Trouble installing FW1884 - need help!

S

StevenLindsey

New member
Ok guys, I've finally had enough. I've been unable to get the 1884 to work with Sonar 3.1.1. Last night I uninstalled Sonar and the 1884 software, followed the instructions for a clean Windows install from the Tascam site, then reinstalled Sonar and then tried to reinstall the 1884. Everything works great until I get to the Tascam stuff.

The install CD that came with the 1884 was bad. It locked up my CD drive and wouldn't recognize it. So I burned the files at work and installed them here at home. It seemed to install OK but was very unstable. Kept losing communication with Sonar, random lights, faders, etc. quit working after a couple of minutes of use. Ok..so last night, I downloaded the files onto my hard drive here on my music PC and tried the alternate method described in the Setup book. Again, the install software will not recognize the folder that I downloaded the files into...H:ProgramFilesFW1884_install. It finds the folder but says nothing is in there. I know it's in there. So I tried to just click on the install files from the folder, like I did with the CD I previously burned. It starts to install and then says..."Error reading device config flags." I went ahead and installed it once in spite of the error. It worked just like before..screwing up after a minute or two. Then I uninstalled, cleaned out Windows, and tried again. Same thing but I aborted this time. Now I'm just dead in the water.

I think I've narrowed my problem down to the Tascam software. Could it just not like my machine? Could it be corrupt? The Sonar and every other program I'm running seems to work exactly as it should. Another note: The Tascam Gigastudio demo they sent with the 1884 would not work with my system either...kept giving me a Windows error crash, you know, where it wants you to report the error to Microsoft. Oh yeah, and I called Tascam support and told them about the bad CD and asked them to send me an updated one. Zilch. Nada. Their support is as useless as tits on a boar hog. The guy couldn't wait to get rid of me. This alone has about swayed me to ditch Tascam once and for all.

Can anyone throw me a line here? I've about reached my limit. If I don't get this thing going by about Tuesday, the 1884 is going home to papa and I'm getting a 01X. However, I really kinda hate to do that because I thought long and hard before I chose the 1884. But I've had enough. Any help will be greatly appreciated. If you need more information, I will expound to the extent necessary.
 
Hey Steven.

Man this really sucks for you. The only thing I can do is try to suggest things to check for on your windows box since I'm not using Sonar with my 1884.

Forgive me if some of these things seem stupid, but you never know.

First thing I would do is make sure you have Service Pack 1 installed for XP. After that go back to windows update and check if there are any "non-critical" updates available for Firewire, USB, whatever. Then check to see if there are any updates for your drivers in the windows update utility.

I found this post on HR about a Sonar/1884 user that has a warning about using driver version 1.1 for the 1884.

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=113436&highlight=1884

There are 2 1884 users that posted in that thread and one that for sure uses sonar. Maybe you should try to PM them as I haven't seen them post on here for a while.

Try using Tascam's version 1.2 driver at this link

http://www.tascam.com/products/FW-1884/software_downloads/fw1884_sonar_1_20.exe

And also update the firmware for the unit with this link

http://www.tascam.com/products/FW-1884/software_downloads/fw1884_firmware_updater_146_49.exe


There is also a review on the 1884 that is linked from the tascam site that was done by SOS. They made this comment about using the 1884 with Sonar (probably wont help you but I thought I'd mention it anyway)

"With Sonar I found that there was a delay between moving the physical faders and the software responding. On checking with Tascam I was told that this was a problem with the ESS Maestro sound driver, so this should be disabled."

The only other thing I can think of is that when I first started using mine, sometimes I noticed that I had Midi Ctrl selected instead of Computer (under the Firewire Clock etc LED's) . Also on the Monitor section I would have Adat selected instead of INT selected as the clock src.

Do you know anyone with a computer with Firewire that you could try installing this puppy on to see if it works on his/hers ?

That's it for now. Gonna go scarf down a couple of burgers from the bbq have a couple of cold ones and watch a movie, but I'll check in later.

Good luck man.

