Terratec EWS88D.. any opinions/experience?

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JR#97

JR#97

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I"m looking at getting a Terratec EWS88D so I can hook up my FD8's ADAT i/o into my pc. At $199 street, and including 2 midi ports, spdif, etc, it looks like a great deal. But is it too good of a deal?

Also, what about the new Adat Edit 2.0 card? I heard the first one sucked.
 
I am using an ews 88d and so far,It has been a trooper.I had to download the driver and other installation software since I am using Win xp pro on my workstation,but it was not difficult to install or use at all.



Good luck!
 
Transfer Data from FD-8 to PC with Terratec EWS88-D Card

I recently bought a Terratec EWS88-D soundcard with the intent of copying files from my FD-8 to my PC. I've got the Card Installed and communications working. i.e. I can run the Terratec Control Panel on my PC and view the meters as I do a Save As from my FD-8.

The question I have is how do I capture the song files on my PC. The MicroLogic AV program does not have manual... From what the Fostex FD-8 manual describes it appears you need to "Arm" the PC for recording.... How do you do that on a PC... An ADAT Tape machine that is fairly straight forward.

Have either of you been able to transfer data from the FD-8 to PC... An then back again.... Does this work and what do you need beyond the soundcard on the PC and comms between the FD-8 and PC.
 
Re: Transfer Data from FD-8 to PC with Terratec EWS88-D Card

Tim Ellis said:
I recently bought a Terratec EWS88-D soundcard with the intent of copying files from my FD-8 to my PC. I've got the Card Installed and communications working. i.e. I can run the Terratec Control Panel on my PC and view the meters as I do a Save As from my FD-8.

The question I have is how do I capture the song files on my PC. The MicroLogic AV program does not have manual... From what the Fostex FD-8 manual describes it appears you need to "Arm" the PC for recording.... How do you do that on a PC... An ADAT Tape machine that is fairly straight forward.

Have either of you been able to transfer data from the FD-8 to PC... An then back again.... Does this work and what do you need beyond the soundcard on the PC and comms between the FD-8 and PC.
Click to expand...


I transfer tracks to and from my pc all the time with ease using my dman 2044 4 in/out card. I haven't picked up the AWS88D yet...

Going to the PC, I set the DAW program (Nuendo) to Master and set the FD8 to slave. I then change the default MTC offset on the FD8 to 00:00:00. I then arm whatever tracks in Nuendo and hit record and wallah... I can only do 2 tracks at a time doing it that way, but it works. I"ve done 10 tracks in 5 passes without a hitch.

Going to the FD8 from the PC is just as simple. Set the sync output to MTC, set your offset either at the FD8 or at the PC, arm your tracks and hit record. Again, I'm only using the analog input, so I can only do 2 tracks at a time, but it works like a champ. I've sent 4 tracks to the FD8 in 2 passes.

I imagine it's similar using the ADAT input/output with the exception you can do 8 in/out at a time. Damnit... I want that card!!!
 
Tim,I am using a blackface ADAT and Cool Edit Pro in my setup,havent even installed the micro logic samplitude that came in the bundle,but what I believe they mean by "arm the pc for recording" is just to record enable the target tracks on the software for recording.Then just "roll" record on the pc and hit play on the source.That is how I do it anyway.You want to make sure that the samplerate on your recording software is the same as the source,or it will sound like hell.

Hope this helps and good luck!
 
I have the EWS88D, and it's great "bang for the buck" for moving lightpipe. I've had no problems with it. I'm glad to see that people are catching on to what a great deal the Terratec cards are. And talk about a great library of drivers! Damn! The newer distributions of Linux even support them. :D
 
Hey Tim, I should clarify something...
You don't need to sync up via MIDI to transfer tracks. But should you down the line want to move stuff back and forth, it makes it a lot easier if your times match up instead of manually moving tracks on a timeline or adjusting MTC offsets. On the FD8, MTC offset and such are saved with the program data.
 
Okay I'm slowly getter there based on everyone's help and grunt testing. I still trying to copy audio data down from my FD-8 to my PC. I have Win 98 and Cakewalk Home Studio 2000. It appears by looking at the Terratec site and documentation that you need the Terratec WDM driver for the driver to work with Cakewalk. The problem with that is I need to upgrade the OS. Ahhh I did'nt really want to do that. Is anyone who is using the Terratec card using their EWS88D - XVD driver (that supports Win 98). If so what s/w applications do you use / recommend.

A potenial second problem is, the horse power on my PC. I currently have two PC's at home: a 300 MHz and a 1.2 GHz. I'm currently trying to do all my testing using the 300 MHz.... once I get this working is this PC going to have enough horse power to transfer 8 tracks of audio data similtaneous. The 1.2 GHz is a family PC... but I'm consider absounding the PC for testing... Any thoughts on minimal CPU horse power.

All this effort is a lot of trial and error. You get smarter with each test, but.... I'm to the point with every test I put my fingers in my ears, close my eyes... tap my feet and push the mouse button... and pray!!! I should'nt be this hard. It is getting the right combination of Hardware/Software/Operating System.
 
