Originally Posted: November 22, 2025
Latest Update: July 21st, 2026
On macOS Tahoe, MiniMeters may not receive stable audio when monitoring an audio output (Default Output Capture or a specific “[out]” device). This issue most often presents itself when using Ableton Live on a CPU intensive project.
Since originally discovering this issue I have identified a few workarounds which have improved the situation, but have not been total fixes. The v1.0.30 update includes an improvement, but the issue may still present itself after a while.
If you have not upgraded to macOS Tahoe I would not recommend it.
If you have already upgraded and are running into issues please use MiniMeters - Audio Server to send audio into MiniMeters.
Golden Gate Developer Beta 2 appears to have silently fixed this issue. I do not recommend updating to the Golden Gate Beta to fix this, especially not on a primary computer. And as usual, I do not recommend updating to it immediately upon release.
This issue seems to be caused by a buffer underrun. In simple terms, macOS tells the DAW it needs audio by a certain time to send it to your speakers. Sometimes, it doesn’t get it ready in time. Usually this happens when a plug-in misbehaves or your CPU is too slow to respond.
After a buffer underrun, MiniMeters begins to receive jumbled audio and eventually silence. MiniMeters still receives it’s silent buffers with the correct timing making it difficult to detect when the glitch has occurred.
Checking Console.app shows that Ableton Live often underruns when pausing and playing.
Other DAWs, such as Logic, appear to render audio many seconds ahead of the playhead.
Presumably, this makes it more impervious to underruns.
On the other hand, Live seems to wait until the last moment.
I believe this is why in Live one can “race the playhead” and can hear changes immediately.1
Most of the time this is not an issue. macOS and Windows’ audio subsystems are designed to handle this relatively gracefully. They should not go silent breaking completely, or affect audio in any other way. However, the Core Audio Taps2 API is relatively new and it appears that macOS 26.1 brought with it a bug.