Mac OS 9 Lives
Digital Audio Workstation & MIDI => Audio & MIDI Hardware => Topic started by: MacTron on June 23, 2014, 12:25:59 PM
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"mLAN is the integration of audio and MIDI bi-directional transfer over a single FireWire (IEEE 1394) cable. Up to 63 mLAN compatible products may be connected together in any order, and as mLAN ports are hot-pluggable, there is no need to power-down or reset any devices. mLAN is extremely useful in computer-based music production, although compatible products may be connected together without a computer - ideal for live performance situations. The format is supported by Windows XP and Mac OSs 9, and at OS level for Mac OSX platforms. Although mLAN has been developed by Yamaha, over 40 other manufacturers have signed on as licensees, many with products already in the market"
Unfortunately it's no possible to connect two computers alone with firewire cable.
But there is rumour that this had been achieved in OS 9 with mLAN ASIO drivers, has anyone else know more about this ?
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All I can say about MLan is that the "Firestation" uses it as a protocol and does NOT use the 1394 as a standard FW port.
http://www.presonus.com/products/firestation
Many studios gave up and returned them back in the day, they were an absolute nightmare under OS 9 and never worked correctly. I had 3 pages of notes that I used to use when I had to get them up and running.
Just to emphasize this, I have seen them sell for less than $80 on ebay since they are such a nightmare. As far as other Mlan devices, I am not sure how well they operate, but I HATE the firestation and that was my first Mlan experience
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The FIREstation uses Yamaha's protocol for FireWire recording called mLAN. The difference between mLAN and other FireWire recording systems is that mLAN is an 'open' platform allowing compatibility with other manufacturer's hardware including Apogee™, Korg™ and Yamaha™ with many more to come. mLAN stands for 'Music Local Area Network' and works just like a computer network. Multiple mLAN devices can be chained together so that digital audio, MIDI and Word Clock information can be sent to and from each device. Now, audio interfaces, digital mixers and keyboards can all communicate using mLAN.
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I never runned MLan under OS9 . But I'm very much tented to know at least how my i88x Yamaha interfaces would work with.
At least they are ,after a long battle driverwise , rock solid under Mac OS X Snow Leo. I even run them on Mountain Lion (MLPostfactor - thing )which installs a 32bit System-Kernel instead of the 64 bit. The latter would not run with the latest mLan driver. - There was a MLan - Forum in the newer days . But some month ago it disappeared from one day to another: http://mlan.dailyforum.net/index.php . I don't know what happened but probably there's someone in here who knows?
I never heard about connecting two Macs with a mLAN ASIO driver. What would it be for?
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01x
http://www.oldschooldaw.com/forums/index.php?topic=988.0
i88x
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=2482.0
mlan articles:
http://www.oldschooldaw.com/forums/index.php?topic=1073.msg1114#msg1114
from what i read mlan was originally aimed at mac os 9 + windows xp
I looked up at the overcast Irish skies, the clouds parted, and like my biblical namesake in a sentimental Victorian painting, I caught a glimpse of Paradise! ADAT Optical had reduced the spaghetti in my studio to angelhair pasta -- but FireWire could eradicate it forever, and the constant replugging of cables, miswiring and crawling on the floor that went with it. I dedicated my life on the spot to do whatever it took to get an audio protocol for FireWire out there and adopted.
it really was a cool idea.. it sad to see it not succeed + gain larger support + stability (or rather, it should be stability, then support)
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http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/07/mlan-drivers-now-universal-binary-but-you-probably-dont-care/
seeing as how mlan was deemed such a "flop"
im wondering - is this mostly due to incompatibilities with osx?
and people not understanding the technology? perhaps it was too complicated?
theres tons of reports + warnings to stay 'far away' from mlan..
but.. if u were to fully understand how to make it work.. it might make for some of the best deals going because of that stigma.. that the equipment is buggy as hell.. etc etc if they are able to work fine with mac os 9 & windows xp..
anyone care to comment ? (anything other then the pre-existing stereotypical comments ie: mlan sucks, mlan is buggy, mlan is dead)
i was trying to discuss this with diehard but he hasnt been around
my idea being,
if u could pick up a yamaha 01x, a yamaha i88x + a presonus firestation
for cheap. and get it all to work with eachother. that might be a pretty impressive set up.. yes it would be limited to using it with older os'.. but for some of us thats thats ok..
