A huge problem with Cubase SX3 and an Alesis Firewire mixer, it goes on...
Home > Home Recording Forum > Recording Techniques > A huge problem with Cubase SX3 and an Alesis Firewire mixer, it goes on...
Posted on Nov 24, 2008 09:48 pm
Mr Highway
Member Since: Nov 23, 2008
I just bought the multimix 8 Firewire, and I'm running it through Cubase sx3. The program recognizes the device just fine, but every 10 seconds or so I get the error message "The ASIO driver Alesis Firewire could not be initialized". This happens ALL OF THE TIME. I can record for about 10 seconds and then it will stop recording, give me about 10 of those error messages and freeze for a bit. I've seen a couple of people with this problem online, but I haven't found any solutions. I have had the same problem with a different error message with Sony Acid 7, "An error occurred while starting playback The request is not enabled for this device". I really need help here. Thanks.
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Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Nov 24, 2008 10:12 pm Have you checked the Alesis site to make certain that you have the latest drier and or firmware updates installed? There is a chance that the install disc still had an older version on it so it is always good to check.
You can find them here. www.alesis.com/multimix8firewire
Under the Docs and Downloads. There is also a trouble shooting guide there as well.
The other thing to consider is that it could be having issues with the firewire chip in your PC. Some chips just don't play nice with firewire devices, especially audio interfaces such as this one. Texas Instruments is the usual fail safe chip. A lot of folks simply install a separate firewire card to cure this problem. but checking the trouble shooting docs first and makings certain the drivers and firmware are current is the first place to start.
Nov 24, 2008 10:15 pm I have the most recent firmware. I'm not sure about the Firewire chip because I have a laptop and I can't exactly change the card... I'll be really mad if that is the case because that's kinda what I bought this laptop for.
Nov 24, 2008 10:17 pm OHCI compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller is what is says under my device manager. Don't know if its TI. I'm sure its not.
TadpuiI am not a crook's headMember
Since: Mar 14, 2003
Nov 25, 2008 12:04 am The firmware is a little less likely to cause a problem. But its good that you've got that updated. Now update the device drivers to the latest that they have on the Alesis website.
Also make sure that you don't have anything running in the background that is set to use that card, like Windows Media Player or WinAmp or anything. ASIO drivers can only be used by 1 device at a time.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Nov 25, 2008 01:35 pm The laptops makers site or tech support should be able to tell you what firewire chip is in there.
Nov 26, 2008 02:04 pm couldn't find it. I think I'm screwed. This is a bummer, I guess I'll have to return the mixer.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Nov 26, 2008 10:02 pm Maybe have a look into the USB type. They are much less finicky then the Firewire unit's.
Nov 27, 2008 11:45 am No way jose. No multitrackin' with USB. I went ahead and ordered a PCMIE firewire card with the TI chipset. HOPEFULLY that will work!
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Nov 27, 2008 09:54 pm Good luck and let us know how it pans out for sure.
Nov 28, 2008 08:45 am Absolutely. I wanna leave some kind of solution for others with the same problem. It's kind of common from what I've seen and I haven't seen any resolutions thus far. One MAY have had a resolution but it was in French. HA!
Dec 07, 2008 09:18 pm Ok. So seriously, after buying 2 different Firewire cards that DON'T WORK(apparently I don't have a PCMCIA card slot, I have an Expresscard slot.) and almost getting to the point of slitting my wrists over this whole ordeal, I've found a low profile PCI Firewire card with a TI TSB43AA22 chipset. I'm not firmiliar with this chipset, but everywhere I look and according to you guys TI is the way to go. I'll let you know what happens with it, but have any of you had experience with the TI TSB43AA22 chip?
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Dec 07, 2008 09:56 pm It is the new gen of an already proven chipset for TI. It requires about 40% less power then its predecessor and is up to date for the newer IEEE 1394 standards. It is actually first chip do do so.
I have not heard yet from anyone regarding anything bad with it yet. And nothing concerning audio interface incompatibility issues.
Dec 12, 2008 09:53 pm I got the new card and I am STILL getting the same errors!! I've gone through 3 different firewire cards and NOTHING HAS WORKED! I am seriously about a minute away from clock tower sniping. I can't figure this out guys. I've spent 200 bucks on the mixer which I CANT return and about 100 bucks on various hardware to get it working. What is going on?
