microapp

riojazz
A few here have mentioned the FW-1884 and related hardware, and more than a few here use these, but unless I missed it, I did not see any comment from you about it.  Would it be possible for you to put in a good word with Tascam to please continue to support those perfectly good hardware units with drivers for current operating systems? 

 
+1 to this

+ a lot more for this 

The current FW-1884 drivers work fine in Win 7x86 and x64. They are difficult (at best) to impossible to install in Win 8.
I gave it a shot, I will not be a "happy" Win 8 user any time real soon.
I have a 500gb WD Black drive (Win 8) I use alternately as a door stop or a coaster. :-(
I do love Win 7 and both my 1884's though!
Thanks in advance for any help you can give us Craig!
(you weighed in on the Frontier Design issue in another thread, I "get" the issues Tascam faces vis a vi third party drivers.)
Hopefully we are in for better times ahead. Made some music with a 688 and Cakewalk 3.0 Professional. Sometimes I miss it!
Tom

The CS plugin suffers the same issues as the mackies, etc. The eq cannot acess pro channel. But faders, markers, jog wheel all work.
I wish the side car could do busses while the main board does tracks, but wish in one hand!
The important stuff works; and the audio drivers work fine. Little better latency with the RME, but its not "night and day".
T

riojazz
Craig, I also defer to Tom Deering to represent me on all things FW.  In case it helps:
 
My understanding of this is that everything worked fine through Windows 7 32-bit.  The problem arose with the lack of a driver for Windows 7 64-bit.  This was the only thing preventing me from making the move to a 64-bit OS.  After nearly a year of respectful inquiry by many users and help from a Tascam User Forum member who was a Tascam employee, Tascam looked again at the driver they had for almost a year from Frontier Design, and released it.  Simultaneously, the Tascam website announced the FW-1884 was no longer supported and that there would be no new drivers.

Disclaimer: Everything that follows is speculation except for dates, but is based on experiences I've had over many years as a consultant to many companies.
 
There can be a lot of reasons why something is no longer supported, other than not caring. As TASCAM never made a replacement for the FW-1884, presumably it wasn't to try to force you to buy a replacement unit. I did find this on the Frontier Design web site: "In 2003, TASCAM and Frontier partnered on their most advanced computer interface/control surface devices, the Firewire-based FW-1884." That was 11 years ago - an eternity in "tech time" - and if it was truly a partnership, then when Frontier Design left the business, it seems that would have left a gaping hole in TASCAM's ability to keep the unit up to date. It's very possible at least some of what FD contributed was proprietary or in turn licensed from yet another party. I've been involved in some projects where licenses stretched down a line of multiple companies.
 
As to sitting on a driver for a year, the last entry in FD's press room was 2006! I suspect that for TASCAM to come out with a new driver in 2010 involved more than just taking something off the shelf. I would be willing to bet there was some behind-the-scenes action needed to make that happen, not just saying "Hey, let's release this now." They might not have known how to QC it, in which case it would make a lot of sense to say "Look, here it is, good luck but we've given up on supporting this."
 
I wouldn't be surprised if the hit TASCAM took from depending on third parties influenced their decision to bring driver development in-house. When I talked to a TASCAM representative a few months ago about in-house development, it was clear that without naming names, there were many frustrations caused by depending on third parties.

riojazz
I respectfully request Tascam consider whether it can make the changes needed for a new driver installation, as the existing driver for Windows 7 64-bit already can work under certain conditions in later versions of the OS.  It's not like an all-new driver is needed for Windows, just adaptation of the installation routine for a new OS.  This would be a quick way for Tascam to prove the worth of creating this new internal department, and would go a long way toward improving customer relations based on past problems with the lack of third party drivers.

