SONAR, VISTA, TASCAM FW1884 64 bit problem

Hi, I need some ideas to help me resolve a problem. I’ve been running a DAW with 3.4 P4 chip, 2 gigs RAM, Windows XP 32 bit, TASCAM FW1884 control surface/audio interface and SONAR 6 PE. Everything worked fine with that setup, but I was starting to really reach the limits of my DAW’s horsepower.

To fix that, I built a new DAW with the latest Intel Core 2 Extreme 3.0 quad core, 8 gigs of RAM, 64 bit Vista and SONAR 7 PE. I loaded all the 64 bit drivers for the FW1884, and the 64 bit version of Sonar. Everything comes up and runs, but the sound is distorting. It sounds like I’m not getting a clock sync or a sample rate mismatch. My clock is an Apogee Big Ben and everything is syncing right. The test file is 44.1, 24 bit. The odd thing is SONAR’s status line says I’m at 44.1 and 16 bits, not 24. All the setup menus have things set for 24 bit. The other odd thing is when I downloaded the 64 bit SONAR control surface driver from TASCAM, it says it’s for the FW1082 not the FW1884 when installing. However, the file it installs is “FW1884.dll”, which is the correct file name.

Am I missing something obvious here? Any ideas would be appreciated. I really need to get this thing running!

THANKS!!!

ORIGINAL: bbark

Hi, I need some ideas to help me resolve a problem. I’ve been running a DAW with 3.4 P4 chip, 2 gigs RAM, Windows XP 32 bit, TASCAM FW1884 control surface/audio interface and SONAR 6 PE. Everything worked fine with that setup, but I was starting to really reach the limits of my DAW’s horsepower.

To fix that, I built a new DAW with the latest Intel Core 2 Extreme 3.0 quad core, 8 gigs of RAM, 64 bit Vista and SONAR 7 PE. I loaded all the 64 bit drivers for the FW1884, and the 64 bit version of Sonar. Everything comes up and runs, but the sound is distorting. It sounds like I’m not getting a clock sync or a sample rate mismatch. My clock is an Apogee Big Ben and everything is syncing right. The test file is 44.1, 24 bit. The odd thing is SONAR’s status line says I’m at 44.1 and 16 bits, not 24. All the setup menus have things set for 24 bit. The other odd thing is when I downloaded the 64 bit SONAR control surface driver from TASCAM, it says it’s for the FW1082 not the FW1884 when installing. However, the file it installs is “FW1884.dll”, which is the correct file name.

Am I missing something obvious here? Any ideas would be appreciated. I really need to get this thing running!

THANKS!!!

Hey !!!

How did I miss this?

I'm having the same problem- I started a thread over in Gear. I have the fw-1082. Frustrating, isn't it, to be all 64-bit ready and have a small driver problem hold you back.

I called tascam, and they said they'd be releasing updated 64-bit drivers for their interfaces, but wouldn't tell me when. I'm pretty POed about this whole mess.

Have you found a solution yet?
GG

Are you using ASIO or WDM? Did you run the Wave Profiler after changing bit depth? Make sure to restart Sonar after any bit-depth change before running the Wave Profiler.

Bbark,

Welcome to the 8 gig club :-)

I have some good news for you. I have a MOTU unit as well, and it works with 8 GB RAM, athough I had to get a beta driver through tech support (and with that driver, MIDI has problems, so I am using another MIDI interface for now). I recently upgraded to the MOTU from an M-Audio Delta1010 after M-Audio repeatedly ignored my support requests. The Delta 1010 doesn't produce sound if you have over 4 GB of RAM (and also the x64 driver hasn't been updated since 1995). They (M-audio) told me not to expect it to work under x64 since it's a beta driver. I am crossing my fingers that MOTU will come through on this driver and get the MIDI issues fixed, and so far the audio seems to be working great with it.

The other good things are, now you can get 8 GB of DDR2 RAM for about $250. And we have Sonar of course supporting x64 since 1995 (!), also Steinberg's Cubase is now 64-bit native, and now Vista 64, so we'll see a lot more people move to x64, which I hope to result in better drivers.

ORIGINAL: bbark

Hi, I need some ideas to help me resolve a problem. I’ve been running a DAW with 3.4 P4 chip, 2 gigs RAM, Windows XP 32 bit, TASCAM FW1884 control surface/audio interface and SONAR 6 PE. Everything worked fine with that setup, but I was starting to really reach the limits of my DAW’s horsepower.

