FIREWIRE - RICOH - VISTA - ULTRALITE

[RJH_MUSIC]

I have done a lot of research and pain-staking reinstalling on two operating systems over the last two weeks and have come to my own conclusion. First off, please do not think I am putting anyone else down for their expertise or knwledge, but to put it plainly, I think that blaming the MOTO AUDIO ASIO troubles on the RICOH Firewire chipset and HP latops, or any other laptop using the RICOH FW chipset is not a valid arguement. I firmly believe that we are talking about the inabiity of the MOTU drivers to operate correctly. To support this conclusion, I reference the equal number pf posts in this forum from users who have successfully been running both under VISTA and XP.

Here is what I have experienced over the last two weeks.
Opend up the box on brand new HP dv9500T laptop running VISTA Ultimate(64), 4 gig ram, 2 SATA 100 gig 7200 drives, NIVIDIA 8600 GS 512 mb video and yes, the famed RICOH FW chipset. I installed all my software and hardware which at the time was a Kore Controller, (operative word being was). Kore drivers would not work.

Next, bought a MOTU ULTRALITE, hooked it up loaded the drivers and it wouldn't work. That is when I dsicovered all the posts here about the RICOH FW and even jumped on the band wagon.

Next, I borrowed a freinds HP Compaq Cx9420 laptop with the TI Chipset and VISTA Ultimate(64) and loaded Ultralite and Kontakt 2. To my surprise, it work perfectly right out of the box.

Next, I called HP and began a Case file. HP sent me VISTA Home Premium (32) in the mail. I now start with a brand new Hard Drive and perfomr a clean install of VISTA 32. I load the Ultralite latest VISTA 32 drivers and Kontakt 2 and what do you know, it works perfectly. I now proceed to load the rest of my system with all of the software you see in my signature. IT ALL WORKS, (with one tiny exception) and I am getting gorgeous sound with no pop's click's or noise. Awesome gain and down to 10 ms latency which is not audible in any way.

With that said, since it is working fine with no problems, I retract everything I said concerning the RICOH FW. Oh, almost forgot. somewhere in between all this, I bought a SIIG FW ExpressCard with a TI chipset in it and it would not work either. SO now I have to return it and pray for a refund or trade.

My only problem, no is that when Cubase 4 is running, I cannot select the MOTU AUDIO ASIO driver in device setup because it does not even show up. In addition, in the VST COnnections menu, I do not have a choice to select MOTU AUDIO ASIO.

Can anyone help with this?? I hate to uninstall anything since everything elase is working correctly. RUnning Cubase 4.02, not the latest Hotfix. THe ULTRALITE is firmware 1.15 and the 3.6.7.4 drivers are loaded.

With this done, I am going to put the VISTA ULTIMATE disk back in, format and start over with a clean install to see what happens. I firmaly believe that I was dealing with driver conflicts and I would not be surprised if upon reinstall, it works.

RJ

RJ

[MotuDoggy]

See my post just a couple down.

My problem was my nvidia geforce card and drivers.

If you have onboard video or another non-nvidia card try using that and uninstalling the nvidia drivers. It fixed my problems.

[RJH_MUSIC]

Thanks for the reply. Interesting thought is, when I had ULTIMATE 64 installed, with same Nividia Driver, I could see the selction choice for the MOTU ASIO AUDIO. I like the suggestion though and will try again tonight with different driver. Thank You. Unfortunatley, the laptop has the onboard Nividia video adapter so I cannot change the physical adapter. I will try a couple of different drivers to see if it helps. When I try to select the MOTU AUDIO ASIO in the VST device control panel, I get two error messages; "Could not start the MOTU WAVE AUDIO Inputs", and "Could not start the MOTU AUDIO Outputs". I treid deleting the default.xml files but that did not help. There is no way to tell Cubase 4 during installation to not load the ASIO drivers. I think there might be a conflict. THe only difference in insatt with VISTA 64 and VISTA 32 was that in VISTA 64, Cubase was intalled first, and then the ULTRALITE was installed.

