It is pretty non-committal

well aren't you a ray of sunshine (kidding)

I hate to be a drop of rain, but the e-mail I received from Tascam said that Vista drivers were expected to be out in May. I don't know if they'll drop an interim driver for 6.2 on XP, but given their historical lack of support, I've already decided I'll never buy Tascam again. Too bad, because otherwise I've liked the FW-1884.

Here's the text of the message I received from Tascam:

Finalized drivers for Vista are currently being worked based on the officially released (1/30/07) version of the OS.

It is estimated that they will be available around May of this year.

Thank you for your interest in TASCAM products.

Curiously, I received another message from them saying there was no ETA on the drivers. Who knows for sure.

I started contacting the folks at Tascam last year, because I'd had Vista in beta and then release candidate for more than a year, and figured they were at work on a driver but wouldn't release until the OS was released. I wound up contacting Frontier Design, who answered me in the most straightforward, direct manner that Tascam wouldn't get around to even contracting them for the job until Vista was RELEASED!

They also suggested that I might be able to install the 64 bit drivers in Vista 64 (my board doesn't support XP64 but will support Vista), and they failed for me. I was pleased to see somebody on this thread got them to successully operate.

I run the FW-1884 on a dual Xeon with a half-terrabyte raid. I have EWQLSO's platinum and Symphonic Choirs on it, and use them by judiciously unfreezing tracks and tweaking them. I have a serious crash problem that seems to have gotten worse (but more specific) in 6.2. I had other issues with 5.2 and 6.01 that have gotten better (WRT the initial connection to the control surface). I am going to start another thread on that, because I am not sure these synth load/unload problems are FW-1884 specific.

I'd like to add my voice to the folks that need a driver for this. We need to address more than 3 Gig of memory (I think if I can just get the number of object creation/deletions that take place because I have gobs of memory will solve a lot my crash problems,) and for that we need stable drivers in Vista. This also gives everybody an opportunity to handle the surface refresh dll hell.

The FW-1884 is a marvelous device, and I would hate to be without it. I've been putting a lot of faith in moving to Vista to solve these problems, but that doesn't look like its going to happen anytime soon. Maybe I need to swap out the FW with a simple midi/audio interface and see if the crashes go away.

A recent exchange of emails with Tascam:

02/01/07 01:40PM On behalf of numerous 1884 owners who are very pleased with their 1884’s we would appreciate your efforts to work with Cakewalk to find a solution to the incompatibility issues that have arisen with the release of Sonar 6. In summary these issues are:



Arming tracks does not work in the traditional way (can not 'sel' track and punch 'rec')

- Controlling aux sends = not fully functional

- ‘Write Automation’ controls enable, but won’t disable

- Selecting track on screen no longer selects track on unit



Thank you.

Tascam response:

February 21, 2007 4:40 PM These are all issues that have arisen due to changes in the Sonar architecture and should be addressed directly to Cakewalk.



Thank you for your interest in TASCAM products.

And my response to Tascam:

2/22/2007 8:10 AM Thank you for your response.

I understand that the issues have arisen because of “changes in the Sonar architecture”. I am perplexed however by your comment that I should direct my concerns to Cakewalk.

The FW-1884 is a “Control Surface” so by definition it is designed to control software products. Your marketing materials state this and your website includes the description; “As a DAW controller, the FW-1884 is compatible with a wide variety of popular applications including MOTU Digital Performer, Emagic Logic, Steinberg Cubase SX, Steinberg Nuendo, and Cakewalk Sonar.” Software versions are always evolving and your literature does not qualify what version of software it is compatible with. A “control surface” is not much good if it can’t control the software it was designed to control.

In addition, Tascam provided; “Application specific drivers” available for download from your website. These drivers include those to interface with Sonar. The “Control Surface Note for Sonar”, also available on your website appears to be a document published by Tascam – not Cakewalk.

I, along with many other FW-1884 users, purchased your product because of the features that specifically included compatibility with Sonar. I think I speak for the majority of DAW users in stating that the DAW software is always the primary decision and the hardware to control it is secondary.

