Mac And Fw 410 Options

[RJNY]

I've heard a lot of bad reviews of the MAudio FW410 and mac. Does anyone have any experience with it?

[red_wedge]

I've heard a lot of bad reviews of the MAudio FW410 and mac. Does anyone have any experience with it?

I have one and it's the best interface I've used. There are some issues with sleep on the mac, after which it 'can' sometimes crash the OS. However, I don't experience this because I'm using a laptop set never to go to sleep (which is wise for audio).

The routing software is flexible and easy to use.

I've really found it to be excellent, and M-Audio offer frequent updates to the drivers and are active in finding solutions to problems.

[eMpTy]

I have had one since they came out and in my experience it has worked well and is built very well too. The sound is great and has been more than adequate the only complaints I have has were originally the OEM version of Ableton Delta Live would not recognize the soundcard but this was fixed with a new CD in the mail and it is a crippled version of Live which was usless for me. More importantly though the drivers have been a pain in the ass, they have always been functional but not ideal, however, this seems to be fixed now...

Personally, I recomend it but would have prefered a 10 in 4 out.

This post has been edited by eMpTy: Thu 6 May 2004, 20:29

[sethjacquay]

I like my FW 410. It works great in 10.3.2 using with Ableton Live 3 and DP 4.

No problems yet, although you can check my other posts regarding some of
the misunderstandings I had with the software interface and the mono input
setup in Live 3. All is resolved now though.

[terrywil]

I use the M-Audio FW 410 with my Mac G4, OS X 10.3.3, running Logic 6 Platinum. I've not had any problem in over 6 months. It's been a solid, stable, and reliable device. I recommend it.

[borjam]

I bought one last week and I am impressed. It is great.

That said, it has some issues with the Mac OS X drivers, but they are more a nuisance than anything really serious.

It has some difficulty to initialise when connected to the Firewire bus. I must connect it twice (I mean, connect-disconnect-connect) to have it recognised by the driver. After that, I can connect the two Lacie D2 hard drives and everything works.

However, it might have problems depending on the disk activity, due to limitations in the Firewire bandwidth.

I have just updated the system to Mac OS X 10.3.4 and it is working well with the latest driver from M-Audio. 10.3.4 corrects, according to Apple, some issues when capturing DV video through Firewire. It might have an effect (good, I hope!) on Firewire audio interfaces if it is a tweak of the Firewire drivers.

[stoprunner]

I have one since it came out, and everything was working perfectly until I upgraded the driver to the latest (built 1082) Since then something is really wrong, it keeps on quitting on almost any software I use, cubase SX, live and reason. And I don't seem to find the solution, I am in contact with M-audio, and they suggeted me to unistall and reinstall everything, repair permissions, but the quittings keep on coming. anybody has any experince like this? until driver built 1068 and 10.3.2 everything was sweet but now...

[borjam]

Have you got more drivers installed? More Firewire peripherals?

Have a look at the /var/log/system.log file. It can give a clue about the origin of the problem. Probably some errors will be logged there.

[stoprunner]

I have a firewire800 lacie external drive and I usually plug my iPod to the 410 but not in this case. Where do I find /var/log/system log file? thanks

[bogh]

I was also dissatisfied with the latest driver update (build 1080), so I went back to the previous version, which to me seems to be the best so far.
There are issues with getting the drivers to recognize the unit, when it is attached. like Borjam said, sometimes it needs to be reconnected a couple of times. I have found however, that it usually works best if I connect the FW410 while my Powerbook is on standby. When it wakes up, it usually recogninzes the interface every time.
Overall I've been satisfied with the FW410.

[stoprunner]

the problem is that when I tried to install the driver build 1068, that worked almost ok(have the same problems as bogh) i get a message that the driver was install incorrectly and that I have to reinstall it. And if I do the message keeps coming back. I'm kind of lost...

[stoprunner]

UpdateI tried the 410 with my other computer and it runs fine, besides the waking up problems and the output level adjustment that doesn't work anymore(?)
Everything seems ok and I think I discover the conflict, I have a laCie d2 firewire 800 external drive where I keep my files, samples, etc. and it seems to have a working conflict with the firewire 410 and any audio program everytime I need to get a file from it. Using disk utility I have discovered that the permission cannot be repaired because "something excedes the limit of the folder" even if the empty space in the drive is more that 75%, I'll try a repair disk utility and see what happens.

[lantzn]

Stoprunner, just in case, did you use Disk Utility from a bootup cd or from the Utilities folder while in OSX? A lot of "can't fix permissions" messages go away if you use the bootup cd when attempting to repair them.

[stoprunner]

I used the soft inside the system, But M-audio says that there is a recognized conflict when you have an external LaCie hard drive connected at the same time with the 410, they fight for bus priority, they told me they working on it and try to connect the drive thru the 410 to let it have priority over the drive, I did run the norton doctor, and everything seems fine with the drive. I've not try to connect the drive thru the 410 yet.

thanks

[sethjacquay]

Last night, after upgrading to 10.3.4, I plugged in my FW410 and
opened the Midi Setup. Result was a kernel panic (crash)!

But I went to the M-Audio website downloaded the lastest driver
and everything appears to be working like a charm.

Opened Midi Setup several times in a row without any issues.

[chrisk4]

Apologies for the lengthy , and possibly confusing reply. The information may of use to some.

The following link should contain the info ,released by m-audio, but posted by a forum user on firewire connection issue.

http://www.macmusic.org/agora/forums/index...=ST&f=5&t=13996

With regard to that and the FW410, some users may be interested in my situation - I bought (april 2004) a FW410 after many months of reading on various sites and was reasonably satisfied when I first received the unit.

