Tascam FW-1884 and MOTIF XS8

sounds like your only choices are:
* get a firewire hub
* daisy chain them
* get a firewire PCI card (assuming this is a desktop which you didn't specify - if it's a laptop this option's out)

what difference does the "type 2 firewire" make in the equation? is that because you don't want to mix your XS8 firewire 2 with your FW-1884 firewire 1? they should both work that way anyway, but you may only get firewire 1 capability for both, but I'm not sure about that. someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

ORIGINAL: Steve369

Hello fellow Music Rascals.

I am the owner of a glitch free Tascam FW-1884 Dual Core Intel system. I just bought a Yamaha XS8. Both devices connect via firewire, yet I only have 1 port. Both devices allow you to daisy-chain. Yet I have heard that the MOTIF XS8 is a new type 2 firewire system.

Anyway please share you ideas that work. Thanks for your support.

Steve

You can't use both if you use ASIO of your audio I/O. It has nothing to do with firewire or how many ports you have. It's just that the firewire connection on the XS8 allows it to be your audio interface (just like the FW-1884). When using ASIO drivers you can only have one audio I/O driver active. If you use WDM you might be able to use both but you will have to get sample rate clock from one to the other so the audio doesn't glitch. Wordclock would be best if both have it but SPDIF will work also.

You can still use the MIDI interface in the XS8 via USB but not the audio I/O driver if you use ASIO. The MIDI and audio I/O drivers in Windows are not connected in any way and the MIDI drivers don't count when talking about the ASIO "one driver" limit, that's only for audio I/O.

Or the other option is to not use both at the same time. If the XS8 will do everything you need done and has good audio drivers you could just use it. Or you could use the Tascam as your audio interface and just use the Yamaha as a MIDI keyboard and external sound module.

ORIGINAL: Steve369

Thanks Ohhey.

I appreciate the information. O.K. along with what you are saying what if I created a separate hardware profile for the FW-1884 and the XS8, but daisy-changed them by connecting the FW-1884 to the computer and the XS8 to the FW-1884? Then if I had a situation where I needed to send all the digital tracks from the SX8 to the computer at once I would boot up the XS8 hardware profile. Windows would already have the drivers for the FW1884 disconnected and the ones for the XS8 connected.

Now if I did it this way would the XS8 still be able to communicate to the computer eventhough the drivers for the FW-1884 was turned off. I would think so given all the FW-1884 is doing is passing the signal through to the computer. What do you think?

Steve

Nope, a hardware profile won't automate this. Sonar still has to be reconfigured for a different interface in Options / Audio. It's easier to use device manager to disable one driver while using the other (if needed), that way you don't have to reboot. TIP: While you are at it you can disable your network card and get a bunch of CPU power back. Then just enable it again when you get done using Sonar. Again, no reboot needed if you use device manager. Network drivers use up CPU like crazy even if no network cable is attached to your computer !!.

As for getting audio from your XS8 to a Sonar project you might not have to use an audio I/O driver. You should just be able to copy the files to the hard drive and import them into the project. From what I can tell the XS8 is a DAW much like your computer and Sonar is. So it would be kinda like transfering tracks from ProTools to Sonar. If it's not files you can just use any audio interface between the Tascam and the Yamaha to record the stuff in. You might even be able to sync the transports up via MIDI and MTC, I know Sonar can do this but it's a real trick to set up when doing audio (not just MIDI), let me know if you want to try it and I'll give you the details.