Line 6, the California-based manufacturer of popular musical instrument and audio production gear, made an official statement last week about a problem that users have been reporting for awhile. Spend even a short amount of time on any public forum dedicated to Line 6 gear and you’ll see multiple posts complaining about issues using Line 6 products with the latest build of Apple’s Macintosh operating system, OS 10.11 (“El Capitan”).
Line 6 sent an e-mail to registered users late last week acknowledging the issue. It’s the first time any official word has come from the company regarding the problem:
We have discovered an incompatibility of the Line 6 USB audio driver version 7.3.8 and Mac OS 10.11 El Capitan. After updating to Mac OS 10.11 the Line 6 USB audio driver will no longer connect to hardware devices. Line 6 applications that rely on this driver, for example Line 6 Monkey, will therefore not process audio or allow hardware configuration changes.
We apologize for the inconvenience and we will publish an updated driver soon.
The e-mail also provided a list of the affected Line 6 products. The list is rather long and contains most of the company’s popular products, including its PodHD line of effects processors and the M20d digital mixer. The only advice Line 6 is providing on the matter is to hold off on upgrading to El Capitan:
We highly recommend you do not update to Mac OS 10.11 El Capitan in order to maintain correct Line 6 USB audio driver functionality.
It’s not much of a solution, especially for those who’ve already upgraded their machines. Overall, it’s unfortunate that Line 6 customers have had to face this inconvenience. But it also shows why it’s a good idea to exercise patience in the face of these kinds of upgrades, especially for mission-critical gear.