I *HATE* Firewire :( **FIXED***

After years of using a Delta 1010 PCI with *ZERO* problems, I decide to purchase an Alesis Master Control which hooks up via firewire. I make sure to get a PCI firewire card (Pyro) with a TI chipset because my mother board Asus P5Q-SE2 does not have a firewire port.

I have had nothing but problems with this set up.
In effect I have turned a perfectly working system into a nightmare.

Between IRQ conflicts, weird crackling noises and just total oddball behavior I finally have sympathy for the various folks who have been complaining for years about problems with various external interfaces.
Seriously, I have never heard my Delta 1010 make a pop or a click and can run Ivory all day long at 64 samples.

I'm not a noob, I've been doing this since 1981 and at least I thought I knew how to trouble shoot these kinds of problems.
I've been humbled by this POS called Firewire.
I think I know where the fire is, and it ain't in the cable...More like where the sun don't shine if you get my drift. (I'm venting here BTW!)...

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.....................

Here is my system specs and remember this works FINE with the Delta card:

Asus P5Q-SE2 board.
Q9400 at 2.66 no overclocking.
4G Dual Channel Memory
4 Samsung 1TB drives SATA

1 Nvidia Quadro FX 540 PCIe graphics (I suspect this a problem, 3.7 Windows 7 Score)
Pyro TI based Firewire 400 PCI card.

Windows 7 x64 Ultimate.

Firewire card is IRQ 18 and shares with one USB controller. Doesn't matter if I disable the controller.

DPC latency all in the green and NEVER a spike.
I run it while all these problems are happening.

All of a sudden Sonar 8.5 will start dropping out, crackling, etc no audio engine problems and no DPC hits with the monitor running. I see NOTHING in any of the Event logs I look at.

Foobar 2000 will start warbling like it's under water just playing a file.
I tried disabling the onboard NIC, no good.
I tried running at 256 which is impossible to play Ivory at and get the same problem.
Tried ASIO and WDM.
Deleted aud.ini etc.

So I am at the end of my rope.
I *LOVE* the Alesis and the control surface part is truly amazing, idiot proof and has streamlined my work flow, however I can't deal with the Audio interface. Oh and BTW I can hear a difference between the converters in my Delta and the Alesis and the Alesis sounds cleaner to my ears, but that's another story.

Is there any way I can use my Delta 1010 for audio and just use the Alesis for the MIDI and Control surface functions?

So before I toss this thing in Long Island sound and buy a Mac, and I am real close, any ideas on what's going on here?

My second choice is to just chuck it and go with an I7 Gigabyte board etc.

I dunno.....

Please help as I am at the end of my rope here :(

Thanks for listening!

Thanks to washburn100 for sending me the Alesis 3.5.0.7171 drivers which were on the website for a short time but got pulled, everything is now working PERFECTLY !!!

I have the Alesis set for a buffer size of 64 in the Alesis control panel.
I have Sonar set to use ASIO and my round trip latency is reported as 4.6 msec !!!
I have the TI firewire card in normal mode using the TI driver, third one listed.

There is no crackling, no cutting in or out, and no instability that I have discovered playing Ivory with all settings on maximum!

Here is the procedure I used:
Unplug the Alesis MasterControl.

1. Remove the Alesis device from Device Mangler.
2. Remove the Alesis software via Control Panel-->Programs etc.
3. Run RegEdit and remove everything that says "Alesis or MasterControl" on it.
   This took a good 1/2 hour as this software was scattered all over the place.
4. Reboot.
5. Install new driver and take defaults.
6. Reboot.
7. When Windows 7 x64 comes up, plug in Alesis and turn on.
8. Hardware is recognized.
9. Re-profile via Sonar.

Works real fine!!!  I am now going to image the system via Acronis :)

Thanks again to everyone who calmed me down, offered great advice and helped me out during this time of frustration.

P.S. I don't know why Alesis pulled these drivers but like washburn100 said, they work perfectly for us Mastercontrol users. Maybe there was a problem with the IO_14 or IO_26 devices which use the same driver. I sent an email to Alesis asking what the story is and if we can expect an update to the drivers they do have on the site, which were flaky for me.

 

ba_midi


Try changing the slot the card is in.   BUt first remove its drivers so it's forced to reinstall them.

Thanks ba_midi !

Been there and done that...
I have it in the best of the slots, meaning this one gives the least problems.

At this point, Sonar will work fine for maybe 2 minutes or so and then I get the giant dropouts.
It's almost like some program, like indexing etc, is kicking off interfering but I can't find anything.
This is really weird.

 

Yea but the whole thing works fine with the Delta 1010 installed.
It just does not like Firewire/Alesis Master Control for some reason.

I migrated off Nuendo 4 back to Sonar because I got tired of the upgrade costs.

I'm going to install my Nuendo 4 and see what happens, just for kicks.

UPDATE: I have Foobar2000 working fine by re-installing it.
I suspect it got screwed up wtih all the changes I have been making.

So now, as it stands, the Firewire card is on it's own IRQ except for one USB port share which is my iLok, doesn't matter though if I disable it.

Sonar still runs for a while and then stutters, breaks up badly and recovers, only to do it again maybe 2 minutes or so later.

Again DPC is fine.
Nothing I can find in logs indicates any problems.

Give me an hour to install Nuendo 4 and see how that works.

ba_midi

wormser


Yea but the whole thing works fine with the Delta 1010 installed.
It just does not like Firewire/Alesis Master Control for some reason.

I migrated off Nuendo 4 back to Sonar because I got tired of the upgrade costs.

I'm going to install my Nuendo 4 and see what happens, just for kicks.