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Dec 13, 2008 01:17 am I am wondering if there is something amiss with the driver install. This should not be happening for every firewire card you tried.
Have you gotten any info from Alesis in it yet? Or contacted their tech support?
I honestly don't think this can be blamed on the cards or the laptop. Unless there is an unseen conflict somewhere.
Have you checked the devices menu to look and see if there are any conflicts going on with the drivers for any of the onboard devices?
Another thought, have you disabled the on board sound drivers for the laptop? It would not be the first time I have seen a conflict between that and an outboard audio device.
WasaraMember
Since: Dec 13, 2008
Dec 13, 2008 04:22 am Hey guys. Long time voyeur, first time poster.
I got my Alesis Multimix 8 Firewire a couple of days ago, and am having the exact same problem. I also have a HP pro-grade laptop with a built-in firewire port.
A quick recap then: Cubase SX3 starts off fine, music plays for 5-15 seconds, then goes deaf and I get the same error message about the ASIO driver not initializing as Mr Highway. Usually this is followed by a moment's freeze. Sometimes the music amps back up after a while and repeats the aforementioned cycle, sometimes all that remains is silence.
Cool Edit Pro 2.1 does pretty much the same without any error messages. Just silence and sudden halts, usually accompanied by the progress bar (showing where we are in the song) twitching around a bit.
I can pretty much confirm it isn't a latency or processor overload issue, as the problem persists whether there's a 15-track recording playing or if I'm editing or listening to one single wave file. I've tinkered with the buffer size and latency compensation to no end, but the result seems to affect only one thing: how long the moments of frozen existence have to be endured. The sound cuts off sooner or later no matter what I do.
I've reinstalled the latest drivers twice now and the problem persists. I too have a basic built-in IEEE 1394 firewire card. According to Windows, each and every device is working properly and in perfect harmony.
I was considering buying an external firewire card for the EC slot to stop the barrage of stutter and error messages, but after reading the comments here, I doubt it'll fix the problem on my side either.
It almost seems like the connection between the mixer and the laptop/driver gets cut off constantly and needs to be reinitialized. Why this is occuring I have no idea. I considered the possibility that it might be some power saving feature akin to laptops, but as my laptop never runs on the battery alone and I have no USB devices plugged in save a mouse, it's highly unlikely.
One thing I could mention is that my laptop has a 4-pin firewire port, so I'm using a 6-pin to 4-pin firewire cable to connect the mixer and the laptop. Though I doubt this has any relevance whatsoever.
I am at my wits end. Though my old Lexicon Omega was a USB 1.1 nightmare for multitrack recording, at least it WORKED. See you atop that clock tower, Highway.
Dec 13, 2008 02:47 pm Noize2u,
Device drivers are all fine. The mixer is reading perfectly and there are no errors. I just get crazy problems with music software. I tried it on my desktop through the FW ports on an Audigy 4 pro and I still got the same messages. I sent an email to Alesis' tech support and the never responded. I'm past the return date on the mixer and I'm calling Alesis on Monday to rain a shitstorm on them. I've seen this problem on several forums. This almost needs to be a sticky! I suppose if I need to I can gather enough disgruntled customers to march on Alesis.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Dec 13, 2008 04:16 pm Ya, I know several people, a few here that have gotten the thing working right off and it works well for them. But those that don't get it working, it seems it just plain doesn't go until Alesis either takes it back or actually creates a solution by getting data from the customer's system. Either via a Dr Watson log or some other form.
But I do have to start thinking it might be something with the unit itself, which would be odd if all appears normal from looking at the connections via the drivers set up.
WasaraMember
Since: Dec 13, 2008
Dec 15, 2008 01:28 pm Highway, just a complete shot in the dark, but do you by any chance have a built-in SoundMAX audio card in your laptop? I've seen a couple of people with our problems mentioning they have this audio card, which is also part of my laptop's hardware.
WasaraMember
Since: Dec 13, 2008
Dec 16, 2008 10:07 am OK, scratch that idea.
Highway, if you have the latest drivers installed (from March 2008 I think), uninstall them and never look back. From reading different forums, I've gathered that the latest drivers are causing a myriad of problems with different mixer and computer setups, some specific to Vista and others to XP. The general consensus seems to be that the January 2008 drivers are the ones to get, but they're hard to come by unless someone has had the insight to keep the files handy for future reference.
