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A12 Bionic and audio Glitches on 8th gen iPad
Recently bought a 2020 8th gen iPad (with A12 Bionic chip) for music production to replace my now ancient 4th gen.
Having audio glitches on audio apps (my workflow is AUM based). On iPadOS 14.4 now.
Searching through the forum, I became aware of the A12 glitches - when processor change from the low performance cores to the high performance cores during heavy DSP activity. Some times with just a momentary audio glitch (lasting 10 seconds, during the transition states) and sometimes freezing the whole iPad requiring a forced shutdown. But, as mentioned on those forum posts, if I managed to keep the iPad running and maintaining the high CPU usage on the high power cores, the iPad keep working with no problems. But as soon the CPU and DSP activity drops, the processor switch to the low power cores, and with another high DSP usage moment, switches itself to the high power cores and the glitch happens again…. So, always trying to sustain high CPU and DSP usage to stay on high power cores (adding high CPU usage AUv3 plugins) but this is not always possible…. A very well know behavior with A12 chips….
But some members reported that it was fixed on iOS 12 and iPadOS 13. But it seems that, if fixed, it was only on iPad Pro, Air and Mini with A12 and variants and the new iPad 8 was forgotten - launched with an old bug.
The bug happen for me on any music software, on any sample rate (tested 44,100 and 48kHz), on any buffer size, with audio interfaces or headphones. And on iPadOS 14.3 and 14.4.
Is anyone having this issues on this iPad 2020 8th gen? I am now very frustrated with this and considering selling this iPad with only a month of usage.(I am from Brazil and no return policies here…..).
Thanks!
Comments
Does the issue occur with all peripheral devices disconnected?
Yes.... on internal speakers too.
got 8gen few weeks after my ipad pro 2017 died and i can confirm more crackles like before. its weird but most stable i am on 96khz/512buffer(aum) ... brought it because all my interfaces are lightning friendly but deffinitelly thinking about make a move
Anybody experiences this on an iPad Pro?
That’s definitely weird. I have so far no problems with my 8gen(128gb) ipad. Im using Aum, Bm3, NS2 and Cubasis 3. Also using Sugarbytes apps, Zeeon, FRMS ect.
Only if i use a few of the heavy ones my cpu spikes get high. And i doesn’t changed any audio settings.
Could it be maybe that you’re low on storage?
I had a friend who had an ipad with 32gb and as soon as the storage got low the performance dropped a lot. He deleted a few apps and the performance was at normal performance.
Just an idea im no expert lol
got 128 too so its weird
but it is happening and i can imagine somebody not
only use a few instances in aum but lot of love via midi from octatrack. Crackles are incoming especially when i change pattern from octa or channge preset in ios synt/ effect( on pro 2017 cant remember when this happen) but its not big deal glitching , i kind a like it time to time
Have some news about this case:
After some tests, redoing all of my AUM templates from scratch (and at the same time forcing the CPU to oscillate between low and high power states with heavy CPU usage AUv3 plugins like Moog Model D and monitoring DSP usage inside AUM), inserting my Auv3 plugins one by one between the stress tests, I guess finally found one plugin that “apparently” was not behaving well on those power state switching, leading to audio glitches and freezes. Unfortunately it is one of my most used effects and one I really like – GlitchCore by Alex Matheu.
I really don't know if is something about the plugin itself or the combinations of GlitchCore and others apps on my templates on AUM, but trying to add a second instance of GlitchCore (I normally use 5 o 6, one of each audio channel on AUM) the glitch happens.
Other situation that caused audio glitches is with intense patches on Borderlands (with lots of granular nodes). It may be due to intense graphical interface drawing required by the app…. So, it seems that I will have to avoid patches with a lot of those nodes (more than 10)…
So maybe a good test for everyone having issues is to eliminate all the instances of an AUv3 plugin, and stressing the CPU power states in between, to see if audio glitches happen during those low to high power CPU cycles.
It seems now I am glitch free on 8th Gen iPad, but I will keep testing and investigating...
In some cases, I have heard people say that there were plugins with animation that can be useful to keep the high performance CPUs running. I sometimes have kept an instance of Atom 1open (and doing nothing but playing quarter notes being sent nowhere) with certain not-so-well-beahaved plugins.
I have tried this before but aways felt like walking on the edge of a knife: at any moment if CPU drop and the system switched to a low power cores ( even for a brief moment ) and returned again to the high power cores the glitch happened again..... makes the experience of making music on an iPad very frustrating - if I cannot trust the machine it is unusable. On a live situation, a gig, is unusable...
I know that even hardware synths can go wrong, but constant instability (like I was having with this 8th gen iPad) make them unsuitable for live use... and my musical work consists mainly of live improvisation... that’s why I was considering selling the iPad and buying somethig more reliable.
Never really checked if it worked, but I recall from around iOS12 that Dubstation (with AU UI left open) was used to force high performance. May worth a try.