To fix that, I built a new DAW with the latest Intel Core 2 Extreme 3.0 quad core, 8 gigs of RAM, 64 bit Vista and SONAR 7 PE. I loaded all the 64 bit drivers for the FW1884, and the 64 bit version of Sonar. Everything comes up and runs, but the sound is distorting. It sounds like I’m not getting a clock sync or a sample rate mismatch. My clock is an Apogee Big Ben and everything is syncing right. The test file is 44.1, 24 bit. The odd thing is SONAR’s status line says I’m at 44.1 and 16 bits, not 24. All the setup menus have things set for 24 bit. The other odd thing is when I downloaded the 64 bit SONAR control surface driver from TASCAM, it says it’s for the FW1082 not the FW1884 when installing. However, the file it installs is “FW1884.dll”, which is the correct file name.

Am I missing something obvious here? Any ideas would be appreciated. I really need to get this thing running!

THANKS!!!

You know... I was using Vista Ultimate 64 bit with my FW-1884 and just had too many little anomallies or how ever you spell that. Sonar runs great on it. FW-1884 issues.
I know you don't want to hear this but I just went back to Win XP SP2 32Bit and I'm getting the job done now. Way more stable. Not a horse Stable.
Not trying to beat on a dead horse here.


Guy

ORIGINAL: JoeBertin

Has anyone had a problem with Cakewalk vst plugins with WindowsXP 64 bit? I can't access
fxdelay, fxchorus and a few others.

I think those plugins are 32 bit only. I could be wrong though!

ORIGINAL: JoeBertin

Bruce,

Thanks for the reply.

I believe that you are right, but what's with the "bitbridge" that Sonar has been touting since Sonar 5?

The promotional stuff says that Sonar will use 32 bit plugins with the 64 bit system? I have to believe
that they were being truthful?

Joe

Oops! I forgot about bitbridge. I'm new to the whole 64 bit thing! However, if the experience doesn't get better I'll be going back to 32 bit XP!

If you can try XP x64. That's what I run. It's a lot closer to XP than Vista is, so it seems more compatible/stable? It's hard to explain really.

ORIGINAL: bbarkI'll try taking out some RAM and see what happens.

I'm using WDM drivers and I did shutdown, restart, and then run the profiler.

I'm going to a MOTU HD192 setup in about a week or so, so if I can't get this resolved in a couple of more days, I'll probably just wait for the MOTU gear. I know their 64 bit drivers work well. After that I'll just be using the TASCAM as a control surface and won't have to worry about their audio driver.

THANKS!

Are you? I thought about goin' MOTU myself after this happened- that is 'till I saw their prices. I thought I was going to have to go to the dentist to get it wired cuz of how far down my jaw dropped when I saw MOTU's exclusive, pro-working-studio-only prices. I run a one-woman studio, I can't afford anything quite so expensive that doesn't really do much more than a well-cared for, higher-end Soundblaster X-Fi with the right software (mind you, not the dren that Creative posts on their gamer-only, end user website, but the soundfont banks and samples that come with EmX and Px2 are more what I have in mind). I mean, seriously, the analog and digital streams on my X-Fi do just as well as any pro audio interface I've ever used (and I've used a lot of them, and took quite a few back for refunds while I was searching, until I settled on the Tascam) if you use the right software (read: SONAR) to record them.

So, seriously, not trying to start a flame war here, but I just have to know, why pay thousands of dollars for pro-audio interfaces when consumer-end samplers ( 44.1 and 96 kHz are really the only viably practical sampling rates to work with, anyway) do the trick for a mere fraction of the price?

So me, I split the difference. I'm thinking of going with Edirol. They have 64-bit Vista drivers for just about everything, and the new M-16DX is looking better all the time- you've got 8 channels of input, just like the TASCAM fW-1082, and best of all, it now has firmware that allows HUI control-surface protocol emulation.

Does anyone know anything about the m-16dx? Has anyone used it? Is it worth the rather pricey tag (but, unlike the motus I've seen, it functions as a standalone mixer and a controller, like the 1082), And it has a graphical LCD sorta like the FW's soft lcd, but on the unit itself, which is too cool.

Sorry to but in here, but we are both having the same problem, and I wanted to see if you'd found a sollution.
GG

OH, BTW,

Are you guys with 8 gigs seeing any marked performance increase?

