Saffire Mix Control 3.1 out

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arachnaut
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2012/12/22 00:39:41 (permalink)

Saffire Mix Control 3.1 out

I know there are a lot of Saffire users here.

I've been running Mixcontrol 2.2 and standard Win 7 (not legacy) firewire drivers.

I've tried the upgrades to 2.4 and 3.0 and for various reasons I always switched back to 2.2.

Personally I have no complaints with 2.2, but I always feel I'm missing something if I don't keep up-to-date.

Anyway, this new one is for Win 7 and 8 so it probably is better than what I've got, but I'm hesitant to try something new at the moment after just updates to X2a.

If anyone wants to try it and post their experiences here we can all benefit.

From the site: http://us.focusrite.com/downloads

Saffire Mix Control 3.1    19/12/2012

OS Compatibility:
Windows XP
Windows 7
Windows 8
 
Fixes:
Adds Windows 8 compatibility
Improves WDM performance


- Jim Hurley -
SONAR Platinum - x64  - Windows 10 Pro 
ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0;  Core i7-2600K@4.4GHz; 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X;
GeForce GT 740; Saffire Pro14 MixControl 3.7; Axiom 61
64-Bit audio, SR: 48kHz, ASIO 256 samples latency, Rec/Play I/O Buffers 512k, Total Round Trip Latency 13 ms, Pow-r 3 dither 
#1

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    quibb
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    Re:Saffire Mix Control 3.1 out 2012/12/22 01:31:35 (permalink)
    Yeah, feel the same way...
    I went back to 2.2 as well.  Audio was fine, but I was having midi quirks in 3.0.
     
    Interested to see how 3.1 fares...
    Thx
    V

    I7, 8GB, Win 7 64-bit, Sonar Platinum, R11 driver, Focusrite Pro40, Helios II fly rod


    #2
    garyhb
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    Re:Saffire Mix Control 3.1 out 2012/12/22 05:40:51 (permalink)

    Yep, I had the same problems but I was then able to run 3.0 successfully under Win7 pro + Win 8 (all 64bit) with no problems. Lets see how 3.1 goes. 

    Merry Christmas!

    G.

    Gear: Sonar Platinum 64bit, Win 10 Pro 64bit. Soundcraft Signature MTR 22. Intel Xeon E3-1240 V2 @ 3.40GHz, 16GB ECC RAM, Dell MB 0PM2CW, NVIDIA GeForce 210, 5TB WD Black storage, HannsG HT231 23" multi-touch monitor (1920x1080), LG 22" W2242S (1680x1050), Soundcraft Signature MTR 22, Adam A77X, Sonarworks Reference 3, Studiologic VMK188+  and the usual other stuff there's no space for...
     
    #3
    Acue
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    Re:Saffire Mix Control 3.1 out 2012/12/22 07:14:59 (permalink)
    I mixed yesterday about 10 h with Mix control 3.1 + X2 (with quickfix) without problems :) (Liquid Saffire 56 in Win7 64 bit) Only time Sonar crashed was when I tried to use V-vocal. There is some problem in V-Vocal in my system - or in this project? There is about 150 plugins running in the project so some other plugin can cause V-Vocal to crash? I don´t know is this Focusrite-related problem, but I had earlier huge CPU spikes and weird dropouts in sound with Mix Control 3.0. I´m not 100 % sure but these problems can be related to thread scheduling modes? Earlier mode 2 was best for mys sytem but now I moved back to 1 and I think I used yesterday whole day mode 0. I installed yesterday X2a, but I didn´t had time to test it in heavy load - let´s hope everything is fine :)
    #4
    arachnaut
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    Re:Saffire Mix Control 3.1 out 2012/12/22 17:45:20 (permalink)