Dave
 
Hey dave. Thanks. Yeah I've tried all you suggested. I haven't even had any problems with the fader delays like the SOS guy saw. Works great, fader wise. I posted a plea on the Cakewalk board and a fellow from Frontier Design, Barry Braksick, saw it and called me. This is a guy that wrote some of the software for this thing. He couldn't figure it out either but he's still pondering it. It just simply may not work with my machine. I'd like to work with them to get it straight. I don't really want to send it back..I want it to work.

Hope you're enjoying your weekend. Mine's been good so far. I'm going to post an mp3 on here before too long done with my 1884. :D
 
Pretty good weekend so far. Trying to salvage my lawn after a pretty cold winter and having 2 dogs doing their "business" on it all winter :D

That's encouraging that you have someone from Frontier Design helping you out. That'd be great if he could figure something out for you. Too bad though that Tascam's support hasn't been better...

Hope you have an update for us soon !

Dave
 
Hello,
I own a FW-1884 and have for a few months now. For the first month I had problems with it that sound the same as you're describing. I am running Sonar 3.1.1 on an Intel P4 2.4GHz and after a few minutes of use the 1884s lights would stop responding, though it would still send the command to Sonar, the board itself wouldnt change. I'm not positive these are the same issues you are having, but they seem very similar and I have yet to find anyone else who has expierenced this.
I was running my PC in ACPI mode to take advangtage of Hyperthreading and the expanded IRQ assignments and that just what it installs as unless otherwise specified. Anyhow, I decided to reload it as a STANDARD PC, I had read some articles about this correcting problems with other things, but not the 1884.. it was worth a shot to me and after that it worked flawlessly... it would never stop responding and has worked fine.
I'm positive this was the fix, because after this worked for 2 weeks, I reloaded it once again in ACPI mode and sure enough the same stuff began to happen... so it was back to Standard PC and has been fine.
I'd be very curious if this is the same problem you're having because I made several calls to tascam and calkwalk and no one could offer me even the little bit of advice.

Hope this will help, Please let me know..

Thanks,
Aaron Laman
Desmo6@cox.net
 
hmm You may be on to something there. I'm gonna talk to the Frontier Design guy about this. Then will have to figure out how to do the ACPI/Standard mode thing to try it. I think some of this technology may be getting way ahead of itself. You buy a $1500 PC and then can't use some of the applications that supposedly make it worth that. Egads!

Thanks a lot Aaron! I'll let you know....right after I crash my computer trying this out. :D
 
Aaron....did you get to standard mode by way of an install or by using the device manager. I've gotten several ( of course ) conflicting views on how to best do this?
 
Hi Steven,
I've actually done it both ways... the first time I did it through the device manager and as I recall, this worked fine. However the second time I did it by the fresh install and I would recommend doing a fresh install, it just seemed to make the PC work a little bit better or should I say cleaner. My only small problem is that you can not take advantage of things like Hyperthreading and some power options. Those are small compared to having a working 1884, it took me a while to decided on this, but when I did I really couldn't find anything that matched it at the time.
I'm pretty sure this is the fix to this problem, if it is in fact the same issue. I told the people at Tascam, but I honestly don't think they cared because they had never heard of the problem. I'm glad I could help. Let me know how it goes, hope everything works out.
 
Well, my friends - Seems that the 1884 just didn't like the hyperthreading on my machine. It never really occurred to me to dumb it down instead of trying to tweak it up. I just disabled it in BIOS at Mr. Braksick's suggestion. Why hadn't I already tried that, you may ask. It's worked now for about 2 hours without losing light or fader contact. The only thing I can't seem to get it to do now is to start an automation recording with the SHIFT/REC key combination like it says in the Tascam/Sonar booklet. If I start the autom.. recording with the Sonar button, I can use the fader to create the envelope. The fader will follow the envelope on playback. Just won't start the recording. Small thing though if everything else works. Its really easier to just use the mouse anyway..one hand instead of two. I've got my fingers crossed that this is not just a false start but it's looking good so far.

We surely do need an 1884 forum somewhere. They seem to have excluded it in the new Tascam BBS someone just started. Maybe once it gains a few dedicated users, one will spring up. It's really a pretty simple machine though. Not that much to talk about once you get her running. I think you're right..Tascam doesn't really care. They never even sent me a working install CD like they said they were going to do. That's pretty darn sorry. I wouldn't have expected that from a company of the seeming reputation as Tascam. Barry Braksick at Frontier Design was very helpful though. Actually called me on a Saturday and talked me through some stuff for about an hour to try and help. There's not much of that left anywhere.
 
