Dual laptop / dual RME setup - one laptop fine, the other stops communicating with sc
Hi all
I run 2 x Macbook Pros (15" early 2013 versions) side by side, into 2 separate RME Fireface UC units, to perform live. Both soundcard outputs are fed into a Radial SW8 and if the A laptop fails, in theory B is running at the same time and can take over the audio output.
Both laptops are the exact same spec, exact same Reaper version, RME drivers, plugins, projects (everything is mirrored from one to the other), so in theory there is no difference between the two.
At two separate shows this weekend the B laptop stopped talking to the soundcard properly as it would no longer start playback or trigger any samples. It had been working fine, then was not; no obvious reason for it, nothing had been moved or hit or unplugged or changed.
I use Reaper (and RME) because of its exceptional stability and reliability in a live environment so am slightly unnerved that this has happened after over a year of gigging. The only thing that seemed to get Reaper talking to the soundcard again - even though I could still see in the Audio I/O window that it thought it was connected, and the RME driver / Fireface Totalmix thing was still running - was doing a hard reset, which is not ideal when trying to run a live show.
Has anyone had experience of this? What could it be? If it were a driver issue I'd have thought I'd get it on both machines... I don't believe it's a hardware issue either as both units are in good condition and housed securely in a well-mounted rack, transported in a shockmounted case.
I'm going to replace all the USB cables in case it's as something as simple as that.. no power was lost at any point either.
tech specs:
Mac OS Sierra 10.12.5
Reaper v5.52 64 bit (I generally don't upgrade to the latest of anything while running a software / system combo I know to be stable, which was the case up until now)
RME Totalmix v1.4
|