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http://web.archive.org/web/20040202004722/http://mlancentral.com/mlan_info.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20040203143902/http://www.yamahasynth.com/pro/mlan/index.html
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Ah, mLAN.... those were the days.. did not do a whole lot of music but did have a lot of fun anyway. :D
I was a heavy mLAN user back in the day, starting with the 01x mixer/audio interface/controller combo and then the i88X and the 01v96 with the mLAN card.
The flexibility afforded by an expanded mLAN setup in terms of the freedom of routing all your IO from all the devices, choosing a clocking scheme, etc. was very ambitious and, once the software settled, it did work very well.
At the same time, it was not a system that was easy to grasp for the novice and I recall a few of us spending long hours on 01xray.com and Mlancentral.com literally what was a lifetime helping other budding users sort out their PC and Mac setups and DAWs with mLAN.
The big mistake for Yamaha and mLAN was the tactical decision to use the Apple Firewire OS X audio streaming driver - as did Apogee and a few others with variable success. Apogee Duet 1 and Ensemble users were similarly irked by the driver issues but eventually did manage to churn out their own beta ahead of the others. There is a lot of speculation on how they managed to do this but that is probably not relevant to this thread at all.
What it did mean for mLAN users was that we were stuck with a driver that had a variable recording offset for what felt like an age and that by the time it arrived most people had given up and sold their kit.
Eventually, Yamaha bought Steinberg, folded mLAN and from then on just used a Yamaha Steinberg FW driver for the newer units (such as the FW interface for the newer Motifs, for example). This meant that Mlan 1 devices like the Firestudio and Mlan 2 devices like the Yamaha ones mentioned above were stuck in OS X 10.5.x for ever after.
Some of the devices such as the mLAN expansion for the Triton and the one for the Kurzweil FX unit - cannot remember the name now - were pretty hard to come by.
I no longer have any of my mLAN kit but I do recall reports that the OS 9 software and drivers did not exhibit any of the traits suffered by the OS X drivers over the lifetime of mLAN.
If I come across a cheap 01x, I may just set it up as a dedicated control surface as it did have an excellent implementation of the Mackie Control protocol. Apart from that, it's a nice little mixer with a couple of Yamaha's well known multiFX units as well as analogue I/O and SPDIF.
Given that Firewire is on a different bus than the PCI slots on my MDD, this would not interfere with my PCI expansion chassis and is worth a shot... 8)
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the price of the 01x is coming down to around 200$ some less + some more
thank u for the report re: mac os 9.. i suspected that some 'advanced users' would have experienced some success with this thing, provided they stayed on the lower os.
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The Firestation, as mentioned by Diehard, is an mLAN 1 device and, indeed, was a nightmare in its inception.
01x, i88x, my16mlan card for the mixers and so on are mLAN 2.0 devices. Once the drivers became stable, you could use a Firestation as part of an mLAN network with mLAN 2 devices quite successfully as there was a firmware/driver upgrade for it. Even so, the firewire bandwidth was only 200Mbits on the Firestation and latency was also worse than on the native 2.0 devices so the best mlAN setup was one that only had mLAN 2 devices only ;)
If you go down this route, I still recall a lot about how it worked and how to best set it up with regards to Studio Manager and the mLAN patchbay app... so should be able to answer many questions.
I used it all the way through my Powerbook G4 17, an Xserve dual G4 and then a PCI G5 at the time and only let go of it once I moved to a Mac Pro in 2009. Strangely enough, upgrades do not always result in productivity.
As you suspect yourself it was incredibly flexible!
You should be able to use the 01x as a control surface for Live with motorised faders - although I do not recall at what version Ableton Live implemented the Mackie Control protocol.
