if anyone cares, I got my answer, they are looking into 64bit, but no committed dates, no word on availability...

I'm having the "empty" control panel / firmware upgrader issue as well. Here's my system's specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ 2.2GHz
Windows Vista Ultimate w/SP1, Fully Patched
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Motherboard
nVidia geForce 7900GT Dual Head
Adaptec AFW-4300A PCI FireWire card (suggested by Alesis)
Alesis MultiMix 12 FireWire

I have been in contact with Dan at Alesis and here's what they've had to say:

To put it straight, this problem description comes down to one or two of the following two areas of potential cause:

1.) Your computer’s firewire card and/or chipset is of a less than reliable quality spec and is causing the MultiMix to be seen as a device but nothing more. This is a very real possibility if you did not specifically purchase a firewire card for your computer such as a known good brand as Belkin or Adaptec. They use the Texas Instruments 1394 chipset which does play a large role, though we have also observed cards which also used this chipset but did so so inefficiently that they caused intermittent or total non-communication. I’ve included a firewire troubleshooting guide which goes through a series of the most common scenarios which can lead to or resolve non-communciation with a firewire audio device and has a list of known good firewire cards at the bottom as well.

2.) A driver conflict or mal-installation. If you have older drivers left over in the system for instance, this can create an issue where the new driver does not latch onto the hardware due to the conflict between driver versions. So a full cleansing of all of the driver files is sometimes needed. (These are found under C:/Windows/System32/Drivers and all include the name “Alesis” so they are easy to find.)
Otherwise it can be that a driver file did not get installed or was installed in the wrong order (the only way this would be your fault is if you plugged the device in before installing the drivers, and in fact, that is an easy mistake to make.)

3.) Perhaps the most important question should be: Did you install from the disk or from the latest VISTA-ready drivers found on the website? IF you did not specifically install the Vista drivers found on http://www.alesis.com/

One thing that may also be helpful is to navigate to your Device Manager found under Control Panel – System – Device Manager (on the left side of the window)

Navigate down to “Sounds, Video and Game Controllers” and expand it.
Find out whether the Alesis Multimix or Alesis Audio Device shows up, whether it has a question mark or exclamation point.

Let me know what you spot there as well.

Please let me know if these suggestions apply to you.
One of these three elements should be the critical one which is causing this conflict.
Hope this helps

My response as of today:
1.) The card I have is brand new Adaptec AFW-4300A (purchased on their suggestion). Verified that I'm using a 6-pin to 6-pin cable. Still no dice.
2.) & 3.) I've installed and reinstalled both the drivers that came with the MultiMix (1.0.13.0 (8/12/2005)) and the newest from their site (3.1.0.1210 (3/6/2008)) exactly as he's outlined and exactly like the PDF states that's bundled with the drivers. No dice.

So, I get nothing in the Control Panel, and the Firmware Updater sees nothing.

I'll let everyone know if there's any response from Alesis this week.

ORIGINAL: shteigun

Does anyone have the any old versions of the MultiMixdrivers? Can you email them?? PLEASE!!!

sheitgun,

I've just sent you an e-mail with a link where you can download the only driver set I have (v1.0.41.2 - 06/23/2005). If you have any drivers other than this, please share! :)

If anyone else wants to try these drivers, please e-mail me and I'll be happy to provide you with the link.

Chewbode

Here is a link for the January 2008 Alesis MMFW drivers.

I have a multimix firewire8 mixer with windows xp-pro 2002, service pack 2 with all automatic installed windows updates on an Acer Travelmate 3000 laptop with onboard firewire adapter (big plug). I have Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Beta and Windows Installer 3.1
It works fine since june 2006, never had any problems with installation or buffers. My driver version is 1_54_0. My firmware version is 1_04. I always use Asio mode in Sonar.
The only thing that is not woking is, to send midi data trough a midi (soft) synthesiser (Yamaha XG or Microsoft wave table) to the multimix main output. Therefore I always have to connect my laptop-audio output to a stereochannel of the mixer. The laptop audio output has poor quality and noise, so I want to send the midi output directly to the mixer.

Someone told me that I have to update to the latest driver and firmware
I download the latest drivers from Alesis.

I’ve removed the old driver and all alesis files, cleaned the registrary and installed the new driver and connected the mixer. There is new hardware found, but only once. The old driver found and installed 5 new devices.

With the new driver and Sonar, in MME mode, I only see input channels 1 and 2. I don’t see 3, 4, 5L+R, 7L+R and the main mix. The channels that I see are working. With this driver in MME mode, I can send midi to te mixer but cannot record it trough te main input because the main input driver is’nt there. I made a workaround for this to connect the 2trk-output to input channels 1 and 2, but since I only see 2 input channels, I can’t record more tracks for vocals.

With the new driver and Sonar, in WDM mode, I only see channel 1 and 2. I don’t see 3, 4, 5L+R, 7L+R and the main mix. The channels that I see are not working. There is an “audio driver error, or in use....”