Thanks

RJ

[RJH_MUSIC]

Thanks for the reply. Interesting thought is, when I had ULTIMATE 64 installed, with same Nividia Driver, I could see the selction choice for the MOTU ASIO AUDIO. I like the suggestion though and will try again tonight with different driver. Thank You. Unfortunatley, the laptop has the onboard Nividia video adapter so I cannot change the physical adapter. I will try a couple of different drivers to see if it helps. When I try to select the MOTU AUDIO ASIO in the VST device control panel, I get two error messages; "Could not start the MOTU WAVE AUDIO Inputs", and "Could not start the MOTU AUDIO Outputs". I treid deleting the default.xml files but that did not help. There is no way to tell Cubase 4 during installation to not load the ASIO drivers. I think there might be a conflict. THe only difference in insatt with VISTA 64 and VISTA 32 was that in VISTA 64, Cubase was intalled first, and then the ULTRALITE was installed.

Thanks

RJ

[RJH_MUSIC]

I am not sure this is the same problem. When I am using stand-alone programs such as Kontakt 2, the MOTU ASIO AUDIO choice can be chosen as a choice and everything works fine, in fact great sound.

THe only program that does not even have the MOTU ASIO AUDIO to even choose is Cubase 4. And when I try to set it up in the device control panel, Cubase I get an error message that the MOTU WAVE AUDIO failed to start. I think the drivers are conflicting with the Cubase 4 ASIO drivers.

RJ

[Iomegaman]

In many instances the ASIO drivers will not work if there is more than one soundcard installed.

If another soundcard is using the drivers, try un-selecting that card first.

After that try disabling the offending card.

Beyond that I got nothing.

Off Topic, just read the SOS "Vista and Audio" article #2, (this part deals exclusively with hardware and software developers)

The article interviews RME, M-Audio and Lynx development guys, then goes to the software guys, Cakewalk, Stienberg, and Native Instruments.

Believe it or not the overall tone was supportive of Vista from all these guys, although a couple of times the "testy" attitude towards Microsoft leaked thru.

Anyone hoping that Vista will go away and Microsoft will backpedal needs to take a valium, ain't happening.

Vista WILL be the audio platform pc-wise of the future.

Whether or not Wave-rt becomes an industry standard really depends on Microsoft, since everyone was having some sort of issues with it.

If I were doing it over I would probably go with the Lynx (which I may still do, although frankly the converters on my Kurzweil Rumor sound incredible{I pipe it in via spdif} because they seem incredibly willing to front the Vista process.

My experience with M-audio since digidesign swallowed them precludes ever using them again, especially considering you can buy the same converters in an e-mu product used by the flagship mega-buck pro-fools device for considerably cheaper and without any friggin lasers on the head.

RME makes nice stuff but their attitude was not healthy.

Quite suprized to see the Germans supporting Vista.

Cakewalk has been developing the Vista curve since 2002.




It can suck being a beta tester, but who wants to be a follower anyway?

Innovate.

Stay with it, you get it working I'm sure.

I once got a lifetime dongle from iLok because of my waves problems and running Win2k as a first release, all their techs (both waves and iLok) could not get my system running but I did...

[RJH_MUSIC]

I totally agree. I think it is way passed the time for Software developers to blame everybody else for software and ahrdware issues, when the siple fact is that thy jst do not know how to write software well enough. For example. during this painstaking migration, I had to reinstall Grove Agent 2, Halion 3, Cubase SX, Cubase 4.... all over again several times. On Steinberg's web-site, the tell you to download the latest Syncrosoft LLC because earlier versions won't work with VISTA. So you do that and then each time you load a piece of software, the installation writes right over yor istallation of Syncrosoft LLC with an older version, and when your done, you have to re-install Syncrosoft LLC all over again. That is plan stupiditiy. Can't the installer program look for previous cersions, compare to it's own version number, and if higher, bypass the installation? Boy, wouldn't that be smart. And for the rpice we pay for all of this stuff, it is just unacceptable.

I did manage to get Cubase and ULTRALITE to work together. I moved the Cubase 4 ASIO folder out of the main folder so the ASIO drivers would not load, and then in the device panel I was able to choose the MOTU ASIO Audio driver.

THanks To All.

RJ

[Iomegaman]

The SOS article is very telling in several regards, one you can see that Native Instruments has kinda taken a "lets just set up a Vista machine and play with it" attitude in the development of Vista drivers, I got no sense of seriousness from them at all.