 
I will ask, but remember, TASCAM may not even own the rights to the drivers or have the right to alter the code. If you look at any software EULA there's always a line about it being expressly forbidden to alter, modify, reverse engineer, etc. any of the code. Similar agreements are often in place between manufacturers. Third parties companies don't necessarily sell code outright, but license it as IP (intellectual property) based on what can be a very restrictive contract. If that's the case and TASCAM would have to write drivers starting from ground zero for a product that was designed over a decade ago based on hardware that was designed probably 15 or more years ago, they'd have to be really, really dedicated to take that on.
 

kristoffer
Subscribing to thread:) 
 
I'm using FW1884 with Win8.1 and X3e, working nicely. Using the Win7 x64 drivers.
As Tom said, the installation routine is quite extensive, due to the lack of legacy FW driver in Win8 (this is an Microsoft decision)
And you'll have to modify your startup, so driver signing is set to "off" (the FW1884 driver is not "signed")

If the Win7 x64 drivers work, then it sounds like what's really needed right now is better installation instructions. Again I don't know the intricacies of Firewire and interfaces, but it seems the lack of a legacy driver is a problem. So is the basic idea that you have find a legacy driver from Windows 7, install it, and then go through some convoluted installation routine? In any event if it's working fine for you, then it seems like it should be possible for it to work fine for others if they know how to make that happen.

Yes! This is exactly it.

My last post said, "It's not like an all-new driver is needed for Windows, just adaptation of the installation routine for a new OS."

Craig, thanks for anything you can do.

Jim Roseberry
The little RME Babyface yields sub 5ms total round-trip latency at a 48-sample ASIO buffer size 44.1k.
That's dangerously close to the best PCIe units.
 
IMO, Tascam needs to achieve this level of performance to attract the masses (if you can call our niche massive).
Great fidelity with rock-solid low round-trip latency... paired with great support and easy install will result in sales.
 

Well, the 4x4 is $249 and the 2x2 is $149, which is a whole lot less than the Babyface. I think the goal is more to compete with the Focusrites of this world due to the discrete preamps and price range, the two instrument ins, and the iOS compatibility. I also know they're emphasizing ease of installation. I should be getting the units soon to test.
 
What I don't understand is why virtually all the interfaces I've ever tested register round-trip latencies of around 10 ms or more even with only 64 sample buffers. According to the PreSonus document I referenced (which seemed to say it was not possible to obtain USB round trip below 4 ms as Mike claimed), they talk about manufacturers using "USB safety buffers" and that's what accounts for the higher latencies. Is what RME doing so difficult that other interface manufacturers with lots of resources (e.g., Steinberg via Yamaha) can't reach the same kind of latency specs? And how does Line 6 ToneDirect monitoring manage to get such low latency? They claim to bypass layers of the OS. Is that what RME is doing? Or is it something like PreSonus, where they're monitoring outside the DAW? I'm not finding it easy to get answers to these kinds of questions.

Here is a place to start to read about audio latency. Vince has done a lot of leg work testing different units.
http://www.dawbench.com/audio-int-lowlatency.htm
http://www.dawbench.com/audio-int-lowlatency2.htm
http://www.dawbench.com/audio-int-lowlatency3.htm
 
RME seems to be the only company that makes its own chipsets and drivers. They have complete control and
a passion for great drivers. I wish I could afford one
 

My Presonus VSL44 is indeed 7.3 ms roundtrip with 48khz 24bit 128 buffers. 44.1 kHz is 7.8 and 96khz is 4.7 ms roundtrip.

I believe the Dawbench might not been updated with the new Presonus and Focusrite drivers.
Wish the 44.1KHz at 64 samples would of been in the 7 - 8ms range.

InstrEd
I believe the Dawbench might not been updated with the new Presonus and Focusrite drivers.
Wish the 44.1KHz at 64 samples would of been in the 7 - 8ms range.

I'm not sure the 1.4 ms difference between 8 ms and 9.4 ms is going to make too much of a real-world difference...but if you run at 48 kHz, then that scoots it down a little further. With the attempts to make 96 kHz the new standard, the 4.3 ms RTL looks pretty relevant.
 

clintmartin
I'm not using the new Presonus drivers. They were worse! That is probably why we have different numbers.

Aha, that explains why I noticed that the PreSonus driver numbers from Part 3 on DAW Bench were not as good as Part 2. However, in PreSonus's defense I think that being USB 3 compatible will probably help more people than shaving another millisecond or two off the RTL.
 

Maybe I should go to 96khz? 4.7ms roundtrip. I do use 48khz (for the 7.3). My songs usually have less then 12 tracks and I have tons of hard drive.

InstrEd
Craig what is the RTL on 96Khz with 128 buffer
and 256 buffer if you would check for us
Maybe I should consider going to 96Khz going forward.

 
At 96 kHz, Sonar is reporting 8.7 ms roundtrip latency at 128 sample buffers and 14.4 ms at 256.