However, after upgrading to the latest (1.2.2 Build 1082 and also tried 1.2.1 build 1080) m-audio driver (G3 700MHz iBook, 640RAM, 10.3.3/4) the unit has now been returned, via the dealer I purchased from, to m-audio. Interestingly I sent the unit on 4th June and the link info above only appeared later in June - conincidental of course, must have been happening to more folk.

I could get the system to work by reinstalling the FW410_OSX_1.0.3_bld1068 driver - strange. M-Audio then suggested the return of the unit.

FYI below is the info I sent after having been instructed by m-audio to uninstall any pre-existing driver, search for any _other_ instances or _leftovers_ of m-audio preferences/plist files, and repair the permissions.

Please see following re getting the 410 to work using 1.2.2 driver version;

1.
uninstall existing m-audio driver
find all m-audio leftovers and delete
install new driver
repair perms
reboot without 410 attached
410 not recognised

2.
as 1 above
reboot with 410 attached
410 recognised but no cycling through indicator lights
recognised by OS X in Audio MIDI setup and M-Audio pref pane

3.
410 attached
switch off 410
remove fw cable
reattach cable and 410
lights cycle
410 recognised

4.
get some spurious connection failures etc switching off and
removing the fw cable but seems to be ok

5.
still have to try daisy chaining my ext fw drive as I have to use it for
audio even though M-AUDIO don't recommend this at all - man's gotta record any way he can...

6. Question?
What is recommended method of switching off/disconnecting the 410; can't be _put away_ like a fw disk?

Still waiting to hear anything on the unit of course.

[Dasa Soul]

Chrisk4 ,i have the FW410 and love it no prob at all , i have a G4 so the USB is my power ,i dont like the flashing lite when you turn it off ,so its on when my Mac is on

[stoprunner]

Chrisk4, I did receive the same info as you about the reinstallation of the driver, and I did everything they suggested, though I needed to understand better the unplug-plug-unplug situation with the external drive I use. m-audio said it's ok not to unmount the driver everytime I shout down the system and I've been using the 410 now for a couple of weeks in this way, and (fingers crossed) it is working fine. What I've noticed is a strange feeling (electric feel) when touching my powerbook, since the 410 is bus power I think there must be something wrong in that area. something to look into m-audio!

[eMpTy]

!!FIREWIRE WARNING!!

M-Audio WARNING

[Dasa Soul]

eMpTY HEY thankx for the info scarry stuf ,i dont totaly get, it can any body elaborate on this topic plz !!!!

[hyp0static]

I am having very similar problems to stoprunner.

When I have the 410 plugged into my PB's FW 400 port and my LaCie drive plugged into the FW 800 port, things are not happy.

If I play audio off of my internal system drive - no problem.

But if I play audio off of the LaCie drive, I get drop-outs, pops & clicks, full on digital distortion, playing back really slow, and eventually full audio drop-out - but the 410 still registers audio on the output monitor lights.

The only way I can get it to reboot is to shut everything down, actually unplug the power from the 410 (just turning the power off won't do it) and plug everything back in.

It is working with the LaCie plugged into the 410, but that doesn't seem to be the best scenario (as well as wasting the 800 port).

Not sure how the set-up is affecting latency . . .

Any insight would be helpful!

[eMpTy]

I have beeen getting problems with the new driver.

Look here: http://www.macmusic.org/agora/forums/?act=...=14361&lang=EN&

[Ziggomatic]

Hi everyone. I have a firewire 410 and i have 2 questions .btw, i'm running this with a Powerbook G4 500 Mhz

Is that normal that in the Firewire wire 410 audio interface, i can't see no graphic values of volumes and that is for every channel?

i,m trying to record vocalsin Live 3 with a mic pluggedin the 2 analogues inputs and it works like 1/5 and when it works, the sound is soooooo low. its suppose to be a preamp right.

any help will be really appreciated

thank you and sorry for my english!

This post has been edited by Ziggomatic: Thu 15 Jul 2004, 08:56

[stoprunner]

hyp0static, my 410 keeps on working sweetly and I am hoping to get back the 800 prot with the latest driver, but I am reluctant to go back to having problems with my set up. What I will do is contact M-audio again and see if the new driver solves this bus master problem.

[hyp0static]

Ziggomatic:

Is the mic/lin button on the 410 out?

Is the pad button out?

Gain knobs turned up?

Those are the only initial things I can think of.

What kind of mic are you using?

Stoprunner:

I got the new driver - no change in the 800 port.

Actually heard from M-audio yesterday. They acknowledged the 800 port problem and said they are working on a solution. For now, they suggested hooking it up like I (and you, I believe) have it set up: PB FW 400 -> 410 -> LaCie.

[Ziggomatic]

hi hyp0static, thanx for the quick reply

yeah the mic/line is pushed and the pad button is also pushed
for the mic, i use an old shit that i can plug in the 2 inputs.

thanx for you help. for the control panel, do you know why i cant see nothing? do you have the same problem?

thanx again

[hyp0static]

Haven't recorded with a mic yet into the 410, so I can't offer any personal experience there.

Try popping the pad button out - that would make your signal more quiet (sorry if you knew that). Oh - just noticed you said the mic/line button is pushed as well? Is your mic plugged into the front? You want that out too.

Out is for the front ports, in is for the back ports.

This post has been edited by hyp0static: Fri 16 Jul 2004, 13:57

[eMpTy]

Is that normal that in the Firewire wire 410 audio interface, i can't see no graphic values of volumes and that is for every channel?

Yep, that is normal.

[Ziggomatic]

thank you very much guys
i really appreciate your help

boh!!!