Version 1.5.2 of the drivers is the one to get for OS 9. Not relevant to this forum obviously 1.2.0 is the stable version for OS X 10.4.x&10.5.x.
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thanks so much for sharing that info 8) perfect!
this sheds alot of light on the comments re: the firestation.
it would seem that unit is defiantely best reserved to be used via adat expansion with another unit
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There are some resources on this site from another guy that used to contribute regularly on 01xray.com and they are a pretty good of bunch tutorials and setup guides for your amusement or anyone else that wants to venture down mLAN memory lane:
http://happyharry.net/yamaha/
As for the drivers themselves they are all available here:
http://download.yamaha.com/search/product/?language=en&site=usa.yamaha.com&category_id=16268&product_id=100004
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From acelera
01x, i88x, my16mlan card for the mixers and so on are mLAN 2.0 devices. Once the drivers became stable, you could use a Firestation as part of an mLAN network with mLAN 2 devices quite successfully as there was a firmware/driver upgrade for it. Even so, the firewire bandwidth was only 200Mbits on the Firestation and latency was also worse than on the native 2.0 devices so the best mlAN setup was one that only had mLAN 2 devices only
Well, that was informative ! (and thank you).
Since it was clear that mLAN was not going to be around, many DAW Mac & PC hardware vendors (including my company at the time), gave up on it altogether. Looking back now, if it was properly implemented, it should have become the standard in Production Studios that had more that one tracking room.
I think it was overkill (and perhaps too complex) for the Home studio with 1 interface and 1 computer; and I bet this is what really killed it in the end.
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maybe im a glutton for punishment but im kind of interested in exploring the 01x + i88x on mac os 9... 8)
also the fact that u can get mlan addon cards for yamaha digital mixers sounds pretty interesting..
for logic/cubase/dp/live i bet it could offer some great track counts..
any comments to add on midi timing over the firewire? from anyone with experience?
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About to try it.....just got done speaking with a friend that said his MDD/OS9/01x/i88x setup was completely stable running cubase 5 ;D
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I know something about these, but still looking for older mLAN devices to my setup.
Older mLAN devices called "mLAN a" or mLAN S200 only works in OS 9 :) Only exception is Presonus Firestation, because you can firmware upgrade it to "mLAN b". Most of mLAN devices are mLAN S400 (mLAN b).
I looking for also mLAN S200 (mLAN a) application package called mLAN Tools. I think version numbers 1.0.1-1.3 are for S200. Also there should be more interesting software called mLAN Mixer and it is for mLAN S200 devices that has serial port too. With that program you can setup levels for audio signals in mLAN "lines".
So if somebody has files for older mLAN devices, please share them for historic reasons. Even if you have something for Presonus before firmware upgrade versions.
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a friend living closeby to me just got an aw4416 - i think it supports m-lan aswell as the i88x and 01x
i know it has a rs-422 mac "host" serial port on the back similar to tg100 etc desktop modules of the mid-late 90s
so it musth have midi built in, actualy i think he needs an addon card to add mlan
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About to try it.....just got done speaking with a friend that said his MDD/OS9/01x/i88x setup was completely stable running cubase 5 ;D
id believe it.. it would make sense to me that alot of the mlan bashing was coming from people who upgraded to osx at first chance
it was a turbulent time back then so to speak..
lots of changes going on , with windows XP taking over the windows world.. aswell as the jump to osx..
alot of hardware that was built with win9x/classic mac os was left in the dust mere months after it was made
this is why the audio industry is so fickle too, manufacturers have been burnt so many times, they are totally afraid to make any new interface in big quanities and to keep producing them, because they know that things change ta the drop of a hat and everyone upgrades os + buys a new computer with different ports/form factors etc
whats funny is all the people that upgrade literally look down on those that dont... meanwhile they are the ones that always have the compatibility problems :D haha changing their rigs always + never getting anything done
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a friend living closeby to me just got an aw4416 - i think it supports m-lan aswell as the i88x and 01x
These are mLAN b/S400 devices.
