Alesis Multimix 12 Firewire, Windows 7, and bad firmware

ivanparas

New member
I have been using a setup with an Alesis Multimix 12 Firewire on a PC with Windows XP Pro. This has always worked for me and I've never had a problem with it.

I recently built a new computer with Windows 7 64-bit on it (and previously Windows Vista64). I could not for the life of me get my Multimix 12 to work on the new PC with Vista, and now that I've upgraded to Win7, whenever I plug in my Multimix to the Firewire port, the system freezes instantly and I get a blue screen telling me there was a catastrophic driver failure with the mixer.

To try and fix this, I tried updating the firmware on the Multimix 12 on my WinXP PC, but the installation program from Alesis (fwupdate.exe) crashes the moment it opens (it does this on the Win7 PC as well. In fact, it does this on every PC I've tried it on).

I also tried updating the drivers on the WinXP PC to the latest version (3.4.2.6300) but once I did that, none of my programs could see it and I had to roll them back.

So in summation, I can't update the firmware on my Multimix 12 Firewire and I get it to work with Windows 7 because it causes a system crash.
 
This is from the sonar forum:

I'm answering my own question here I know, but it's here then for reference if anyone else wants to know.

Yes the Alesis Multimix FW12 will work on Win 7 x64, using drivers for Vista x64. So far the only problem seems to be Windows is recognising it as a 7in/1out device as opposed to 8in/1out. Unless it used to be like that on XP and I never noticed.

EDIT: Got it sorted, a combination of my stupidty and the way Alesis name their drivers. All 12 channels are available + the stereo out. It shows as 7 in simply because each channel supports two inputs one left & one right (or joint stereo). It's a real arseaboutface way of doing things.

Suffice to say, if you do have a Multimix FW12 and want to run Windows 7 x64. It will work perfectly.
<message edited by FastBikerBoy on January 27, 10 11:17 AM>

I would keep trying. Its worked for others.
 
Thank for that post. At least I know there is some hope of it working.

As of now, when I plug my Multimix into my Win7 64 PC, the system immediately crashes. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to get around that. I plug it in, I turn on the mixer, I hear the "discovered new device" sound, then the mouse freezes, the screen scrambles, and I get a blue screen telling me that the Alesis driver caused the crash.
 
I know with my Alesis Mastercontrol, it is extremely important to remove all previous drivers before I install a new one.

Use the uninstall utility, then use windows control panel - add/remove programs to check for any other versions still installed. Then got to computer - device manager and look for any alesis stuff still left over ( These are XP terms, not sure what the WIN 7 terms are).

Last thing I would check is for the newest firewire driver before you install the Alesis drivers. i know that has caused a lot of grief for people. Good luck with it.
 
I know with my Alesis Mastercontrol, it is extremely important to remove all previous drivers before I install a new one.

Use the uninstall utility, then use windows control panel - add/remove programs to check for any other versions still installed. Then got to computer - device manager and look for any alesis stuff still left over ( These are XP terms, not sure what the WIN 7 terms are).

Last thing I would check is for the newest firewire driver before you install the Alesis drivers. i know that has caused a lot of grief for people. Good luck with it.

I've updated/uninstalled/reinstalled just about every driver having anything to do with this to no avail.

I feel like if I could just get the firmware update for the mixer to work than I could get it to work with Win7, but the progam from Alesis crashes on every PC I've tried it on (I have 5 different PCs with different OS's and configurations, and it's crashed on all of them).

Here is a link to the firmware download. See if it even runs on your PC.

I've sent Alesis a dozen emails about this and all they respond with is a canned answer about Windows 7, if they respond at all.

At minimum I'd at least like to be able to update the firmware via my WinXP PC, but I've had no luck with that.
 
I tried the firmware update and you are right. I don't get a BSOD but I get the windows has encountered an error screen. This is on my laptop ( xp 32 bit).

You definately need to get a hold of Alesis. Screw the e-mail and get on the phone. Hope you can get it worked out.
 
I tried the firmware update and you are right. I don't get a BSOD but I get the windows has encountered an error screen. This is on my laptop ( xp 32 bit).

You definately need to get a hold of Alesis. Screw the e-mail and get on the phone. Hope you can get it worked out.

Ok, I've made some headway.

Apparently I hadn't updated my WinXP to SP3, so I did that (I felt pretty dumb). Once I did, I installed the 3.1 drivers for the Multimix and the Alesis Firewire Control Panel recognized the mixer (it didn't before). I then ran the firmware update (FwUpdate.exe) and it worked! Apparently when it opens it checks for the updated drivers, and if they aren't there, it crashes.

So after upgrading the firmware, I upgraded the drivers again to 3.4.2.6300 and the new control panel recognizes the mixer (horray!).

I then checked to see if Sonar saw the mixer, and it does. However, it only sees 8 channels instead of 12. Then I noticed it was using WDM instead of the AISO and now it sees all 12 channels!

That's one problem down. I'm about to hook the mixer up to my Win7 comp and see how it goes. I'm HOPING that the BSOD on the Win7 is due to the drivers not seeing the firmware they expect on the mixer. I'll post back with the results.
 
Eureka!

After getting it to work 100% on my WinXP PC, I tested it on my Win7 PC. Being very weary while plugging in the mixer, I was delighted when I heard the "discovered new hardware" tone instead of the dreaded mobo beep.

I did a fresh install of the drivers and the mixer was visible in the Device Manager, but when I ran the Alesis Control Panel, it said there was a device error (not "cannot detect device").

I then remembered what Washburn100 said about installing the latest Firewire drivers. While I did have the latest drivers, I had rolled them back to a Legacy version because I read that it would make my Firewire HD transfer speeds faster on Win7 (which it did).

So after reinstalling the latest Win7 Firewire drivers and resetting the PC, I was thrilled to hear the Windows startup tune, indicating that the mixer was correctly interfacing with the PC.

After a few settings adjustments, I did a test record and everything works great.

Thanks everyone for your input and helping me get through this problem.
 
In need of drivers and firmware please help...

Hi,

I own an alesis multimix 12 firewire and have only just upgraded to windows 7.
I tried to go to the alesis website to get the drivers and firmware i need to use my multimix with windows 7 (64 bit) but their website has been down for the last few days.

I have tried looking everywhere on the internet for alternate downloads but they are all just links to the alesis website (which does not work)

Does anyone still have the installer package that they could send me?????

I really dont want to have to buy a different interface,

p.s. have alesis gone bust again?

Your help would be really appreciated.


Oli
 
This may or may not help but I had problems with drivers and old firmware.

Using vista I could not update the Multimix firmware and hence never get it working with the latest drivers.

I bought a pc with XP and it let me update the firmware and then work on vista with the latest drivers.

If it is a problem with firmware, try to connect to an XP machine to update it and see if that solves the problem.
 
I just finished this process myself. I had to use an older laptop that happens to have a firewire port in it. It's pretty lame that to use Win 7 64 bit, you HAVE TO use Firmware version 2.0 -- BUT -- you can't flash the firmware TO 2.0 while using Windows 7!
:wtf:

Anyway-- I was able to successfully flash my Multimix8 Firewire to 2.0 using Vista -- no problems. I then re-connected to my new Win7 build, and I was up and running with CuBase Studio 5 again. Excellent! I thought maybe my CuBase investment, or my mixer investment was down the toilet with Win7 -- but I am up and running again! Woo Hoo!! :)
 
So, can somebody send me the updated firmware file or something? I need to do that process, or somebody send me a PM to guide me through the process pls, I need my Alesis multimix 16 firewire running!! (win 7)
 
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