Just to try it out (and since Alesis doesn't offer older drivers on their site) I uninstalled the 3/08 drivers - and by uninstalling I mean removing the drivers via the Add and Remove programs app PLUS doing a file search for "alesis" and deleting the system files left behind in the system32 and system32/drivers folders - and installed the year-old drivers (dated August 2007) that came on the CD with the mixer.
The outcome? Lo and behold, no stutter, no freezing, no significant problems. I toyed around with different settings, different amounts of tracks etc, and the mixer seems to work rather problem free now. For whatever reason, even the control panel seems to work better than before.
As I was typing this, an e-mail arrived. What, Alesis DO in fact respond to customer e-mails? A bit of a shock, there. Here's what their tech support had to say on the situation I described a few posts above:
---------
The 4 pin FW card is most likely the cause of this issue. This mixer, and
all of our other FW products are equipped with FW400 (6 pin) ports. When you
use a 6-4pin adaptor, data is being truncated. Therefore leading to this
issue that you are experiencing.
I have attached a FireWire Troubleshooting guide to this email in PDF
format.
Check this guide out as it goes over the most common issues that people
encounter when doing FW Audio recording. At the bottom of this guide you
will see a list of RECOMMENDED FW cards (notice that they are all 6 pin
ports on these cards). If you go through all of the troubleshooting and you
get to the recommended card section, you may want to consider getting a FW
card on this list.
Before considering a new FW card it's always a good idea, If possible, to
try another computer, given it has a FW card designed for Audio Recording.
---------
Sooo... they say it's the 6-4 pin firewire cable, possibly my computer setup, even though I solved the problem by installing older drivers?
Dec 18, 2008 11:35 am can someone please post the old firmware etc...so i can try this...i bought my firewire used so it had no cd and i have relied on the alesis website for the driver/firmware. one more thing, my firmware update does not take...it keeps "waiting for device" and just sits there...anyone else have this problem?
Dec 18, 2008 01:48 pm My request as well. Lets put an end to this once and for all!
Dematrixhttp://www.reverbnation.com/2ndgMember
Since: Nov 27, 2007
Dec 18, 2008 07:38 pm look i dunno if this can be put in the same catagorey or not and i havent read all this thread, i remember doing a Cubase 4 update a while back and for the life of me i couldnt work out why it wouldnt work after that.
it kept saying "no device" in the device tab.
found out much later that it was the update that was flawed and caused this.
just thought i'd chuck that in.
Dec 23, 2008 03:30 pm tried the old firmware and the new...the old driver and the new...went out and purchased their recommended firewire card...still same thing the firmware update sits there waiting for device...Cubase sees the firewire but "cannot open the device"
can anyone help please...?
Jan 05, 2009 09:39 am I've finally just given up. Went through the same thing with two of the mixers. The second one started giving me the blue screen of death on my laptop. Past the refund date so I have store credit now. Yippie. Anyone who happens to read this before buying a FW multitrack 8, avoid it like the plague.
Jan 09, 2009 12:59 pm i cant seem to get past step #3 updating the FW firmware
WasaraMember
Since: Dec 13, 2008
Jan 12, 2009 05:03 am OK, remember when I told you that switching to the older firmware cured the sound stutter? Well, the downside is that soon after installing the old firmware the mixer began to cause BSOD errors. So, it's either constant sound problems or random computer crashes.
This is where I, too, give up and vow to never ever again touch anything with the words Alesis and firewire used in the same space. It ain't worth the bs.
Feb 14, 2009 07:11 am Last year is got my firewire 12 not a lick of problmes TILL ONE DAY MY DELL NEEDED A REBUILD. That is when the BS started.Alesis has sent me the old drivers but not the old fimeware I know for a fact that is what my problmes are. I just sent theme a new E-mail asking for them. I will pass them along if I get them.
Feb 25, 2009 02:23 pm Just bought an Alesis IO|26 Firewire with a bundled Cubase LE, and had the exact same problem on XP, random drop from recording mode to playback.
Fortunately, I got some firewire audio tuning tips for XP. There were lots of them that I didn't even try, but first of all,
- strip your system of all background services you don't absolutely need on your music workstation, e.g. Messenger, Microsoft Update, etc. stuff you find to the right on your taskbar. Also disable your network connections. Take them back up one at a time once you have solved the problem.
- second, turn off all graphic acceleration in Control panel / Display Settings/Advanced/Troubleshoot
For some reason, graphic acceleration seems to interfere with Firewire. Worked for me, hope this helps.