It appears that Tascam are continuing to actively market the FW-1884 and therefore have an obligation to current and future owners that your product stays compatible with the current versions of the software you claim in your marketing materials. If Tascam cannot commit to this then I will be looking elsewhere for my next control surface purchase.

I have also addressed the compatibility issues with Cakewalk and Frontier. In stark contrast to your; “not my job” attitude, they have responded with commitments to work together to address users’ concerns and work toward a solution. Tascam would be well advised to learn from their approach to customer service.

Yours sincerely,

I wonder if TASCAM mgmt have any idea their service is so bad?

Hi,

I am new to this Cakewalk forum... I would like to know what are the problems everyone is having with the Sonar 6.2 Producer Edition and the Tascam FW-1884. The reason I would like to know is because I have the FW-1884 and I am using it with Sonar 6.2 PE (only Audio at the moment) with no problems. Everything on my FW-1884 seem to be functioning in computer mode, recording audio... I have Window XP Media Center installed on my computer.

Initially I had problems with Sonar 6.2 PE not recognizing my FW-1884. I uninstalled Sonar 6.2 PE, entirely, including registery. I went in to msconfig and clicked the startup tab, and unchecked everything. I rebooted my computer and I uninstalled My Anti-Virus software and then the FW-1884 Software (driver), including manually deleting all CakeWalk files on my computer (it is not good to do this, but I did) . Then I reinstalled Sonar 6 PE and the 6.2 update. Next, I reinstalled the FW-1884 Software from disk and downloaded and installed the Sonar update version 1.21 from Tascam website. My Tascam FW-1884 was powered on during the entire installation of the Tascam software and driver file. I rebooted my computer and opened up Sonar 6.2 PE. Then I click on the option menu to setup the audio and control surface selections. Remember, I have only tested the Audio functions in Sonar 6.2 PE, but not the midi functions. The audio functions works fine with my FW-1884. I hope this helps...


The herbster

Anybody heard anything? I'm starting to become very discouraged.

I'm sorry!! I didn't mean to give false hopes. [:/-]

Hi DK and all,

I'm hoping to hear some good news right now. I feel silly posting that last post now.
I wrote to CW tech help asking about the 6.2 bugs and the FW-1884, and they unknowingly referred me to my own posting about the "confirmation." Understandably, this didn't cheer me up at all!

Anyway, I know that CW, Frontier and CO are busy testing the fix. I'll bet the holdup was the emergency 6.21 release for Sonar.

My fingers and toes are crossed!

JCR

DK- Any word from Frontier?

ORIGINAL: ChronoT52

Sorry for the bump- I'm just wondering if anything new has happened that I may have somehow missed. Namely, if anybody happened to get any emails from Frontier about the status of the update.

Sorry Chrono - been real busy - did not mean to leave you hanging

I have not heard a word back from Frontier - I like you am becoming somewhat discouraged - But we have waited this long - what else can we do?

Believe we have taken this as far as we can

ORIGINAL: D K

Believe we have taken this as far as we can

I really hate to agree...but you're right.

Thanks for the reply though.

Bob Damiano [Cakewalk]
Moderator
Hi folks,

I have investigated this today and here is what I know so far:

When Control Surfaces were introduced in SONAR 2, there was a flaw in how we asked surfaces to refresh themselves. In SONAR 6.0, this flaw was resolved. The effect was a substantial improvement in efficiency - an important thing because with ACT, people are hooking up multiple surfaces.

The Side-Effect was that there were a couple surface plug-ins (including FW-1884) which were inadvertently relying on this flaw for certain functions. The result was that a bug seemed to appear in 6.0.

I spoke to my contact at Frontier today, and they had already come to the same conclusion. They have addressed the refresh issue and will be providing a new DLL to Tascam soon. Of course I can't speak to when this will be available or how, but it does sound like the problem is understood and addressed from an engineering standpoint.

We're sorry for the trouble and we thank you for your patience.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Bob,
have you any news yet?

I wish they would fix the 1884 issues... I would like to buy one...any idea how much longer it might take to fix..thanks