With the new driver and Sonar, in Asio mode, I see all the channels but can’t use them because of an “audio driver error, or in use.....”

I’ve tried to update the firmware but after starting the update program, all fieds are blank........so I can’t update the firmware

When I open the Alesis Firewire Control Panel with the latest driver, all fields are blank.....

Anayway, I went back to the old driver without problems.

In the past weeks I sends this problem to Alesis 3 times, but never get an answer.

All

Got things working as well, But my issue was caused by internal firewire port on Sony FR series (Not compatable). Got a second hand firewire PCICMA card from ebay - "Texas Instruments OHCI Compatable IEEE 1394 Host Controller" and things worked straight away.

Alan

bvideo,

I cant use this post because, with te latest drivers, the Alesis Firewire Control Panel doesn't work. I only see blank fields and can not select anything.

ORIGINAL: machardie
...
I have Windows Vista 32-bit installed and Ricoh 4-pin firewire chip.
...

Hi!

The Ricoh 4-pin firewire might be the problem. Alesis says, it´s best to use a firewire-controller with TI-Chipset. I used my Multimix 16FW connected to a Toshiba-Laptop with a 4-pin connector, but it had a TI-chipset. When I changed to a new computer I had a nowname 6-pin firewire-controller and I couldn´t make it work. So I purchased a Belkin-FW-Controller wich uses a TI-chipset too - and it works great! I don´t now the reason, but firewire and firewire is not the same. Maybe, if your laptop has a PCMCIA-slot, you can use a firewirecard with a TI-chipset.

Good luck!

Never used the phonics, didn't look upto much, I'd like to recommend the Alesis, but support from Alesis is up to much. But with the help of everyone on this forum we're all starting to get somewhere. I now have two Alesis Firewire mixers and are both working great with no issues, sounds r great for the price if you can get over firewire issues. But unfornunatly no longer available.

Note: make sure your using TI-chipset firewire controller. many onboard controllers are not.

Alan

Hi Folks!

There´s a new (beta)driver-update for the Multimix firewire-series!
Alesis
I haven´t tried it yet, but I was really suprised, that a new driver appears now that the firewire-mixer line is discontinued.

Have a nice day!

Hey all, here I am two years on, with all latest drivers and hardware flash and still not working!!! What a load of swindlers at Alesis!! Have tried to get it working on three systems and no joy, works occasionally and then just disappears. Has anybody else had any positive joy??

Hey Bill B,

Thanks for the reply. Glad to hear somebody has has success. I suppose I'll try yet again, you never know, I might get lucky. Actually, perhaps you can advise me on something. It is relevant to my Alesis problem and the route I have taken since. See below a post I made on another topic. I want more inputs for recording as I cannot use the Alesis. Any ideas would be appreciated.

cheers,

Bill

This is my other post:
Hey Guitarhacker,

Hello from London, England. I have a scenario I am trying to figure out and have seen your website which led me to think you might be able to advise me. I notice you have a Focusrite Saffire interface. Here is my problem, maybe someone could suggest another way to do this (as cheaply as possible, already spent a fortune on stuff that does not do the job

I am using Sonar 7 Producer. I have various Line6 devices but the one I am currently using is the new UX2 Studio. I record mainly with another guitar player. I want to be able to input two guitars and two mics at same time and then assign each ins/mic to a track in Sonar. The problem with the UX2 Studio is that I can only input a max of two items at the same time (I think???) So, I could have two guitars or one guitar and one mic. It looks like the Focusrite device you have might allow me to get my ideal input configuration (two guitars and two mics each assigend to their own track in Sonar). I also have an Alesis Firewire 12 mixer which I bought at great expense which was supposed to be able to do the job but I have never been able to get it working. even support at Alesis were no help (useless in fact!).

Another option/question: I also have a Line6 POD XT Live and Line6 UX1. Is it possible to use two sound cards at the same time in Sonar thus giving more inputs? I read somewhere that it is possible but not using ASIO drivers (WDM I think?). The problem is, I really want to use the ASIO drivers coz I'm using BFD2 drums and EZdrummer as well.

I know that is a bit of a mouthful but, any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!!

Hey Bill B,

Thanks again for the speedy reply. Yes, I heard about that issue of syncing. Shame about the Alesis. Back to the drawing board.

Cheers,

Bill

I tested the ASIO portion a bit last month using Sonar 8.3.1.
There are differences in the control panel (the given list of buffer sizes doesn't offer all the previous choices, but you can type in a buffer size).
Measured latency at any given buffer size is a bit lower.
However, dropouts at any given buffer size are much more likely.
The above observations are compared to the Jan 2008 drivers, running on a core i7-based system. I did not test WDM at all.
I have returned to the Jan 2008 drivers, as the current drivers do not perform as well at low latency.

Interested to hear other people's experience.

Bill B.

Sorry to bring back a dead forum but I was wondering if anyone is using a mac?
I'm have a problem where my computer isn't detecting the alesis 16 firewire mixer at all