One of the reasons Microsoft is pushing Vista is because it DOES uncap memory quite a bit, which in the real world is very smart.

Consider I am running 4 gigs of DDR2 ram for less than $150.00, my first 1 gig of DDR cost almost twice that.

Users will take advantage of dropping ram prices so Microsoft doesn't really care that the Vista footprint (remember harddrives are getting cheaper and faster and bigger by the week as well) is kinda hoggish, in the grand scheme of things Vista's hog-like features are quickly dispensed by the ever dropping hardware vendor wars.

I'm running a dualcore 64x with 4 gigs of blazing ram for half what I paid 2 years ago for a system not even 1/3 as fast.

This trend shows no signs of stopping, so all the complaining about Vista will be moot in 2 years anyway.

When you can run a tetrabyte of ram on a tetrabyte flash harddrive who cares that Vista gobbles up a gig?

I can almost bet that hardware manf. will be using flash drives in the audio interface to off-load large audio files instantly within the next few years, no file size limit and no latency all because chip makers can put a truckload of data on a silicon wafer smaller than a cornflake.

[RJH_MUSIC]

That is right on the correct thinking path. I made this entire migration for the love of getting 4 gigs of RAM, faster ahrdrives and faster video to try and help reduce the cracks and pops at short latency. I can remember about 10 years ago, buying my first upgrades for a computer. 650 MB Hard drive was $250.00 WOW! 8 mb of ram was $75.00 OUCH!! Even though WIndows 95 came on (count em) 34 3.5 diskettes, and anly took about 250 mb of space, and I was running Cubase 3.0 and there was no such thing as VST or Audio!!

I also agree with the Native Instruments comments. I have finally (after a month) got my system up and running. I had to deep six the Kore Controller becasue not only did the drivers not work on VISTA 64 or 32, but they caused all kinds of problems with other software and drivers because I could not get all of the remnents of the installed files out. I had to bite the bullet and re-format the drive and start over. Only to add the shear HELLISH NIGHTMERE of dealing with Authorization Codes and registration processes failing and worst peice of security ever inventer, THE ILOK KEY. No joke, it took me 10 yes 10 reinstalls to get the ilok key to work correctly. Now, my system only works if I turn hardware on in a special sequence.

For example, if you power everything up at once and then turn the computer on, the FW drivers will conflict with the MOTU ASIO Audio driver, which will inturn argue with the MOTU MTPAV drivers (Pretty stupid considering they are both MOTU products), and only half of my software will be able to generate sound. Kontact 2 is picky and Play, VOP is the worst. I have to first power up MTPAV, then turn on the computer, then load Play or Kontact 2 and then Power up the ULTRALITE for eveything to work. Here is a wierd one. If you load Cubase 4, and then load Play, VOP as a VST Instrument, the samples play at just under 2 half steps sharp!! You have to first load Symphonic Choirs as a VST instrument, and then close it and load the Play VOP in the same VST slot and use the same MIDI track created by loading the Symphonic Choirs, to get VOP to trigger at the correct pitch.

I am thinkg about writing a letter to the editor of all the latest magazines to voice my distaste of all the software companies and their wonderful ability to charge exorbitant prices for their sofware and the inability to write correct software code and drivers. And it aint all Bill Gates fault. Eerybody likes to blame erveryone else.

Win XP will not be supported forever now that VISTA is here, especially since XP (unless 64 bit which doesn't work any better currently for Audio) cannot support the higher ram intensive requirements.

[Iomegaman]

That is some absolutely NUTTY ways to run an audio device.

I refuse to run anything with iLok, after several emails from Alan Cronce (the President of Pace) I went to a freinds suggestion and used a version not exactly on the best practices list (Waves Renaissance Collection cost me $600.00 at that time and handed me a BSOD everytime I hit the power button on my Win2k machine....the um..."not -iLok version worked like a charm), mainly because all the tech-heads at Pace and Waves were completely baffled as to why my system would crash according to them my hardware MET ALL REQUIREMENTS...

Sounds like you're tenacious enough hopefully the art doesn't get lost in the technology noise floor.