EDIT: Actually that AW4416 is interesting, with MY8-mLAN option card it is mLAN a/S200 device.
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Unfortunately it's no possible to connect two computers alone with firewire cable.
But there is rumour that this had been achieved in OS 9 with mLAN ASIO drivers, has anyone else know more about this ?
I had done lot of investigation about that rumour. Now it is testing time. But I need Yamaha mLAN Tools CD-ROM about year between 2000-2002, disk image should have both Mac and Win partition. You don't believe if I tell why it is needed for this test :)
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Actually every early (between 1999-2003) mLAN Tools versions from CD-ROMs are welcome.
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I got my yamaha 01x in use with mlan for a while.
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im trying to learn more about mlan,
unfortunately the only way to learn seems to be going out and buying some mlan devices
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im trying to learn more about mlan,
unfortunately the only way to learn seems to be going out and buying some mlan devices
It seems buying is so hard to my synth. I have Yamaha CS6x and it fits with only with Yamaha mLAN 8E. That mLan 8E is one
of the first mLAN devices and Yamaha took some of them back it has one hard problem, it cannot play recorded audio back from computer,
but I am still ready to buy it, if I see one sale somewhere. I have seen one for sale with Yamaha Motif6 in this year, but seller
doesn't wanted send it. And in Motif6 the mLAN 8E is very useless, because it is better with AIEB2 digital I/O.
If somebody has Motif ES for mLAN:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Yamaha-Mlan16e-firewire-expansion-board-MINT-used-Mlan-card-for-sale/142611262235
If somebody has lot of money can test mLAN with this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Yamaha-DME64N-Digital-Mixing-Engine-3x-MY8-DA96-1x-MY8-mLAN-Cards-5-/332361970886
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You should be able to use the 01x as a control surface for Live with motorised faders - although I do not recall at what version Ableton Live implemented the Mackie Control protocol.
that would be a sweet setup!
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Actually every early (between 1999-2003) mLAN Tools versions from CD-ROMs are welcome.
Has anybody Presonus Firestation CD-ROM from that time perioid?. I also interested in what mLAN stuff it has.
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Had the CD... still looking, but things are not looking good... lost 2 binders, including AKAI stuff that a "friend" was nice enough to throw out for me... :(
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a friend of mijne recently bought a AW4416 and he had problems burning an image of the cd he needed that came with the aw4416, so after looking all over, he finally called yamaha tech support and they sent him a brand new copy of the cd.. from 2003? or 2002? so if u are looking for the cd i suggest u simply call yamaha tech support!
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I cant believe it, the yamaha motif es working in os9 with a 01x. Wonder if the next higher ones work the same way.
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a friend of mijne recently bought a AW4416 and he had problems burning an image of the cd he needed that came with the aw4416, so after looking all over, he finally called yamaha tech support and they sent him a brand new copy of the cd.. from 2003? or 2002? so if u are looking for the cd i suggest u simply call yamaha tech support!
I asked and they said that no CD-ROMs or another spare parts available those older mLAN devices anymore :'(
So does your friend still have it?
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???
what do u need frm the original cd?
https://www.presonus.com/products/FIREstation/downloads
https://pae-web.presonusmusic.com/downloads/products/pdf/FIREstation_mLAN_Driver_Manual_EN.pdf
https://pae-web.presonusmusic.com/downloads/products/pdf/FIREstation_Owners_Manual_EN.pdf
https://pae-web.presonusmusic.com/downloads/products/pdf/FIREstation_mLAN_Patchbay_Manual_EN.pdf
https://pae-web.presonusmusic.com/downloads/products/pdf/FIREstation_Quick_Start_Mac_EN.pdf
https://pae-web.presonusmusic.com/downloads/products/pdf/Windows_XP_install_guide_thorough.pdf
https://pae-web.presonusmusic.com/downloads/products/pdf/buffer_settings_2.pdf
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what do u need frm the original cd?
For software that are mentioned in those Driver Manual and Patchbay Manual pdfs.
