Firewire Card Problem

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Hello All,

I'm hoping that someone has run into this problem before and has found a solution.

The problem:

During playback in Tracktion sound will be emitted without problem for a few seconds up to maybe a few minutes. After that a high pitch squeal will sound. It is usually preceeded by a few crackling sounds. The squeal won't go away until something is done to effectively reset the device (change the sample rate, for example).

I have a Mackie Onyx 1220 mixing board with a firewire card interface.
The computer is a DELL Vostro 420 with 4 CPU cores at 2.33Ghz, loads of memory, nothing else of special importance running on it. It runs Windows 10 now. It was running Windows 7 before.

This used to work without problem with Tracktion version 3 running on a dedicated Compaq PC that had a firewire port built into the motherboard. It ran Windows XP.

I have the Mackie Onyx FW driver version 1.7.0.1 installed.

I have tried FOUR different firewire cards. The one I have now is a PCI card with the Texas Instruments chipset.

I have tried giving it as much latency as possible.

I have tried using the ASIO4ALL v2 drivers.

I went back to my OLD computer with the built in firewire. Due to a variety of things I had to put Windows 7 on it and pretty much overhaul the entire HD. It exhibits the same problem (the squeal during playback). I haen't been able to get Tracktion 3 to work on it (can't get it to play any sound at all using the Mackie 1.7.0.1 FW driver)

Thanks for your time,
-Nate

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I have a Mackie Onyx 1640i Mixer that I use for a firewire "sound card." I've never had any issues at all with it. I've always used TI chipsets with it. I have used both SONAR and Cubase with my Mackie with no issues at all. In fact, I have extremely low latency. With a buffer setting of 128 I have 2.8 msec round trip latency (256 buffer), and with a 256 buffer setting I get 5.3 msec round trip latency (512 buffer). I have much better performance with the Mackie than I had with any other interface, by far.

It sounds like you should do some troubleshooting to try to further isolate where the issue is. If you have a standalone vst synth, you should try running that (no DAW) to see how it works. If you can get other software working fine with it, then you might try a demo of a different DAW. On the other hand, if you have trouble with these even without Traktion running, then you might have a problem with your interface or the driver and should talk to Mackie.

SONAR Artist is extremely powerful and easy to use, with the best interface available imo, and is only something like $67 right now. You can download SONAR demos here:

http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/Try-SONAR#start
ALL YOUR DATA ARE BELONG TO US - Google

https://soundcloud.com/dan-ling
http://danling.com

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Thanks for the Reply Gonga. What firewire card do you have in your computer and what version of Windows are you running?

My little 1220 system used to work perfectly for what I use if for :(. Love the preamps on the first four channels. I would go back to Version 3 and my old little Compaq in a second if it was possible. This will involve talking to Mackie... and hoping... because the registration stuff for older versions of Tracktion don't seem to work.

My next step is in fact to find something that uses the firewire card to record and playback. So far I can record using Audacity but haven't been able to playback at all.

Frustrating...

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Thanks for the tip on Sonar Artist -- I'll check it out!

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I'm happy to help - that is if I can :)

Here's my trusty FW card:

http://www.siig.com/it-products/firewir ... -pcie.html

http://www.amazon.com/SIIG-FireWire-2-P ... -E20012-S2

It doesn't require you to install drivers under Windows. Windows loads the drivers as long as Windows is updated. I have used it with Windows 7 Pro x64, Windows 8 Pro x64 and Windows 10 Pro x64.

I just remembered, I used to get those awful squealing sounds with my digital outputs on my keyboards whenever the audio sample rate was mis-matched between the two devices (like the keyboard and my audio interface). Maybe try messing with the Mackie audio settings and the DAW audio settings and try different sample rates or bit rates? I have a feeling it isn't the Firewire that's the problem.
ALL YOUR DATA ARE BELONG TO US - Google

https://soundcloud.com/dan-ling
http://danling.com

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I got Sonar Artist set up. It took a while to get it to play back via ASIO/Firewire. This is the other related problem -- when I start Tracktion I usually have to go switch the sample rate from something like 44100 to 48000 in order for it to play back at all. It isn't "opening" the device properly.

So after getting Sonar to work with MME I got it to playback with ASIO... and the Squeal was right there waiting for me :(

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I tried that SIIG card and it was dead on arrival -- computer didn't even pick it up. It MIGHT be the case that that card is the ticket and I just got a lemon.

I ended up getting FOUR more cards to try. All of them have the same issue. I returned everything and kept a SIIG. The SIIG I have is identical to yours except that it is the PCI and not PCI-E version. It only has the 1340A support, three ports, TI chipset -- all the stuff that is "recommended" out here on the internets....

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I've tried lots and lots of different sampling rates and I've run into situations where things wouldn't work because the input rate differed from the output rate, etc. I've been at this for a few weeks now :(.
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So... with a DAW I can get playback to occur a brief amount of time, then a couple of "pops" and "crackles" occur, and then the high pitched squeal. The Squeal continues even after play is stopped. The DAW can be shutdown and the Squeal persists. There is minimal CPU load and this computer is a pretty high end machine although it is a few years old.

If I switch off the Firewire in the mix (via the Source buttons on the mixer), the sounds stops. Put it back on, the squeal is still there.

If I UNPLUG the firewire from the ONYX firewire interface the squeal stops. I still have to do something to reset the device after plugging the cable back in before playback can occur again.

My previous system was Windows XP with onboard Firewire. An older Mackie FW driver and Tracktion 3. This same system, after being upgraded to Windows 7, Tracktion 6, and the 1.7 version of the Mackie FW driver, has the same problem.

I wonder if the firewire card in the Onyx board has gone bad....

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Update....

I went and found the box my firewire card came in -- along with the install CD.

In Windows 10 I removed the Mackie entry in the Sound, Video, and game controllers section of the Device Manager.

I then ran the setup program from the CD. I went through many bizarre dialogs obviously designed for the days of Windows XP.

In the end, I had a new entry in Sounds, Video, and Game controllers. The name is slightly different: Onyx Firewire WDM Audio. The driver version is 1.12.1.0 (remember,the latest is 1.7.0.1).

At one point there was also an entry for a 1394 device (firewire). But that went away....

I opened Tracktion 6.... Went to settings. With ASIO audio device type selected I now have device entries for Mackie ASIO Driver. This was there from the 1.7 install of the Mackie Driver. I also have an Onyx ASIO driver and a ASIO Onyx FireWire entry.

With the Onyx ASIO Driver selected it all freakin' works again... (!). Well, playback does. Haven't tried the rest.

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That's interesting...it sounds like that CD driver is newer? 12 is bigger than 7 :D
ALL YOUR DATA ARE BELONG TO US - Google

https://soundcloud.com/dan-ling
http://danling.com

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