[RJH_MUSIC]

I am not surprised. It sounds like the real developers could take lessons from the ....um.. shall we say other kinds of programmers. Now I have a sync problem. Everything is working excpet I cannot sync my drum machines to Cubase 4. I will bet it is because I moved the ASIO folder out. UGH!! I am this close to buying WIN XP(64) and starting all over again until better support is here for VISTA. It just occurred to me that I started this process with VISTA (64) to get the 4 gig of ram usage. Now I am running VISTA 32 which appears to be less efficient then XP Home and I still can't use all 4 gig of ram. SO right now, vista is not giving me really anything worth the headache.

RJ

[RJH_MUSIC]

I solved the sync problem. Took me a lot of work, and I hope it holds, but right now I have rock solid stability. Since I removed the Steinberg ASIO folder from the Cubase Directory to get the MOTU ASIO drivers to work without crashing, I could not send MIDI clock to MIDI devices. SO last night I figured why not use the power of the MOTU MTPAV's, (That is is they wroked) and they did. Although the documentation in the manual is poor, I was able to slave everything to the main MTPAV, and use Cubase 4 as MMC Master. Once I did that it only took about 2 seconds to lock at the frame rate and now everything works. Very Tight. I wish I had done that years ago whne I was getting stuck MIDI notes and bad MIDI timing. I can't resist this - One more dump on MOTU and then I will leave them alone. Years ago, I had 2 MTPAV Parallel units networked together. WHen MIDI timing would not improve, I put one in the closet and bought a MTPAV USB to replace it, and netwroked the other unit to it. It got a bit better, but not much. The Console software program however only works with non networked MTP's. Stupid! You design these great interfaces to be networked together but the software program that controls them can't see both. MOTU years ago had an "Oh-Well" attitude about it when questioned.

That conversation was quickly back to my mind last night when I was trying to fogure out how to sync up the second MTPAV with the Master. I knew they both could not be masters. In the manual for the MTPAV USB, it goes into great length about how to set-up your system with MTPAV as master for time code and Cubase 4 as MMC server, but they never tell you how to set a networked unit. So it was a shot in the dark, I set it to MTC and it worked.

Lets hope it all stays that way. I guess now in my spare time, I will start with a fresh Hard Drive and attempt to start again with VISTA 64. I have an funny feeling that if I do not install the Kore and Kore Controller, (shich won't work anyway) it all might work this time.

RJ

[RJH_MUSIC]

OK!! I didn't solve my sync problem. This is nuts. If you boot your computer 10 different times, the snyc (MIDI Clock) will work maybe 3 times out of ten. It works for about 20 minutes and then Cubase 4 hangs and it is gone.

I HAVE HAD IT! Interesting note - I have read all the posts concerning the 4 gig problem and have confirmed that. On VISTA 32, my machine sees 3 out 4 gig and everything runs wonderfully accept the sync. So I put my other hard drive in, did a fresh install of VISTA Ultimate, which sees all 4 gig of ram. Loaded Cubase 4, then loaded updates, then loaded MTPAV USB driver, then ranned the MOTU FW/USB install. FIrst problem is that the MIDI out port on the 828mrkII won't work. I have it connected to a Mackie HUI and the In port works fine but not OUT port. have not even tried AUDIO yet. Bye the way, I deep sixed the ULTRALITE and bought an 828mrkII FW. It worked fine on VISTA 32 but won't work on VISTA ULTIMATE. I also think that the FW drivers are conflicting with the MTPAV USB MIDI drivers. That doen't surprise me at all knowing MOTU's past performance with drivers!!

I do relaize that I have the RICOH FW chipset, but everything was working on VISTA 32 with same driver version, 3.6.7.4

So, now I am going to try to return the 828mrkII FW and replace it with the 828mrkII USB. I have had it with Firewire drivers. Can anyone tell me the difference in performance from going to USB from FW??

[RJH_MUSIC]

Oh..yes, and I also tried a fresh install on another new hard drive of WIN XP Pro. I must have an older version, because it won't see the raw SATA hard drive and quits the installation. I think that might have something to do with the fact that the pre-install files load IDE drivers and my machine has SATA interface. UGH!!!