Problems with M-Audio Firewire Audiophile

[joetramp]

Hi everyone,

I've bought a M-Audio Firewire Audiophile on ebay to use it with my iMac G3 500MHz, 1GB RAM. Main purpose for this machine is to run a few VSTs as tone generators to use in my studio setup.

So I hooked up the Interface, installed the drivers from http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,3181.msg20366.html#msg20366 and rebooted the iMac.

Once the iMac is booted, the interface stops flashing its leds and the blue led in the right corner becomes steady. However, when I open the control panel all volume meters (not faders) are at random state and don't move at all.

http://imgur.com/a/JnYaJ

They should all be at (or near) 0 because no audio is feeding in or out. When I select the device via ASIO drivers in ableton, I can't press play anymore and there is no sound and midi coming in or out.

I hooked it up to another mac (G4 MDD 1GHz) and have the exact same problems there. The device is working with Linux and OS/X 10.4 just fine so it seems to be a OS 9 driver problem. It seems that the device never "boots" correctly because the green led for the headphone source never lids up (which it does in OS/X).

I noticed that the firmware of the device is from 2007 and I wonder if M-Audio has broken OS 9 compatibility.

I haven't found anything useful for how to downgrade the firmware.

Does anyone here can give me some tipps? Thanks in advance!

[geforceg4]

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac_500_indigo.html
nice imac!

can u include some image of the device

are u sure your firewire ports work with other firewire devices?

[joetramp]

I made these images: http://imgur.com/a/JnYaJ

The Firewire ports are working.

The interface does not work in Mac OS 9  but does work in OS/X on the same mac.

[geforceg4]

do u know which exact version of the driver u are using now?
maybe share some more detailed pics of the interface.. ie: text on the side/bottom of the box to identify it
where did u see firmware version?

this would be a peice of cake if inmusic hadnt of screwed up the legacy downloads on the m-audio site

[joetramp]

The device is an M-Audio Firewire Audiophile as seen here http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,3181.msg20366.html#msg20366

The Driver version is the one from the link and the same one is included in the package from http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,1933.msg11550.html#msg11550

It is the version 1.0.2

The Control Panel in OS/X and Windows show:
bootloader: 2003/10/06 10:00:41
firmware:    2007/05/04 10:22:12
hardware:   model: D version: 1
GUID:          000D-6C03-00CC-83B8

More pictures here http://imgur.com/a/RKNyK

[geforceg4]

yea i was just trying to collect all the details from you to make it easy for someone to get to the root of your issue!

[DieHard]

I sold 2 of my M-Audio FW Units, but I should still have one in storage... if I have time... I will see if I can a working system up...

The 2496 Internal PCI is ROCK solid in OS9 and always my first choice

[joetramp]

that would be great!

[joetramp]

Got an e-mail from tech-support (inmusicbrands.com). They can't help me or provide any working drivers.

The only thing they can give to me is OMS 2.3.8 which I already have and as far as I know this is only useful to get midi working.

Hum..

[geforceg4]

Got an e-mail from tech-support (inmusicbrands.com). They can't help me or provide any working drivers.

The only thing they can give to me is OMS 2.3.8 which I already have and as far as I know this is only useful to get midi working.

Hum..

lol REAL big surprise there its not even the same company and u are talking about a product from 12-14 years ago;) same age as my golden retriever

m-audio has been bought + passed around like a two-bit hoe ! lol
about 1 year ago they really screwed up the driver downloads for old products especially for mac os 9. we are on our own now with the old hardware.. they purposely dont want u to be able to use an old interface.. they want u to spend 100-200$ on a new one. they obviously have no care about old os. they have nothing to gain from it. if they were smart they would charge 5-25$ for support + support the old hardware.. multiply that times all the users who contact them for help that they just shrug off and they might actually profit, but no.

visit this post + check the archive there
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=1933
as u can see from the date there... october 2014 is when they screwed up the driver downloads.. before that it was great.. inmusic had just taken control of m-audio having bought it from Digidesign/AVID and they slaughtered the driver downloads + reprogrammed the page/script which totally screwed up the way that it works. it was informative + supportive before now its confusing + stupid. read the post to learn more. the japanese site was still the same as the american site for a good year or so after oct 2014 but they eventually destroyed it aswell.

[joetramp]

I did read the Post, see my Post above. :-) It's where I got the drivers from before I found the dedicated Audiophile Firewire download page here in the forum.

Anyway, I bought an old M-Audio Ozone and will sell the audiophile on ebay as it seems that I won't be able to make it work with Mac OS 9.

Thank ya'll for the infos.

[DieHard]

I found the Original M-audio FW CD and I will image the entire disk if you want to give it one last go around

Just give me a day or 2 to mage and post it

[joetramp]

Okay, nice! I would give it a try!

[geforceg4]

i already pasted the m-audio archive i created in 2014
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1933.0;attach=1727


click the link.. its 22mb.
download + extract
the firewire audiophile driver is in the firewire folder
i speak.. but noone seems to understand .. which is why i try to explain everything 3 different ways.. aiiyeesh

[joetramp]

No offense geforceg4, but you don't seem to read either... already posted that I used your archive 2 times and it didn't work. So DieHard may have another version of the driver, maybe even an older one, but it may work, who knows.

[geforceg4]

well then your device is most likely damaged or defective somehow...
that driver was posted online for years... they would have had tons + tons of complaints + replaced it if it didnt work.. they actually did provide customer support at least while the m-audio brand was owned by AVID/Digidesign....

anyways.. lets wait + see what happens with diehards driver cd

[joetramp]

might be damaged, but still works with os/x and linux. it deserves at least one last try.

[GaryN]

OK… I'm certain now, after watching this happen over and over and over that it's time to just take a position.

I will tell anybody that asks to NOT attempt to use M-Audio Firewire interfaces in OS9 ever, period, full stop.
>>>Note this is Firewire only… other lines like the Deltas are obviously OK.<<<

Whatever drivers are still floating around in the bottom of the internet dumpster, they don't work!

I read this kind of stuff over and over:
"I installed everything exactly as i was supposed to, but my meters: A- don't work; B- bounce all over at random; C- I hear weird noise…" and on and on…

As C has said, the files maybe used to be there but not any more and nobody at the company can or will help.

This is now at the definition of insanity. Time to stop.

If there are any actual people here with working M-Audio Firewire hardware in OS9, please explain to all how you made them work and please share the drivers.

[geforceg4]

i think the obvious answer is that m-audio must have did a OSX-only batch of these interfaces sometime after 2006 (ie: 2007) where the firmware was updated to something that breaks the old driver working with the older firmware models


so its probably compatible if u were able to somehow downgrade the firmware to that of a revision C, or B, or A, but not D (which is what joetramp here has)

its the only explaination that makes sense

[DieHard]

I have found the Original CD and I am holding an Original M-Audio FW Audiophile in my hand, I will power up an MDD and image the disk today, I will also test the unit to playback a project...

Now 2 interesting notes:
1) The FW Audiophile had a small printed sheet in the original box that states that NOT to plug it in while Turned on !
Unlike other Hot swap FW units, they say this will DAMAGE the FW Audioplile, so I am guessing many used units in the wild have been damage because of this reason... it is almost hard to believe that they would release a unit that could damage the electronics while plugging in a hot FW cable.... I mean WTF ?!  I never read that sheet in the past... who knows, maybe my last unit is DOA, I will let you know
2) In the past, all my notes (that are many years old) of using these units were 100% with the ASIO driver and CuBase, I never used the control panel for routing or adjusting parameters, it may be that only the ASIO driver is functioning in OS 9