Potential solution for ASIO Audio Control panel issues of Firewire

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

Alright I'm seeing two things that is sticking out for me, one is more a question the other is something I always recommend.

1rst, you got PT 11 on D and PT 10 on C:. I know you probably already know that but PT needs to be installed on the C: drive each time. I know that when you make a dual boot, the letters of the drive changes depending on which boot you are in, so please confirm that when you are in the PT 11 boot that the drive letter where PT 11 is installed is C?

now:
Audio Device : Gigabyte HD Audio Controller
Audio Device : PNY GF108 High Definition Audio Controller

Go into your bios and completely disable these two audio controllers and assign your mixer to windows as the default playback and recording interface, make sure there's no other listed there. I don't use Presonus, but that's what I'm doing with the LS56 and I have 0 problem with windows sounds. This won't fix the your asio settings has changed (if you change the buffer within pro tools or through the mixer software interface) but it may give more stability. Also make sure that in windows the bit rate and sample rate are the same that what your interface is set to. So if your interface is set to 24/96, that's what you need to set in the properties for the default advance proprieties.

I know many people will tell you not to do that that they haven't had any problems, but these are steps that were suggested to me by the manufacturers themselves.

An other thing, in the Asio drivers what is your firewire latency set to? Short, medium, long? (can't tell if Presonus uses the same thing as Focusrite). Have you tried to keep it on medium to see if it improves the stability of the connection? Although it won't change the asio settings has changed (if you change the buffer within pro tools or through the mixer software interface) but it may give more stability.

Although Avid recommends using the legacy drivers, have you tried the OHCI compliant drivers? And also, is that gygabyte firewire a card or is it the one imbedded into your Motherboard? If it's imbedded try getting this card SIIG NN-440012-S8, it's the one I use and I can attest that it gives me no compatibility issues. Even though it's the same chipset as your's it might be worth a try and it's only 30$ now. Which reminds me, in your device manager, there's now yellow declamation marks beside the IEEE bust host controller?

There's no graphical processor listed, are you using a motherboard imbedded chip? The cpu imbedded chip, or a separate V card and is it listed as the compatible cards in the system requirement FAQ or the i7builds thread?

This is what comes to mind at the moment.

You forgot: Video Adapter : Standard VGA Graphics Adapter (PCIe 1.00 x16)

[Emcha_audio]

Originally Posted by Bill Denton

You forgot: Video Adapter : Standard VGA Graphics Adapter (PCIe 1.00 x16)

I saw it, but not sure it would cause a problem, have you heard of bad experiences with it?

[Joe.LoDuca]

Hi Manny,
again, thanks for the info. I will try anything. I really want to make this work, I have other softwares that can do the job but want to see Protools work. I have put in an order for that exact same firewire card. $30 is throw away money. I am definitely up to spending it to see where it takes me.

Firewire Latency isn't something i've really experimented with. Not sure what I am set to but will post in the future of what I find. The good thing about what I do is once I am set and things are stable, I usually don't change any parameters. Thats the part of this that blows my mind, System tells me I changed something in control panel but I never do. Like I do everything pretty much at 48k/24 with buff at 128.

The way you have your sound card from a windows perspective is really new to me. I am going to try your way. Its not something I ever tried. I actually more inclined to think that this would give me more problems though. Reason I say that is if I can get PT to happily bop along at 48k/24 to Presonus - and then Windows has something to say in audio, it too would want to go to the same place PT is using. I know you have both set up with identical rates (so do I) even though I gave Windows the stupid on motherboard sound processor. But I will definitely try your way.. It doesn't work my way, it can only get better from here.

Also regarding the bootup drives and where windows lives, that should be good. I named the drives based on the version of PT that lives there in that partition. So if I boot up in what my SANDRA report says is the D: drive, it will absolutely be the C: drive when the system is fully booted. I didn't have to set it up this way but I do like it, it allows me to test scenarios and not disable recording altogether.

I will post results soon.. Thanks hugely for your ideas, I really appreciate that in a big way.

[Emcha_audio]

Originally Posted by Joe.LoDuca

Hi Manny,
again, thanks for the info. I will try anything. I really want to make this work, I have other softwares that can do the job but want to see Protools work. I have put in an order for that exact same firewire card. $30 is throw away money. I am definitely up to spending it to see where it takes me.

Firewire Latency isn't something i've really experimented with. Not sure what I am set to but will post in the future of what I find. The good thing about what I do is once I am set and things are stable, I usually don't change any parameters. Thats the part of this that blows my mind, System tells me I changed something in control panel but I never do. Like I do everything pretty much at 48k/24 with buff at 128.

The way you have your sound card from a windows perspective is really new to me. I am going to try your way. Its not something I ever tried. I actually more inclined to think that this would give me more problems though. Reason I say that is if I can get PT to happily bop along at 48k/24 to Presonus - and then Windows has something to say in audio, it too would want to go to the same place PT is using. I know you have both set up with identical rates (so do I) even though I gave Windows the stupid on motherboard sound processor. But I will definitely try your way.. It doesn't work my way, it can only get better from here.

Also regarding the bootup drives and where windows lives, that should be good. I named the drives based on the version of PT that lives there in that partition. So if I boot up in what my SANDRA report says is the D: drive, it will absolutely be the C: drive when the system is fully booted. I didn't have to set it up this way but I do like it, it allows me to test scenarios and not disable recording altogether.

I will post results soon.. Thanks hugely for your ideas, I really appreciate that in a big way.

