Mac OS 9 Lives

Classic Mac OS Hardware => DAW - Audio & MIDI Hardware => Topic started by: revel8or on February 26, 2016, 05:27:08 PM

Title: Audiophile 2496...and my ignorance...
Post by: revel8or on February 26, 2016, 05:27:08 PM
Hey all.

Thank you guys for walking me through an install of the Cubase instaDAW.  It's up and running, for the most part.

I have a G4 450 DP, Gigabit.  It has a 16mb radeon card, an 80gb drive, and a 240gb (ish) drive.  The 80gb drive is partitioned into three sectors, the Cubase install on one sector, a working sector, and a third sector with the macos9lives o/s from this website installed.  I have an Audiophile 2496 card installed.  I added SoundDiver, successfully, along with the Unitor software, and it communicates with my Unitor mkII with no problem via USB.

So, the Cubase install seems to work OK, sort of.  All of the programs fire up.  Sort of.  What it *doesn't* do is recognize the Audiophile card.  I've tried placing the card in different slots, and it doesn't want to acknowledge that it's hooked up insomuch that it is not selectable from the Cubase audio preferences menu.  In Cubase, it allows only the Apple Sound drivers as an option. 

I've tried locating all of the drivers that were originally installed for the Audiophile and reinstalling (which failed, utterly) and reloading the volume image for Cubase, which lead to the same problem that is currently presenting: Cubase doesn't recognize the Audiophile 2496.

Do I have to instruct the G4 to look for the hardware in some nebulas menu?

So, what is this noobie missing?  It's actually quite embarrassing to ask - I've been working with computers for 30+ years, and have been relatively successful in analysis/determination of the problem and implementing solutions... :( 

Is it possible that I got a crapped out Audiophile from fleaBay?

J
Title: Re: Audiophile 2496...and my ignorance...
Post by: DieHard on February 26, 2016, 05:55:38 PM
Quote
Is it possible that I got a crapped out Audiophile from fleaBay?

There are no Jumpers on the card, If the "audiophile" control panel does not show the card, then it is most likely a bad card, Bad PCI Slots in the G4 would be extremely rare. 

You can try the "Apple system profiler" to see if the System even "sees" the 2496 in a slot.  Also, try the 2496 in a PC or other computer
Title: Re: Audiophile 2496...and my ignorance...
Post by: revel8or on February 27, 2016, 05:05:01 PM
I've managed to get the Audiophile to play system sounds - but I get nothing but a click when a virtual instrument is activated in Cubase, regardless of latency settings.  It was a matter of setting the 2496 mixer settings.

I've had to specify which ASIO driver for Cubase to use by moving the file into the cubase driver folder just to get it to recognize something other than the generic sound manager driver.  Cubase still doesn't play - and what's even more unusual is that as the song plays in the track windows, the mixer window doesn't reflect that it is receiving the sound.  The tracks are responding - the left most green indicator on the track moves as each note is played.  There is no corresponding sound recognized by the mixer view, however.

I've used Cubase vst 5 since it was released on my PC, first with a yammy DSP factory and then Creamware cards, and this is really a first for this kind of difficulty...so any advice is appreciated.

i suspect that there is something off with the location or the type of ASIO driver (I did move them around from the Audiophile file to the Cubase ASIO file to see if it would help) and I've tried all three different versions of the Audiophile 2496 ASIO driver in Cubase, but I really don't understand why there is no response between the audio that is being played in the tracks and how it doesn't, essentially, become "lost" before it hits the Cubase mixer...

j
Title: Re: Audiophile 2496...and my ignorance...
Post by: GaryN on February 27, 2016, 05:19:47 PM
Try removing the Sound Manager driver from the Cubase ASIO folder so that the only thing in there is the M-Audio ASIO driver.
Double check that ASIO-out is selected in Cubase.
Restart.

Now what happens? Any change?
Title: Re: Audiophile 2496...and my ignorance...
Post by: revel8or on February 27, 2016, 06:23:12 PM
I did try that - and I've been through the three drivers that were in the Audiophile ASIO folder.  I was ablet to get some system sounds - inconsistently - through each of the three drivers.  When Cubase is up and going, it *did* start to respond to VSTi input, but, again, all that was played were pops, even for pad sounds from whatever synth was loaded.

