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Hi,

I'm running a recently bought G5 Dual 2.0, 1.5g ram, 2/150g drives - bought specifically for music production. The primary drive has OSX 10.4.10 which was a fresh install from the original owner before shipping. The second drive was partitioned by me into 40/110 and I installed 10.3.9. I see no reason to update the OS as the AudioMidi Setup has not changed. In 6 weeks, I'm still trying to get things to work right. Company tech support has been pitiful.

The problem with the M-Audio Delta 192 card is interesting. The original drivers with the sound card work but are noisy. The recommended drivers are downloaded from the M-Audio site and are specific to the operating system. The process includes removing the card, making sure the combo update (not the automatic update) is installed first, then installing the updated driver, repairing permissions after every step and reinstalling the card.

After several procedures on each drive, the new drivers/card are not recognized in the AM Setup.

M-Audio has stated that there are known issues with the auto updates and that the combo must be present. I find no info on Apple data base that indicates that this is a "known issue". When I found a developer's forum, I just had to ask....are there known issues that would prevent an audio driver from being recognized.

If that's not enough...I have other software like Steinberg's Halion 3 which connects to the sound card in stand-alone mode but will not see the sound card in its VST format. So far, their tech support has offered nothing much.

Thanks in advance for any tips or tricks that might get me back into making music.

Robert Steinberg
MidiOpera.com

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Dani AI

Generated

As later reported (thanks to @CalvinBanks), the immediate detection problem was resolved by the S/PDIF compatibility setting — that’s a common M‑Audio gotcha. Below are complementary diagnostics and configuration checks that help explain why that option matters and will prevent similar detection or VST-routing problems.

Confirm the driver actually loaded at the system level and look for error messages. Run these in Terminal (they’re safe read-only checks; sudo is required only for reading some logs):

ls -l /System/Library/Extensions | egrep -i 'maudio|delta|m-audio'
kextstat | egrep -i 'maudio|delta'
sudo grep -i -E 'maudio|delta|coreaudiod' /var/log/system.log
sudo killall coreaudiod    # restarts Core Audio so changes take effect

Why this helps: if the kernel extension (kext) for the Delta driver isn’t present or loaded, Audio MIDI Setup and hosts won’t see the device even if the hardware is physically installed. Restarting coreaudiod forces a re-scan without a full reboot.

Standalone instruments and plugin instances use different audio paths: standalone Halion talks directly to Core Audio, while a VST runs inside the DAW and uses the DAW’s audio driver selection. If the standalone sees the Delta but the VST does not, open the DAW’s audio device settings, choose Core Audio (or the M‑Audio driver) there, and make sure sample rate and buffer size match the device. If problems persist, force a plugin rescan or try the plugin in a different host to isolate the issue.

Extra tips: remove any duplicate/old driver kexts, test in a fresh OS X user account to rule out user prefs, and check the driver control panel for sample-format and buffer settings (these cause noise or dropouts). These checks cover the common system- and host-level causes that sit behind the S/PDIF “gotcha” and VST-detection issues.

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The "compatibility mode" box in the S/PDIF pane needs to be checked.

Thanks to M-Audio tech manager Calvin Banks for this resolution.

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