Hey, for all of you Mac + JRiver users, I'm just putting this here in case anyone else ever runs into this—just dug myself out of a head scratcher and would like to save others the time/frustration if possible.
Until recently was using a 2015 iMac as my hub, and it was just getting too bogged down and could no longer support the latest OS and security, etc., so it was time to upgrade. Got a new Mac Studio with an external monitor, so hopefully I don't have to get a new display again next time I upgrade (lets hope I last another 8+ years).
Anyway, once I got it set up I noticed that a few things are different in the audio department. First off, whenever I turn off my AVR, which is connected directly via HDMI, the computer seems to reset that output back to a 2-channel default. So, now I just keep the on-board "Audio MIDI Setup" app running all the time to confirm that when the AVR is on, the "Format" for that output is set as "8 ch - 24-bit Integer" (I have a 7.2.4 setup), and then everything in JRiver works properly. You'd think this would happen automatically but that hasn't been my experience.
But then I started noticing for certain mixes that the main vocals were completely missing and was like "WTF is happening here, all the channels are firing, why is this mix so screwed up?" Then I was thinking that maybe for some reason the subwoofer and center channels were being swapped, and they were. If you're experiencing this kind of weirdness:
1. In that Audio MIDI Setup app, select your AVR and click on "Configure Speakers"
2. The channel assignments seem to be sent from the AVR to the computer, and in this view you can see the order they're being sent and test the signal to each of them so that the descriptor "left, right, center, etc," matches where the audio is coming from. For me, the order was 1, 2, 4, 3, 5, 6 for some reason, which meant I had to flip the speaker order in JRiver, which I had never done before.
3. So in JRiver, in Playback Options/DSP & Output Format, in the menu there's a selection for Parametric Equalizer. In that dialog box, you can see the order of your speakers at the bottom, and can reorder them according to what your Mac is seeing from the AVR. So I was able to flip the center and sub according to the order coming in from my Marantz, and everything was back to normal.
Maybe this is a "well duh" to some folks, but it took a bit of tinkering for me so I thought I'd save others the pain if they experience this. What I don't know is if there's a way to make these settings hold indefinitely, I seem to keep losing them in the Audio MIDI app, which is a pain but not the end of the world. And then once in a while JRiver will update and wipe settings (or at least I had that experience a bunch on my last machine, we'll see this time around), so it can just be helpful to know this stuff.
Until recently was using a 2015 iMac as my hub, and it was just getting too bogged down and could no longer support the latest OS and security, etc., so it was time to upgrade. Got a new Mac Studio with an external monitor, so hopefully I don't have to get a new display again next time I upgrade (lets hope I last another 8+ years).
Anyway, once I got it set up I noticed that a few things are different in the audio department. First off, whenever I turn off my AVR, which is connected directly via HDMI, the computer seems to reset that output back to a 2-channel default. So, now I just keep the on-board "Audio MIDI Setup" app running all the time to confirm that when the AVR is on, the "Format" for that output is set as "8 ch - 24-bit Integer" (I have a 7.2.4 setup), and then everything in JRiver works properly. You'd think this would happen automatically but that hasn't been my experience.
But then I started noticing for certain mixes that the main vocals were completely missing and was like "WTF is happening here, all the channels are firing, why is this mix so screwed up?" Then I was thinking that maybe for some reason the subwoofer and center channels were being swapped, and they were. If you're experiencing this kind of weirdness:
1. In that Audio MIDI Setup app, select your AVR and click on "Configure Speakers"
2. The channel assignments seem to be sent from the AVR to the computer, and in this view you can see the order they're being sent and test the signal to each of them so that the descriptor "left, right, center, etc," matches where the audio is coming from. For me, the order was 1, 2, 4, 3, 5, 6 for some reason, which meant I had to flip the speaker order in JRiver, which I had never done before.
3. So in JRiver, in Playback Options/DSP & Output Format, in the menu there's a selection for Parametric Equalizer. In that dialog box, you can see the order of your speakers at the bottom, and can reorder them according to what your Mac is seeing from the AVR. So I was able to flip the center and sub according to the order coming in from my Marantz, and everything was back to normal.
Maybe this is a "well duh" to some folks, but it took a bit of tinkering for me so I thought I'd save others the pain if they experience this. What I don't know is if there's a way to make these settings hold indefinitely, I seem to keep losing them in the Audio MIDI app, which is a pain but not the end of the world. And then once in a while JRiver will update and wipe settings (or at least I had that experience a bunch on my last machine, we'll see this time around), so it can just be helpful to know this stuff.
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