Well, at least there are some sounds being played, and Cubase is now responding correctly in the Mixer view when the clicks occur, which leads me to think that I may have been sold a faulty Audiophile card...I'll try it in a PC, tomorrow...but I've got a sinking suspicion that it's a hardware problem.

Oh, and now it won't reselect the latency after it's been started.  It freezes the entire Mac.

J
Title: Re: Audiophile 2496...and my ignorance...
Post by: revel8or on March 07, 2016, 06:42:18 PM
Hey all.  Thanks a lot for the support of everyone - it means a lot, and this is one of the few forums that I've not seen *any* flaming.  It's a good vibe and I hope that this dharma continues.

So, I've restarted an install of my audiophile 2496, driver by driver, as I couldn't get the DAW-in-a-box to work correctly.  So far, things are going "ok," but I was wondering if anyone has the v2 driver for the Audiophile 2496.  It's not going to kill me if it doesn't show up, as I've got a very adequate midiot system with the Unitor mkII running through USB...but I do like a sense of completion, and it would mean a bit to be able to get the Audiophile going fully.

Anyway, if someone has a link to it, I'd really appreciate it!

JTR
Title: Re: Audiophile 2496...and my ignorance...
Post by: DieHard on March 08, 2016, 08:13:35 AM
Version 2 is here.... and has been available

I really thought I mentioned that... if not, I am sorry :(

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=923.0

Also Version 2 is the version that is already in the "Instant DAW" but if you download the above link you can do all the installs from scratch.  I am really guessing you got a damaged card, these issues are not normal, usually an extremely easy setup
Title: Re: Audiophile 2496...and my ignorance...
Post by: revel8or on March 12, 2016, 05:33:59 PM
OK, so I think that there must have been some sort of magic that happened. 

The Audiophile came out and it was cleaned/dusted, and there was a "suspicious" spot between some of the pins coming off the main chip.  It seemed that it was either bumped, or something was spilled, or perhaps it may have been residue left over from the manufacturing process.  This was cleaned out as best as possible...

The DAW in a box (thanks again, DieHard!) was re-installed along with the card...and it works flawlessly.  There was an issue with a VSTi requiring authorization, but that's hardly material.  The main point is/was that the card may have been physically dirty enough that it was malfunctioning.

I've set it down to some 5 ish ms latency/response time, but I haven't recorded anything with it, yet.  It plays back with no clicks or pops.  It isn't my recording machine - the primary responsibility is really going to be sample editing/patch editing, but because of the DAW in a box, the basic functionality may have been grossly under-rated.

In the mean time, on the cheap, I've gotten the MOTU 324 + 2408 and the Audiowerk 2.  I'm going to set up partitions to see how they compare to the Audiophile 2496. 
Title: Re: Audiophile 2496...and my ignorance...
Post by: devils_advisor on March 13, 2016, 07:56:43 AM
Let that be a lesson for everybody. Some of the smallest things we overlook can be the solution. It's annoying and tedious but at the end you got it back to life. Enjoy your setup and keep us posted, your journey might be helpful to somebody else someday.
Title: Re: Audiophile 2496...and my ignorance...
Post by: DieHard on March 14, 2016, 08:31:43 AM
Quote
In the mean time, on the cheap, I've gotten the MOTU 324 + 2408 and the Audiowerk 2.  I'm going to set up partitions to see how they compare to the Audiophile 2496. 

The record/playback quality of 2496 will kick the crap out of the Motu 2408, you will hear a HUGE difference, 2408 has  20-bit analogue inputs and outputs, however the Motu can Multitrack, the 2496 is limited to 4 simultaneous when recording (2 analog, 2 digital). If you are going to use an old MOTU box with the 324 go for the 1224, it has a much sweeter A/D converters and sounds much warmer (also produces fatter lo-mids, and lows); also it's 24 bit analog.  The 1224 is the BEST legacy MOTU Box by far (I've used every one, lol)

The 2408 shines if you are using the converters from a Tascam 8 channel (without actually recording to it) and going into the 2408 via TDIF connector (you can go directly 24 bit digital with some of the best A/D converters ever made (Tascam DA-88, DA-38).

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb99/articles/motu2408.654.htm