That's great news Steven. Hopefully it keeps running for you.

To be honest my PC seems to be acting up on me and I've decided to do a fresh install. I think I might try these suggestions to see if it makes performance better on the 1884.

I'll post back later tomorrow to let you know, if your interested.

Happy recording ! :cool:
 
Glad to hear the good news so far Steven. Sorry you had this problem, but at the same time I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one that ran into this.. and I'm glad I could help you out.
To start Recording automation with the REC button how it stats in the documentation doesn't work, I believe that is just something that worked in Sonar 2 but not in 3. As I recall the Sonar manual for the Tascam refers to Sonar 2. So I don't think that little quark is anything to worry about.
Good Luck with everything.

Aaron
 
Yeah Dave, I'm interested. I'm interested not only in the technical aspects of this stuff but also in the people aspect of it. Like Aaron said, it's good to you know you're not the only one out there being tormented. Man, this stuff can really get you down when you get in a jam and you think there's no help for you this side of the moon and nobody really cares anyway. Even most of the people who sell you the junk don't really care if you ever get it working...just give us your money and then go away and die. :D

This time through, I was more methodical with my tweaking. Just a few at a time... reboot.. then see if it remains stable. At first I was just doing everything I saw on the web that was suggested. I found out that not all that stuff is feasible for everybody. You have to think this stuff out. If I'd done my research on, say, large system cache, I'd have saved myself four reinstalls. Anyway, I've learned a lot the last couple of months and still have a lot to learn. I'm gonna learn how to do hardware profiles next so I can do a startup without the wireless network, antivirus, etc running in the background. I will not however, use the large system cache. LOL.

Good luck with the reinstall. Let us know how it goes and if you get any improvement and what you did. Have a good day gentlemen!

If you haven't already, check out these sites. I've found them very informative, among many others. I'll post more as I come across them.

http://www.theeldergeek.com
http://www.tweakhound.com/
http://www.tascamgiga.com/pdf/optimizing-xp-and-2k.pdf
http://www.systweak.com/winreg/
http://www.musicxp.net/
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/22061/
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1494&page=1
 
Hey guys. I did a little 12 track demo last night. Worked perfectly. 12 tracks with a few effects..getting about 15% CPU time useage. Not too bad I don't think. I've got to figure out the relationship among the buffer settings in the 1884 and Sonar and the buffer slider in Sonar. But so far, it's looking pretty good. One thing is annoying me though. When I start a song, the playback kinda jumps out there and goes, then hangs up for about a half a second and then resumes..causes a stutter at first if there's any data in that section. It's especially bad on midi tracks. When I stop the playback (midi ), it stops, and then burps a time or two, like an echo. Also, at start and stop, I get a small pop, just like the one it makes while running the Wave profiler. The Audio Engine light stays on even after the playback is stopped and the bottom task bar shows Audio Running after stopping. Have you run across any of this behavior? ( To Aaron of course, since I know Dave doesn't use Sonar. ) Man, I'm sure glad to even be able to record some music! I can deal with the minor stuff.

Oh yeah, Brian at Frontier Design emailed me...the automation recording button thing is SET / REC instead of SHIFT / REC like the booklet says. Works perfectly.
 
Hey Steven

Again that's great news to hear that your up and running.

I finished reinstalling my system yesterday, and it seems more stable than it was. One thing I did was replace my anti virus with Mcaffee. I was using Norton and I think it was slowing down my system some how. I've heard that a few people have problems with Norton, but up until now I never thought it was an issue for me.

I did try changing my PC to Standard PC, but when I did a reboot after the change, I got a blue screen of death...

I'm not to worried about it as it seems to be better now....but.....

I have one song that I'm working on right now that has a fair number of tracks on it with automation. At some points when say I mute a track during playback, I get some funny noises happening. I'm leaning towards it being a cubase issue at this time. I'm also having some problems getting Kontakt to play nice with Cubase.

