, 2 X1s, and 2 denon SC2000′s, and am presently using my old set up of an SL1 (2decks no efx so shitty) because it sounds better…

    Tell me how only after I get the computer I figure out that they screwed up the usb drivers, the keylock sounds like absolute crap in 2.5, and it is unstable.

    Since the latest patch, 2.5.1, I can report that the deterioration of sound from the key lock has been deminished by 85% but it still hinders audio quality and resulted in massive spikes in cpu use. Just to repeat myself, this is on one of the most powerful laptops available that it is struggling… I have it set up properly, routed through a DJM 800, and all of the inputs/outputs etc have been checked to ensure 100% functionality.

    I have come to the conclusion that, with regards to traktor, don’t ever update until they work out the kinks. Once you get it running stabily, keep it that way. Pre-2.5 with the sample decks ran flawlessly, sounded amazing, and was perfect on my 6 year old black macbook.

    If you upgraded, I have found that the best quality sound was just to run it normally with no keylock, which took care of the CPU usage spikes and audio quality issues.

  • http://twitter.com/djerikt DJ Erik Thoresen

    Seems great that an acknowledgement and beta driver are ready 1 day after a new OS. Avid didn’t even mention Leopard for months after its release, and wasnt ready for several months later. NI is doing their customers right. My 2009 MBP, OS 10.8, TP 2.5.1, & TA6 ran fine last night at the bar.

    • DJ Jdub

      Seems rushed though as 100% functionality isn’t there… I say dont release something till its perfect as we are performers and stability is more important then new features any day

      ive tested it now on my non retina and a retina, both had issues…

  • https://www.google.com/profiles/102464862545895828316 Serjoka

    I will update to Mountain Lion when I’m sure that all of the issue will be addressed by NI. Moving from Snow Leopard to Lion was enough painful expecially when you have to perform live and something unexpected happens. So far so Good with Lion now. If your system run smoothly and with no issues, why would you jump into hell?

  • http://www.facebook.com/angelo.rassin DJ Angelo

    Unfortunately I experienced a lot of problems this weekend with my Retina MacBook pro combined with Traktor 2.5….

    Traktor crashed 4 times and I decided to continue my gig with an iPad 3 and the Denon SC2900&SC3900.
    Too bad I wasn’t up to date about this very frustrating error…… :-( (((

  • fullenglishpint

    I had major dropouts with my audio 8 and 2009 MBP but the beta driver appears to have fixed the issue.

    • http://djworx.com/ Mark Settle

      Yep. Just did it myself a couple of days ago. Immense latency and drops outs lasting 5 seconds. The beta drivers fixed it all.

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