    I decided to upgrade from Mixcontrol 2.2 to 3.1 and I think the results are good so far.
    Here is what I did. Before making changes I set up a typical project that uses Reaktor running a high CPU load and automatically generating sound  - and then I looped that back in to a second track and recorded that track input. So this tests several ports and channels. Some typical prochannel stuff were in use on the Reaktor track.
    I then started up DPCLAT and LatencyMon and let them run for a while after a system restart. After about 10 minutes from the restart I reset the tools and let them run for a minute while the Reaktor project was playing.
    Then I did 4 screen shots which you see below. These are full-size screen captures - I initially embedded them, but the posting software took too long to load with them in, so I just put in a link. You can look at them in a new window (or download) to see the full-size images.
    The first image shows the test run after about 1 minute.
    The second shows the LatencyMon Driver page sorted by DPC.
    The third shows the LatencyMon Driver page sorted by ISR.
    The fourth shows thew LatencyMon Driver page sorted by execution time.

    http://www.arachnaut.net/...%20latency%20stuff.bmp

    http://www.arachnaut.net/...Drivers%20by%20DPC.bmp

    http://www.arachnaut.net/...Drivers%20by%20ISR.bmp

    http://www.arachnaut.net/...rivers%20by%20time.bmp

    I also made a stress test project that pushes things to a limit with a lot of soft synths (Reaktor, Alchemy, Kore) and reverbs running (2C Aether at 4x oversampling on lots of track).

    I then installed 3.1 and restarted, then repeated the setup. The install went smoothly. Here are the same tests using the 3.1 MixControl and drivers.

    http://www.arachnaut.net/...%20latency%20stuff.bmp

    http://www.arachnaut.net/...Drivers%20by%20DPC.bmp

    http://www.arachnaut.net/...Drivers%20by%20ISR.bmp

    http://www.arachnaut.net/...rivers%20by%20time.bmp

    I loaded the stress test and there were no noticeable differences in CPU or dropouts.

    Here is the setting I use - 48kHz and 256 samples - in both tests. I always use this setting:

    http://www.arachnaut.net/...l-48KHx-256samples.bmp

    So, in summary, things may be better, but they are not worse. It's good to keep things up-to-date.


    - Jim Hurley -
    SONAR Platinum - x64  - Windows 10 Pro 
    ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0;  Core i7-2600K@4.4GHz; 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X;
    GeForce GT 740; Saffire Pro14 MixControl 3.7; Axiom 61
    64-Bit audio, SR: 48kHz, ASIO 256 samples latency, Rec/Play I/O Buffers 512k, Total Round Trip Latency 13 ms, Pow-r 3 dither 
    #5
    arachnaut
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    Re:Saffire Mix Control 3.1 out 2012/12/23 19:52:33 (permalink)
    Well - that didn't take to long to revert.

    I encountered a few problems with MixControl 3.1 and its driver, so I reverted back to 2.2 and I'm happy again.

    I did not notice any problems running Sonar X2a, but when I ran Kontakt 4 standalone, there were small crackles and noise obvious on quiet, simple instruments that use little memory (just single samples).

    I tried a number of things, but concluded it had to be the new driver, so I reverted back to Mixcontrol 2.2 and these problems went away.

    FYI, here are my current Firewire and audio specs:

    Firewire VIA 6315N (standard Window 7 driver 6.1.7601.17514 - NOT Legacy)
    Audio - on motherboard - (disabled in BIOS)
    Firewire Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 (driver 3.5.3.8786) (MixControl 2.2)


    Naturally, your system is most likely different than mine so just take this with a grain of salt and test for yourself. 

    For me the differences are easy to hear, not at all subtle.


    - Jim Hurley -
    SONAR Platinum - x64  - Windows 10 Pro 
    ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0;  Core i7-2600K@4.4GHz; 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X;
    GeForce GT 740; Saffire Pro14 MixControl 3.7; Axiom 61
    64-Bit audio, SR: 48kHz, ASIO 256 samples latency, Rec/Play I/O Buffers 512k, Total Round Trip Latency 13 ms, Pow-r 3 dither 
    #6
    sachink70
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    Re:Saffire Mix Control 3.1 out 2013/09/04 13:45:45 (permalink)
    can anybody please mail me the 2.2 mix control driver for saffire pro 24 please please
    its not available on their site..and by upgrading i dont want to taker chance...i lost my 2.2 driver exe file
    my email
     sa****70 yahoo
    #7
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