UPDATE: I have Foobar2000 working fine by re-installing it.
I suspect it got screwed up wtih all the changes I have been making.

So now, as it stands, the Firewire card is on it's own IRQ except for one USB port share which is my iLok, doesn't matter though if I disable it.

Sonar still runs for a while and then stutters, breaks up badly and recovers, only to do it again maybe 2 minutes or so later.

Again DPC is fine.
Nothing I can find in logs indicates any problems.

Give me an hour to install Nuendo 4 and see how that works.

I guess this means you're somewhat new to Sonar?   IF so, there may be some simple configuring needed.
Are you at all familiar with what good values for the playback and record i/o buffers should be, and what bit depth should be used, etc?
 
I don't want to assume anything until I get a sense of what you know about configuring Sonar. 
  
It also may NOT be the F/W that is the problem.
 

Hey ba_midi!
Thanks for your help!

No, not new to Sonar been using Cake products since they fit on one diskette and Greg was actually running the company....

I actually go back to before the Pete Leoni, Ted Perlman days or there about.
We had some fun times back then!

Moved to Nuendo when I was doing a lot of post work, but always kept current with Sonar.

Understand, this exact same installation of 8.5 worked perfectly with my Delta1010 in the loop.

Removing the Delta 1010 compeltely, installing the firewire card and Alesis caused all my troubles.

After the headaches, I actually re-installed Windows 7 x64 from scratch and Sonar seemed to work fine, even at 64 samples for a while, but then all of a sudden it turned to poop.

I have my Nuendo install running now.
Had to enable another USB port for my Syncrosoft key, yuk :(

I'll be back in 1 hour or so to report.

Honestly, I've been at this gig for a real long time and there is little I haven't seen.
My first IBM AT system was homebrew built on a piece of plywookd because cases weren't on the market yet.

This one has me baffled though.

I am truly at a crossroad where it's either gonna be an I7/I5/etc or I am going Mac.
After using the control surface, I am totally spoiled.
It's just like the old days of OTB stuff where I was weaned.
The only thing missing is the razor blade, and back then we used them for cutting tape :)

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply, Jim !
It's like Hamerman409 said, that it works well enough where despite years of doing this stuff, I still think it's me doing something wrong.

I tried it with Nuendo and it seems to work a lot better in fact I haven't had any problems at all except for the fact the lowest I can run it when recording say Ivory is 128 samples which as a pianist I can detect and don't really like compared to 64 samples.

With Sonar I can go as low as 64 samples, when it works that is. FWIW raising the samples up has no effect on the stability one way or the other. When it craps out, it craps out regardless of latency etc.

I really like the control surface features of this thing, but it's the audio part that seems to be driving me nuts.

Is there any way that I can install the Delta 1010, use that card for audio and then use the Alesis to monitor and as a control surface?

This way I could get the best of both worlds.

Maybe pipe the SPIDF out from the Delta to the SPIDF in of the Alesis?

If this is a bad idea, what other comparable control surfaces are out there that work well with Sonar?
I'm more interested in a control surface than an interface because the Delta works fine for me.

The Mackie appears to be off the market and the Berhinger, Fader port etc are not powerful enough for me which is why I got the Alesis.

Any advice?

Thanks again!

Sorry to hear about your troubles wormser.  I think we've all been there at one time or another, and the worst moment is having to finally give up hope and post a message saying "I'm not a noob, but..."

I'm afraid I can't add anything more than what has already been said, but I found this curious:  I just did a search on Google for "DICE-II" and the very first post that came up was:   http://www.gearslutz.com/board/low-end-theory/153150-alesis-i-o-konnekt-firestudio-dice-ii-chipset-interfaces.html

I was gonna say dice.. but others did...

but could you disable the onboard soundcard also in the bios? or are there other things like dunno.. printer port etc? .. things that you don't use. onboard firewire etc etc?!?!

another thing is, you said about the surface ... if it has a seperate audio and midi thing, you MIGHT be able to..

I use an sw1000.. BUT only the midi side of it.. not the audio..

as for the bios, is there anything in there that will help also?

I would agree with Jim about being calm.. it's annoying sure.. but if your calm your thinking is clearer.. I just used to go away and come back later.

I went thru everything with my setup before, then spoke to support and between us came to the conclusion it was time to change the soundcard. ironically a 1010LT , due to RME dragging their feet with the aio .hehe

What I understand from Mackie they are having trouble with the faders.  I  ordered one for my MCU in January and still have not gotten it.  I was told last month that the manufacturer of the faders wasn't able to produce them anymore so they were in the process of finding a new site for production. 

washburn100


Sorry, meant to say this will probably not be helpful. Anyway if you want to try driver version 3.5.0.7171, PM and I can send you the file.
Good Luck

PM Sent !
Thanks!

I agree with wormser, the control surface function is awesome. No Act, no mapping, just dial in SONAR and it works! I was going to get a Mackie and an interface like a presonus or similar, but when I tried this thing, it worked just as well as the Mackie for control surface, but had an awesome audio interface built in. I really only need a couple of pre's and 2 line in's so it is actually a lot more than I need, but works great and of course, looks cool on the desk!

There's my plug for Alesis. (and MoogAudio Canada where I got it - $799 last year, they may even be cheaper now!) I know Alesis were pretty bashed from their earlier mixer/interfaces but I say they got this one right!

Hey Tom !

Yes I did change the driver mode to "Legacy".
Same problems.
Thanks!

Mully,
I think FW has been on the "decline" since XP sp2.
RME is currently the only one that has written drivers to work with the "current" MS firewire; DRIVERS DRIVERS DRIVERS!
There is a MS "hotfix", but they stress it may/may not be the answer.

Nevermind, I found it.

Glad to hear it's working now :)