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Anyone using a Duet 3? Digital noise issue


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Hi all,

 

I bought an Apogee Duet 3 a few months ago and love the sound of it, it's a great unit and a long-overdue upgrade from the trusty old Apogee Duet Firewire I used for 12 years. Unfortunately I'm having some issues with random bursts of digital noise (a high pitched beep lasting 1-2 seconds) during music playback. I don't recall hearing it happen in Logic, but it has happened in Apple Music (streaming or playing files on disk), Spotify and YouTube during playback. It happens most often when using Adobe programs simultaneously, like After Effects or Photoshop, but this could just be coincidence too as I use them most for work while listening to music.

 

Has anyone else experienced this with their Duet 3? I've been going back and forth with Apogee Tech Support and they have been very helpful, but we still haven't managed to figure out what is causing the noise. It can happen any time but is infrequent, perhaps once or twice a week during near-constant use daily. I suspected it might be sample rate conflicts between audio programs, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

I've done some extensive troubleshooting with Apogee, deleting any old USB audio drivers and installing a new Duet 3 firmware update, reinstalling the Apogee Control software and more, but the problem persists. Hoping someone else may have had similar issues and solved it!

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What a bummer. Did Apogee offer to exchange the device for a new one?

 

1 or 2 second high pitch beep sound or noise? A beep sound is typical of a 3rd party plug-in in demo mode but you mention this happening outside of Logic so I suppose that's not the issue.

 

Sample rate mismatch is something you can double-check in Audio MIDI Setup and in any app that communicates directly with the Apogee driver (or the Core Audio driver).

 

In any case hope Apogee will sort you out, please do let us know what you find out? It could end up helping out others if they have the same issue.

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Thanks for your reply David, it sure is. Apogee are organising a replacement with the local distributor to rule out any hardware fault, as we've tried just about everything we can think of. Sample rate mismatch was one of my early theories, but doesn't seem to be the case as when I deliberately try to create a conflict it doesn't trigger the issue. The Duet integrates pretty tightly with Logic, so it automatically follows the sample rate set there when Logic is open.

 

No one else seems to have had this issue when I spoke to the local distributor, which is good news as it means a replacement unit should fix the issue. If by some chance there's something obscure in my system causing the glitch and it happens with a new unit I'm resigned to wiping the internal SSD and reinstalling everything from scratch, including the OS. This is a last resort, as I have a ton of applications and plugins that will need to be reinstalled! I figure if it comes to that I'll only install the stuff I use every day to start with, then gradually reinstall everything as I need it. I'll update this post and let you know how it all turns out!

 

I should add Apogee support have been very helpful, responding quickly and with great attention to detail, so I'm sure this will be resolved one way or another soon.

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Thanks for your reply David, it sure is. Apogee are organising a replacement with the local distributor to rule out any hardware fault

OK! Well it's great news at least that they are willing to do that.

 

If by some chance there's something obscure in my system causing the glitch and it happens with a new unit I'm resigned to wiping the internal SSD and reinstalling everything from scratch, including the OS. This is a last resort, as I have a ton of applications and plugins that will need to be reinstalled! I figure if it comes to that I'll only install the stuff I use every day to start with, then gradually reinstall everything as I need it. I'll update this post and let you know how it all turns out!

If you're going to go that route then I would suggest you purchase a cheap SSD such as a Samsung T5 and install MacOS and Logic from scratch on that SSD and do your tests there, leaving your current system untouched. That's great to perform tests and you can always use the drive for backups once you're done with your tests.

 

I should add Apogee support have been very helpful, responding quickly and with great attention to detail, so I'm sure this will be resolved one way or another soon.

That's truly great to hear. Please do update this thread with whatever happens so that we know how this ends for you! :D

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If you're going to go that route then I would suggest you purchase a cheap SSD such as a Samsung T5 and install MacOS and Logic from scratch on that SSD and do your tests there, leaving your current system untouched. That's great to perform tests and you can always use the drive for backups once you're done with your tests.

That's a great idea David, thanks! I'll try that if the same issues persist once I have a replacement unit and I'll be sure to update this thread when all is resolved.

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If/when you get the chance, I'd love to know the resolution here as well. I'd also love to hear your opinion about the Duet 3 aside from the problem you're having, because I'm very interested in buying it myself…

 

I should be receiving a replacement unit this week hopefully. The person I spoke to at the store seemed genuinely surprised there was an issue as they've apparently sold quite a few and no one else has reported any problems, so at this stage it seems it's a very rare fault. It's still possible that it's something in my system causing issues, which I'll find out for sure when I try out the replacement unit. I've been through all the potential software conflicts with Apogee support and it's still persisting, though seems to be happening less now, to further cloud the issue. I recently installed a new firmware update and the latest version of the Apogee Control software, and haven't had any issues in the last couple of days.