There also should be mLAN Mixer software.
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MLAN Mixer software is the Studio Manager app for the 01.that's still downloable too.
For the audio midi patching and setup you just use the Graphical Patchbay app that comes with the driver package.
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MLAN Mixer software is the Studio Manager app for the 01.that's still downloable too.
For the audio midi patching and setup you just use the Graphical Patchbay app that comes with the driver package.
But I looking for mLAN Mixer software version before that Studio Manager and Patchbay software version before that Graphical Patchbay version.
That was before 01x release. Now official Yamaha downloadable version doesn't support mLAN S200 devices except Presonus Firestation and Kurtzweil KMLN8 after firmware update. And after that they doesn't work with another S200 devices.
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I just got an i88X. Waiting for the mLAN16E to come in so that I can connect my Motif ES. I'll give it a go this weekend with Logic on OS9.
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And I got after last visit Yamaha mLAN8P, just paying too much...and without driver CD :-[ So needing old mLAN-Tools CD-ROM more than ever. And where to get Yamaha mLAN8E to my instrument...so that I can make real mLAN s200 network with my Powerbook.
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Once the drivers became stable, you could use a Firestation as part of an mLAN network with mLAN 2 devices quite successfully as there was a firmware/driver upgrade for it.
Actually, the practical application was quite the opposite. I can say, myself, my own experience, that the magical firmware update for that compatibility completely bricked my firestation, and I was far from the only one. Presonus at that point was so sick of supporting the device they basically completely signed off on it and refused to help me any further... this was because I had updated my device after their swap/upgrade window (that's how awful these things were... presonus for a time was basically giving away Firepods to people who had firestations because they were such a flawed product)... Presonus swore up and down that the problem was Yamaha's buggy firmware.
That was almost 15 years ago and I swore I would never buy a Presonus device again (or Yamaha for that matter). Its a damn shame too because, besides for mLAN, the firestation was an amazing interface. the power transformer in them was one of the biggest ive ever seen in a 1U device, like the size of a hockey puck.
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Did you know that Yamaha made drivers only for Mac OS 8.6-9.2.2 for these devices and expansions:
Yamaha mLAN8P
Yamaha mLAN8E
Yamaha CD8-mLAN
Yamaha MY8-mLAN
And Yamaha release Yamaha mLAN Mixer Software only on CD-ROM with mLAN8P/E. Without that software those devices are almost useless. That CD-ROM has also software for Win95/98 , but there is not mLAN drivers for Win95/Win98, it just remote control software thru serialport :)
But! Now I afraid that those driver files (especially mLAN Mixer any version) are lost in to history...Or has somebody?
I also interested to find all those devices for historic reasons.
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My Mlan Rant...
So i had this 01x around here for over 6 months & i finally had the time to try it out. so after 3days & a heap of research, round in circles & mis-guidance from other operatoring sytems intsalls etc, it had clock sync errors, wouldnt communicate etc & I just couldnt get the remote section to work yet alone get sound out of it. I was ready to take to it with a sledge hammer so no one else will suffer the same mLAN frustration!
So they were not joking when it comes to mlan for the uninitiated. :-[ END OF STORY.... 8) But really it isnt that bad. its actually pretty cool & the remote control of logic 6.4.3 under os9 is really great (sold my logic control 15 years ago) & its sounds pretty good. ( havent tried the yamaha plug ins etc & older logic 4.8 etc...
i will write a install guide for us OS9 people as thats the main problem with no info, no install cd's etc & too much misinformation & different operating systems & "there" problems. its really quite simple with the right steps, no webarchive, no facebook groups etc. just the drivers & the correct installation & your on!
I crashed os9 & the G4MDD restarted with a leopard hard disk in there... I saw the OSX apple boot logo, was "OH *#@!!!!" & powered it off with the power button so it couldnt boot. OSX 10.5 just bt tree errored my os9 hard disks without even completing a start up.
why was OSX lion in there?? I thought the 01x was dead or bricked & i got it going in leopard first as i couldnt get it to talk at all in os9....