CptTrippsCzar of Turd PolishMember
Since: Jun 20, 2006
Feb 25, 2009 03:01 pm Man, that email from Alesis is complete B.S., a straight up lie.
The extra 2 pins are for powering devices (portable HDD) on a 6 pin firewire cable. 4 and 6 pin firewire offer the same data throughput and there is no "truncating".
WasaraMember
Since: Dec 13, 2008
Mar 03, 2009 04:56 pm A little update to others who are still struggling with the horror that is Alesis plus firewire, or simply trying to figure out which firewire interface to buy.
After the debacle depicted in above posts I sent my MultiMix back and was lucky enough to receive a full refund. At this point I decided to weigh in my options. I didn't want to go through the same BS with another model or manufacturer, so I dug in and did my research this time. Message boards, in-depth equipment reviews, word o' mouth, you name it.
It was actually pretty easy to figure out what the best option was. I gulped at the price tag, manned up and coughed up the dough for an RME FireFace 400, which is considered the best firewire interface on the market today.
Let me tell you, friends - I was not disappointed. In terms of features, functionality and - most importantly - stability, the FireFace 400 dropkicks Alesis (not to mention my previous interfaces, including my much loved Lexicon Omega) without breaking a sweat. The price is certainly a lot higher than a MultiMix, but hey, that's value for money, folks!
Highly recommended.
ScriptoniteProgrammer and Music EnthusiastMember
Since: Mar 17, 2009
Mar 17, 2009 05:23 pm I have found a solution to this issue. This has been a serious problem for me since I upgraded the drivers for my board. My recordings would drop out at random and give me the "device could not be initialized" error. This is my work around for it, for those of us who already bought the board and are now stuck with it. If you have not purchased this board yet and are considering it, don't do it, I do not recommend it at all. If you can buy it used with the original drivers and firmware(version 1) it will work fine for you, otherwise stick M-Audio,but I digress....
1)Use a program like revo uninstaller (www.revouninstaller.com/r..._download.html) to remove all alesis drivers and reg keys. Then download and install www.entertainersdesign.co...ix_3_0_41_5.zip
2) Download and install ASIO4All at www.asio4all.com/
3)Change the settings in your alesis control panel for 7.1, this should show all the channels of input for your board.
4) In your device setup in your recording program, select ASIO4All for your audio device.
5) in VST Connections (or where ever your channel patch is) assign input channels and output channels as needed. your channels may show as "1 Not Connected" and "2 Not Connected" in the channel selection. They are actually connected and are usually channels 1 and 2.
That's it. Your board should work like it's supposed to.
This has been tested on windows XP service pack 2 with Nuendo SX3. You may want to disable automatic updates after everything is working to ensure nothing changes. I am working on getting this functioning on SP3 and will post the results when I have them.
*Notes:
-Alesis tech support is worthless, don't waste your time. They responded back twice. Once telling me it was my computer, a lie, my m-audio gear works flawlessly on it with it's own drivers and the computer is a 8 month old ASUS G series fully loaded. Then they told me to revert to the old drivers, which doesn't work because there is no way to back date the firmware, so the old drivers still won't work right. Some of them wouldn't even recognize the board after a reboot because the drivers were older than the firmware. They also said the 6 to 4 pin cable was the culprit and that I should buy a new firewire card, yet another load of BS.
-If the ASIO4All gives trouble make sure any other devices listed are disabled or (sometimes) enabled.
-Occasionally on reboot you will have to uninstall and reinstall the drivers.
I hope I have explained this clear enough. Please leave any feedback, if this does not work for some I will see what I can do to help. Best of Luck.
Jan 25, 2010 10:02 am another thing to check before asio4all is to switch to background service.for xp hit windows button + pause/break then advanced tab then settings in performance section then advanced tab on those tabs and check background services then apply and ok out of there don't know if it helps for you but i believe this needs to be done.its been a while since i set it up but i haven't had problems at all like others.the other services mentioned should be stopped also but they should be stopped for any recording to save cpu for recording.also if your sound card has its own control panel (not the windows sound controls) stop that also through task manager right click on taskbar then task manager then process tab.end processes that you don't need don't be to scared the worst that will happen is your computer will shutdown if you end something that's needed which you can stop by hitting windows button + r then type "shutdown \a" (without "") but you might just let it shutdown and then restart so the process you stopped will be restarted for you.