No that's why you don't give windows (the os) any sound, that you did right, but when you place your hardware as the only playback source, everything else will go through it, wma, vlc, any of the softwares you use will pass it's sound through it.

Also, it just dawn on me that your problem might be relating to you having your hardware set to a certain settings internally that it reverts to when you power off and then power it back up, and then when you open pro tools and you create a session say in 48/24 but your hardware has reverted back to 41/16 then it will tell you that the settings changed because of the settings you are creating the session in (same things happens to me when I'm creating a session that is in a different setting that I'm usually set to). So here's an Idea, and maybe you've already done it, but check if you can force save your usual settings into the mixer so that the next time you open it, you are sure that it's still on that setting before opening pro tools?

And for the boot drive, it's usually how windows work, but I just wanted to make sure you actually had two different boot sequence and not just one and having the two instance of PT installed on two different partitions, which would not be good for PT 11.

[Joe.LoDuca]

Manny : You are an industrial strength GURU!! I think you pegged it on the windows setup of sound. It appears as this was technically the only issue with my overall system.

I am still getting the new firewire card you mention but thats cool. I may put it in, I may not.. Not real sure yet.

But I proceeded to again remove all RME hardware and drivers. I went into bios and killed my motherboard sound. Then went into BOTH boots and setup Everything to go to Presonus. Everything is clamped at 48k/24. First time I went into PT, it kind of scared me because I did get the ASIO change error. But I closed it out and relaunched and that was the last time I saw that error. loaded a project and played it, looking good! I then closed - relaunched = still good.. closed again, - relaunched = still good. Then I went for the grand finally, which was power cycle EVERYTHING, even the mixer. Did that, relaunched .. STILL GOOD..

We've never met, but I am becoming your biggest fan right now!

I am noticing too a different loading personality too about the system. It loads faster and it's appearing way more stable. Going to run it thru some musical missions today and watch the stability but this is looking to be leaps and bounds better than anything I've seen in the last few weeks.

I OWE YOU BIG FOR THIS!
Joe

[Emcha_audio]

I'm glad I've been able to help and I truly hope most of your problems are resolved now. Keep the music coming!

[Joe.LoDuca]

Manny, Again many thanks for all you suggested here. Thought I would post where things are:

I started seeing a few of those typical ASIO errors once everything was initially started from power up. But the good news about that was it was still something I would consider "manageable". -Meaning when I first launch PT I would soon see the asio error and I first tried to just close it out and relaunch PT but that didn't help. I would have to believe it or not REBOOT (a warm reboot) of windows and from that moment on, PT was totally fine..

This morning I received the firewire card you mentioned and decided to put that in being as though I still have a little something here that is not quite resolved 100%. So I put that card in, I set that for the Legacy drivers. And it seems as though everything is running pretty perfect.

I will say this about the card, it too has a real different personality about how it works with Presonus. With my old firewire, when I would play tracks into the mixer exclusively from PT, the volume meters on the Presonus Mixer would graphically show me audio activity. This new firewire card does NOT. In other words I can play something previously recorded and HEAR sound totally fine, but no meter movement happens... Strange, not that I really care cuz I sure don't. all I want is stability and it seems like I have that...

So now I think I have everything set as you recommended and everything is looking quite good..

Also you mentioned VIDEO cards, I have always got great results with my video playing nice with PT.. I know some cards do not.

Also I think you mentioned firewire latency, I am set to Low at the moment. I think in the presonus, there seems to be only 2 that I can see, Low and medium. I think thats how it goes anyway.

Have a great day!

[Emcha_audio]

HMM I find it very strange that you would not see the VU metering on the presonus.. That's one hell of a bug to report to them. Have you tried not using the legacy driver with the new card see how it handles things?

[Joe.LoDuca]

Manny: "Hell of a software bug to report to Presonus".. Yeah.. Sound about right to me.. I am going to have a chat with Presonus, but maybe not so much about that, something else that if I can fix, I will consider myself done 100%.

Like I mentioned, the VU thing, strange but that isn't a show stopper for me. I would trade that for stability in a microsecond. But I think I discovered what the deal is with the PT load and reboot requirement: It appears as though presonus is NOT saving its sampling rate parameters. I think I mentioned above that I do everything at 48k/24. I almost never budge from those numbers. So for me it makes sense to just nail that down everywhere. (wish i could). When I boot everything up, the presonus (without the computer) says its running at 48k. (good). Now when my computer is fully booted. That same sample rate parameter in the mixer switches to "firewire" (also good) so now its looking to the computers control panel for a rate. -issue number 1 that I kind of don't like is that the control panel for presonus does NOT initially running. There is no small icon by the bottom right tray next to the clock time of windows. So I strongly believe that once the mixer switches to "firewire" its getting a 44.1K clock. All of my projects are 48K so we all know how much PT is going to like making those adjustments after a load.

So what I did to get a perfect error free load as to first power everything up. Before I run protools, I will run presonus control panel each and every time.. (in fact, i now put it into the windows startup).. So thats now the first thing that will load. I will switch it to 48k. (and yes, initially presonus control panel wants 44.1K - even stranger is when I set it for 48K and run PT, as soon as I exit PT, Presonus control panel goes back to 44.1 - Weird!!) but the fundamental issue here is I cant seem to save presonus settings. Their control panel doesn't seem to have a SAVE anywhere.. Unless Presonus can recommend a hack..

And yes , I have tried legacy and traditional driver for the UV issue and neither operate.. But that is the least of my concerns too..