 

As far as the interface itself goes, I love it. The stereo imaging is an improvement on the Duet Firewire I was using previously, and that sounded really good. The clarity is also superior, you really hear every detail of a recording, so much so that I've picked up new small details in albums I've been listening to for years. It's been great fun revisiting some of my favourite albums and production references. The low end is also tighter and punchier than on the Duet Firewire, it seems better defined. There also seems to be more detail in the mid and high frequencies, which I've noticed on delay and reverb effects in particular, and on amp sims. It makes it much easier to hear what those types of effects are actually doing to the source when mixing, and also makes it a real pleasure to listen to effect heavy albums just for enjoyment. One of my favourite recent soundtracks is Blade Runner 2049, and it sounds AMAZING through the Duet 3.

 

I use my Duet 3 for roughly ten to twelve hours every day, for listening to music or podcasts while I'm working on graphic design projects and for recording and mixing in my spare time. The recording features plus the built-in DSP Symphony ECS Channel Strip are great, everything sounds really good tracked with the FX printed as I record and there's plenty of scope to adjust the EQ, compression and drive, with starting presets for various instruments and so on. The built-in effects are optional, you don't have to use them, but I like the way they can colour the sound and control the signal. The Duet 3 also has soft limiting for recording. There's plenty of gain available for instruments and mics, and you can adjust the Duet's recording input levels directly in Logic Pro. You can record or playback at anywhere from 44.1kHz to 192kHz. You can check your mixes in mono easily with the click of a button in the Apogee Control software, and also dim the monitoring level by an adjustable amount. It's also easy to setup direct monitoring or software monitoring.

 

The Apogee Control software is easy to use and I've had no issues with anything else other than this random noise, which has been relatively rare. I'm very happy with the Duet 3 otherwise and looking forward to receiving a replacement unit so I can get back to just focusing on the great sound!

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I won't quote you on all that (save some vertical space here), but that's all pretty amazing to hear! I had the Duet FireWire as well, and only left it behind when I upgraded to my 16" MacBook Pro—by that time, I also owned a Scarlett 2i4 (gen1!) for field use, and that was obviously easier to connect to this computer, so that's what I brought with me to grad school. My first monitors were Mackie MR5s, and when my family shipped them to me here, unfortunately one of the speakers got damaged. The local authorized repair place didn't have a good enough answer for me as far as costs go, so I elected to upgrade to the MR624s. I'm really very sweet on the idea of just getting the new versions of the gear I had already been using for ages, so I'm happy to hear all the new features in the Duet are being well-received by you. The only thing that would sway me elsewhere is if it turns out to be true that we get a substantial discount or free bundle of plug-ins through the school's songwriting program (I'm studying screen scoring) when we buy a UA interface. Waiting to hear back about that, but if that's a no, I think I'm pretty sold on a new Duet!

 

Hope the replacement unit solves the issue for you, and sorry to hijack the thread and be of little service troubleshooting!

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No problem, if you do end up getting a Duet 3 let me know what you think once you've used it for a while. For monitoring I'm still using a pair of Mackie MR8s, still going strong after 12 years! Bought a matching Mackie sub a few years back as it handles the lows better.

I did consider a UA interface too, but familiarity with Apogee and the new Duet won me over in the end!

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  • 1 month later...

That's truly great to hear. Please do update this thread with whatever happens so that we know how this ends for you! :D

 

I ended up receiving a replacement unit from the local retailer, a straight swap over for a new Duet 3 on the spot after arranging it with help from Apogee support in the US, which was a lot better than waiting 4-6 weeks for a repair assessment. I'm happy to say there have been no more issues after two weeks of constant use listening, recording and mixing, so it seems it was just bad luck getting a very rare faulty unit! Everything sounds awesome now and the Duet 3 is working very smoothly!

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  • 2 months later...

Hi Everybody!

I've just bought an Apogge Duet3 for about 4-5 weeks. Actually i bought it in new condition but it's a used one. After using for 2-3 weeks for recording, mixing, listening to music ( and i loved it) it started to doing the same problem. On top of that the digital noise beeps are became longer than 1-2 seconds after another week. Now most of the cases i have to open the Apogee Control panel and change the sample rate to another than set back to default, but this solution is just temporary. The problem comes back after a few minutes. And yes, it used to do this before the firmware update and it still does after i made the firmware update. I use the device with Cubase 11 on Windows 11. A Dell inspirion 3593 with 10th gen. i7 proccessor. Although i dont have the bill because i bought it used, i registered the product on Apogee's website. Is it enough to claim a new device from the company or not? If anybody has experience with this kind of situations, or knows how to solve the digital beep problem, please let me know. I would be greatfull. Thanks!

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