I went from the default 32-bit limit of 2.8 gigs to a full four when I switched to Vista x64 and I'm not seeing that huge a performance jump. So I decided to spend my money on faster, overclockable/SLI RAM instead of putting more in there. Samplers and sofsynths probably like it more if you have more memory but I bet that your money is better spent buying RAM with a lower latency than going all -out on quantity.
That's my guess, anyway, but I haven't tried it. What are you guys seeing? Any huge performance leaps?

GG

ORIGINAL: bbark

RESULTS OF REDUCED RAM TEST...

Ok, I tried running the new setup with 4 gigs of RAM instead of 8 gigs. The first thing that happened was SONAR kept having immediate audio engine shutdown as soon as I hit play, no matter what latency settings I tried for the WDM driver. I switched to the ASIO driver, and it worked! No digital noise, everything worked and sounded great. BUT... after closing and reopening SONAR, it went back to the same problem I was having with the WDM driver with all the digital noise, etc. No matter what I do, I can't get it to work now with either driver!



If I end up going back to 32 bit XP for now, can someone point me to info on the "switch" to allow memory access to more than 2 gigs of RAM with SONAR?

THANKS!

I don't know of any "switch".
Have you done any more tests?


Guy

I bought it from Newegg, here is the link...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116378

Is anybody using Gigabyte motherboards, with XP 64 without problems?

Any suggestions on motherboard with AMD dual core running XP 64?

Joe

UPDATE: Well, I never got the FW1884 to work without digital noise under Vista 64. However, my new Motu HD192 units got here (2 of them for 24 analog inputs total). It works fantastic (though only with 4 gigs of RAM, with 8, it craps out too).

I have the TASCAM FW1884 working as a control surface and for MIDI instruments, and the MOTU handles all the audio stuff. Everything is working great. My previous machane was a P4 3.4 extreme edition with 4 gigs of RAM. On an existing project, the old machine ran at 30 - 40 % CPU with spikes at 80%+. The new machine with the same project runs at 2%. Now that's what I call an improvement!

Sonar bitbridge is even working great with 32 bit plugins. Also, the system is way more stable. With the old setup you had to time everything perfectly at startup to get all the firewire stuff to sync up, etc. The Vista machine has no problems at all in this area.

Thanks for all the help!

ORIGINAL: bbark

ORIGINAL: Gamergirl

ORIGINAL: bbarkI'll try taking out some RAM and see what happens.

I'm using WDM drivers and I did shutdown, restart, and then run the profiler.

I'm going to a MOTU HD192 setup in about a week or so, so if I can't get this resolved in a couple of more days, I'll probably just wait for the MOTU gear. I know their 64 bit drivers work well. After that I'll just be using the TASCAM as a control surface and won't have to worry about their audio driver.

THANKS!

Are you? I thought about goin' MOTU myself after this happened- that is 'till I saw their prices. I thought I was going to have to go to the dentist to get it wired cuz of how far down my jaw dropped when I saw MOTU's exclusive, pro-working-studio-only prices. I run a one-woman studio, I can't afford anything quite so expensive that doesn't really do much more than a well-cared for, higher-end Soundblaster X-Fi with the right software (mind you, not the dren that Creative posts on their gamer-only, end user website, but the soundfont banks and samples that come with EmX and Px2 are more what I have in mind). I mean, seriously, the analog and digital streams on my X-Fi do just as well as any pro audio interface I've ever used (and I've used a lot of them, and took quite a few back for refunds while I was searching, until I settled on the Tascam) if you use the right software (read: SONAR) to record them.

So, seriously, not trying to start a flame war here, but I just have to know, why pay thousands of dollars for pro-audio interfaces when consumer-end samplers ( 44.1 and 96 kHz are really the only viably practical sampling rates to work with, anyway) do the trick for a mere fraction of the price?

I understand where you're coming from Gamergirl, but we are running a full comercial studio. There is a big difference in sonic quality when comparing a high end preamp into a MOTU HD192 versus a Soundblaster card. It all boils down to the quality of the A to D and D to A conversion.

We went with the MOTU HD192 to get a jump up in the quality of our A/D/A convertors. While they are expensive, they are at a much better price point than comparable convertors from Apogee, Lynx, RME, etc. They actually have the best price per channel than any of their competitors. We're running high end preamps (Neve, TRUE, Vintech, ADL, Avalon, Focusrite, Universal Audio, etc.) and our last area to upgrade were the A/D/A convertors.

Well, then, I can understand that !!!

I don't understand this deal with the "switch". What does that do? When should you implement it? I don't get it.
GG