Last time ever? (Mavericks 10.9.4 and 11r)

As some of you know (thanks for the help btw!) I recently bought a new iMac to start making some serious music with. Found out that my "trusty" 11r could not be recognised in Mavericks osx 10.9.4 (the osx that came with the mac!). My surprise was not only that pro tools 10 was no longer supported and I was being FORCED to spend some 500 bucks on PT11 but the 11r was no longer functioning as an audio interface! not even in Garage Band!! This one was the last straw as far as Avid are concerned. I will not buy or support any of their products as I feel that AT LEAST I was entitled to use it as an interface. (was lucky I had my old broken laptop as if I had not loaded it into the old PT8 I would have also said goodbye to it as an amp simulator - it just stopped working!)

Now my options are to either sell the eleven rack and work with something else or since I love the tones on it so much I would have to buy ANOTHER interface AND another DAW (might ending up using garageband after all!)

ranting aside, my question is this; Does the 11r work well with another interface? and is it somewhat possible to preserve the functionality of recording a wet and dry track into whatever DAW i might end up using? also, can you please suggest a good audio interface and last but not least - can you suggest a not so expensive DAW that works well on the mac (and does not have the money making curse as Avid does)

thanks for reading my long post.

I was a ProTool user for many years and switched to Logic because I was tired of the upgrade bs. It was the best thing I ever did for my music. You don't need PT to use your 11r. It will work great with many other DAW's. If you write and record your own music Logic ProX works very well. BTW I'm using Mac OS 10.9.4

I have both mac and PC and have used both for PT I don't bother with the mac any more for that though... the reason being is that there was NO noticeable "gain" using the mac the only thing that was different is the start up time or loading time is slightly faster on the mac... THAT's IT!!! so all the "hype" of Mac is well over rated and over priced. so if you can't wait the extra 20 - 30 seconds spend the extra $$$$ and get the Mac.

As for your other question you can use another interface that has an optical input and it will work fine and you can still do the "dry track thing" I have a friend that uses a "pro fire" with his 11r.

If you can put something together your self you can save a ton of $$$ and have an awesome comp for a fraction of the price, and really we all know that the hardware inside of a Mac is the same as inside a PC. I all ways build my own. what I am running now is an AMD 8 core 4ghz cpu with a msi mobo 32gigs ram a 185 gig solid state drive for win 7 and a 1.5 terabyte drive for storage and PT audio files an older video card because I don't play games any more. Really it's not that hard to do and the parts won't plug in to pretty much anything but what they are for. It's really not as hard to do as you think.

DYI Computer

Hey thanks for your reply. I heard good things about logic and am considering buying it. You said you re on 10.9.4 and 11r works great with logic. I am assuming that it does not work as a sound interface right? I am asking this as my mac cannot recognise 11r at all since my PT version is obsolete and im shopping around for a new sound interface and part of my headache is about the DAW that comes with them. Logic does not come with any interface and i also heard good things about presonus studio one. Bit confused:) thoughts?

To clarify my confusions...... I have the option to either; a) upgrade to PT11 (which is still currently not supporting 10.9.4) and keep using the 11r as an interface or b) ditch PT and with the same money buy an audio interface with (maybe) better AD/DA converters and (maybe) a better DAW that comes with the interface.

speaking of AD/DA converters, do you guys think that if I buy a new audio interface today chances are that it sounds better than the 11r (converters/preamps)? and while we re at it - which DAW you might recommend for prog/metalish project? (essentially lots of time changes and some orchestrations along with recording bass and guitar). I also would prefer one that looks kinda nice and intuitive cause sometimes PT can scare me away

all while keeping the 11R for guitar tones obviously

Try checking this page:
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/download/Eleven-Rack-Drivers

I think you are just ahead of Avid's suggested or qualified setups for both the 11R and Protools. You may want to contact Avid support directly (if you haven't already) to see if they have suggestions, or at least a goal of supporting your version in the future.

Since your computer configuration is not listed as supported, they might not be able to give you much help, but you never know.

For what it's worth, I am using Pro Tools 10.3.8 with the 11R on OSX 10.9.4 with no issues.

What types of issues are you running into when you install the 11R driver?

The 11r is not being recognised by the mac. Tried to use it as an interface in garageband and it shows on the menu but would not record. Also, a message appears re midi clock. Im starting to suspect that I have one of those old 11r that had some sampling problems and its too late to replace it with a new one.

In the meantime I bought an ilok and installed pro tools 10 and so far it works but I still cannot use the rack (as an interface) with another DAW. Thanks for your reply man.

It looks like so. As i have mavericks 10.9.4 and pt11 supports up to 10.9.3. Im not really sure if my mac came with .4 installed or it was updated as im new to the macworld. I tried to find contact email for Avid but could not find. (I live in Malta Europe so email is preferred than calling:)

In the meantime as suggested here im trying PT10 (although not officially supported) and so far it works. Thanks Guys for all the help!

So did you ever get it to work in garageband? I had an issue with logic pro where it would show up in the inputs list, I'd select it then not be able to record enable the track. I eventually discovered that I had to go to the mixer channel strip and select the 11r's input channel (this is above the output path button), then I was able to record enable and record guitar.. I hope that helps!

hey there - thanks for your reply. unfortunately i still have the same problem. apparently garageband has just one global input (no mixer as such or at least I cannot find it)and I'm listing eleven rack but nothing comes out when I try to record. I am using pro tools 10 and it works fine so far but still would have been nice to have another DAW at my disposal. anyways thanks again for the info.

I dont know what version of garage band you are using, but I was able to get my eleven rack to play and record through GB '09 (i have a mac mini running os 10.9.4 with 11r, no protools though). I had to change the inputs to 3 and 4 of the 11r (I don't know what the input/output assignment is for the 11r bc I don't know GB that well). The tab for me to change inputs was on the (i) button on the lower right hand side of the screen, that opened a column on the right side of the screen and towards the bottom of that column there is a dropdown menu called input source. I just selected 3/4 and I could see the levels in my meters and track. This is of course after selecting the 11r as the input device in the audio page of the preferences menu. This should work for you unless they drastically changed how the screen looks in newer GB versions. I hope this helps!

hey man thanks for replying and for the tip. Unfortunately I tried your advice to no avail! it seems that whenever I touch eleven rack outside of PT it acts strange. I even have to restart my Mac to get it working in PT again! seems like I got myself a lemon

Forgot to mention that I hear certain clicks and pops when this happens. nothing comes out (except the clicks and pops) unless I restart and load PT again!