I have had ardour installed on my mac for a few years and have used it to track, but have finally decided/ had the time to produce a full (though small) session.
I am currently running the newest native OSX version of Ardour that is on the download page on OS X 10.4.11. I am mixing sound effects so I am using an aggregated device consisting of the build in MBP in / out with jackosx 0.82.
I am having a bizarre problem when adding several different plugins (including some of the ones recommended on the plugin page). Sometimes when I add a plugin the track meter reads high signal level even when the playhead is traveling over a section of track with no region on it at all, though I am not getting any high signal level at my headphones. Also when I stop or move the playhead I get a digital noise pop.
Hmm no ideas right off hand, I haven’t had that issue on 10.4 or even in the past couple of weeks in 10.5. Just for the sake of curiosity, what processor are you using, and what plugins are you using?
I suspect something in one or more of your plugins is causing this, but none of the reccomended plugins to my knowledge have issues if used correctly matching your description.
plugins sometimes act weird, including some of the recomended ones. what you described doesn’t seem to be an osx issue, time to time something similar happens on my debian setup as well. try adding the “dc offset remover” plugin to the suspicious tracks/busses (or to your master bus). some plugins tend to generate very low frequencies that can cause the level meters constantly show strange values even if there’s no input signal.
@tomas - thanks for the tip, I will try to remove the offset and see what happens.
@seablade - It has happened on several plugins before but this time I was using SWH: Triple Parametric with Shelves when it first began. As to my processor. I have an older (2 years) MBP core 2 duo 2.33Ghz machine running 10.4.11 with 3 GB of ram. This time I was using an aggregated device consisting of only the built-in onboard i/o as I was mixing down sound effects instead of tracking.