Cubase is supposed to have an update released this month that will include more support for generic controllers. Hopefully that will mean that I can run the 1884 in it's native mode, rather than emulating a Mackie Controller...
 
Man, it's like a never ending stream of issues with this stuff isn't it? I'm almost...almost wishing I'd just gone with a standalone. I was just about to buy the Korg 32XD but the reports of the noisy fan stopped me. But this stuff just doesn't come up with those boxes. Of course they're not as flexible but the stability would almost be worth the difference. Oh well, the die is already cast for me. I have to forge ahead with this computer junk. I think I can see a little light way down there now. It'd be a great thing to finally end up with a nice stable recording system at some point. But by then I will have contracted a nice worm and it'll all be destroyed anyway. :D I think I'm going to stay off the internet as much as possible and keep most of my email web-based.

Don't you just love to get the death screens? I've gotten a bit used to it now though. Doesn't get to me as bad as the first one. Did you install as Standard PC or did you just do the device manager thing to test it? Hope the fresh start does it for you. I always kinda like the fresh start thing. I'm about to do a hardware profile thing so I can start up with no background services running on the taskbar..have you thought of that? I also split my first harddrive into two partitions to keep the programs contained in the first and fastest partition and keep from fragmenting all over the 120 gbs. I did a 50/70 thing. Maybe should have done three and kept the programs in about the first 30. I'm also thinging about making a partition on my 2nd drive to keep a backup of XP on just in case and then turning off the System Restore thing. I'm sure that thing monitoring the drives all the time takes quite a bit of your resources...kinda like the virus protection always running.

Later.
 
I tried to change to standard PC through the device manager. I've actually had very few blue screens with winXP so this was a suprise. I tried to boot up in single user mode so I could do a system restore but it still wouldn't boot. I ended up with a fresh install.

I have 2 internal hard drives. One 80G drive for programs and a 120G drive which I partitioned into 2 drives. One partition is for Loops, Samples, Final mixdowns, and the other partition is only for my recording projects.

I also have a USB 2.0 200G drive that I use for backups. I'm very paranoid about backups, probably because it's part of what I do at work. It's saved me alot of frustration. The WinXP backup utility (installed default by XP Pro, installed as an option by XP Home) works great for this.

If your going to use webmail, make sure that they have some sort of virus checking. We don't allow Web mail at work as some seem to bypass the virus checkers installed on PC's. I guess for me it's sort of a trade off. I need internet access at home so I have to have virus scanning enabled. If I get my hands on a half decent PC that I can use as just my internet PC, I might just do that, but right now I'm spending too much money on recording. My latest purchase was a UAD-1 card which sounds great !
 
Whew! Glad I didn't try the Standard PC thing first. I may have to do the UAD thing later down the road. I've heard a lot of great things about it. I like the idea of the USB drive for backup. May ponder that. That or a DVD burner.
 
Yup - DVD burner works good too, but personally I would use an external drive. With WinXP's backup utility you can do a differential backup every week. So you basically do a Full backup once, then a differential once a week after that and append it to the full backup. No changing CD's or DVD's.


I tried to boot up in single user mode
Click to expand...

I mean Safe mode. Single user is on Linux :D :p
 
I've been an avid computer user and career user for more than 15 years on PCs. Just 2 months ago I broke down and decided buy a a Dual G5 1.8 MAC. THe price point was the same if not a little bit more for the system I wanted to build as a PC, Dual AMD64 FX with 2 Gig of Ram and a SCSI Array. Who wants to wait till 06 to use both Procs at 64 bit.

Overall I have to say Apple and Unix did a flawless job. I run DP4 with MOTU Firewire Interface, Record Midi, and currently am mixing together my first 35 track sequence on DP.

No hangs, No drops, No Crashes, No Blue screens of death.

Just had to throw my 2 cents in, I love my PCs, but even the top of the line custom built products crash with Windows. I have now perm. switched to my new MAC for Audio/Video/and Art. Buy an Apple if you are serious. Again if price is a concern, if your not matching high quality parts and using only key components, you WILL have problems with the PC in the future.



Flame away I suppose!
 
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