You might be pushing the envelope a bit at 300mhz.It is hard to say,as there are a lot of variables.The hard drive transfer rate,mb,ram etc all effect the performance.The first adat transfers I did were on an amd k6-2-450 mhz with 256mb ram running a godawful old samsung drive with a lexicon core 2 card(wretched piece of shit).The best I ever got out of that system was about a 50/50 success rate.About half the time,I would get skips and such in the audio and have to go back.reboot the machine and try again.


Good luck!
 
Hurray it works

I finally got data to transfer from my FD-8 to my PC via the TOS-Link connections. I used Cakewalk Home Studio 2000 on my PC. The core to my problem was I had a sound card conflict. Basically I had to disable the (ESS) sound card that came with the PC. The documentation that comes with the Terretec EWS 88D Card that talks about Calkwalk s/w issues gave some hints.

The next problem is cakewalk Home Studio only allows for the recording of two tracks at a time. I will probably either upgrade to Sonar or some other s/w package.... I'm not sure at this time.

At any rate thanks to all for all your reply's it kept me going when I thought all things were lost.
 
samplitude v5.5 and ews 88d

hi, i'm a true newbie, and this is my first post

thanks in advance for your assistance

i recently bought a ews 88d card to transfer tracks from an adat to my pc. i was hoping to use the samplitude project v5.5 software that came with the card, but i've been having problems with that.

whenever i try to use the samplitude program i get an error message stating "cannot open waveform output device ews88d system wave. reason: the specified format is not supported or cannot be translated. use the capabilities function to determine the supported formats."

i am using windows xp on a pentium iv, 1.9 ghz processor w/512 ram. can i run samplitude project on windows xp?

i have downloaded the drivers and installation files from the terratec website, and the control panel seems to be working fine, so i think my problem is at the level of the software. the tutorial has not been helpful, and i can't even get through to the tech support via e-mail. frustrating.

any assistance would be appreciated. i am VERY new to this so no answer or comment is too basic. thank you in advance --- marc
 
I would give up on the samplitude s/w. I spent a lot of time trying to get it to work with little to no luck. If the Control Panel is displaying the channels from your ADAT, this implies your communications are working as well as the drivers. You are correct the next step is to get a s/w application that works. Any of the commercial packages should work... i.e. Cakewalks-Sonar, Steinberg, Emagic etc... The question becomes which one do you like. Another consideration is how many tracks do you want to copy at a time. Currently I have Cakewalk Home Studio 2000. It appears it can only transfer two tracks at a time. That is frustrating exspecially when every other piece of the puzzle supports transfering 8 tracks at a time. I'm not sure of all the details myself... I'm a newbie on this as well. It appears you need some of the more expensive s/w that will record 8+ tracks similtaneous. If that is true that would put the s/w price in the $300-$700 dollar range. Ouch... That gets expensive when you are experimenting with what you need... and you dont get return messages/calls from the s/w companies. That is why this bulletin board is so helpful. It is really helpful to find people who have already gone through the same trials and tribulations. In Naval Aviation they have a saying: Learn from the mistakes of others. You wont live long enough to make all of them yourself. In the case of Home Recording: Learn from the mistakes of others. Your pocket book wont last if you make them all yourself.

Good luck press on!!!
 
thanks for the reply and the words of wisdom

thanks tim, i guess you're right i'm just going to have to choose a software.

does anyone have any suggestions? i'm a newbie and do this for fun, so i don't need anything too professional or expensive. i mostly want something that i can use to edit my acoustic guitar and vocal tracks with.

the main criterion, is that it must run with windows xp. something that can handle 8 tracks of audio transfer would be cool and effects would be great, but i realize that these start to add to the price.

any suggestions would be appreciated. thanks -- marc
 
Re: thanks for the reply and the words of wisdom

little brother said:
thanks tim, i guess you're right i'm just going to have to choose a software.

does anyone have any suggestions? i'm a newbie and do this for fun, so i don't need anything too professional or expensive. i mostly want something that i can use to edit my acoustic guitar and vocal tracks with.

the main criterion, is that it must run with windows xp. something that can handle 8 tracks of audio transfer would be cool and effects would be great, but i realize that these start to add to the price.

any suggestions would be appreciated. thanks -- marc
Click to expand...

How much are you looking to spend? Cool Edit Pro sounds perfect for what you're doing. www.syntrillium.com
 
hi,

i'm back. after goofing around with the samplitude software some more (just stubborn and cheap, i guess) i've actually gotten it to work. there's a website (www.samplitude.com) where i found the answer to the problem i was having. i guess it had something to do with the fact that i'm transfering data at 16-bit so i had to set the program to accept that.

i guess i'll just fool around with this for now and see how i like it.

thanks for all of your help and advice.

if anybody needs any details on what exactly i did, just let me know.

thanks again --- marc
 
What version of Samplitude? I use 6.03. Kicks serious @ss!!! But it's not for the novice or weak at heart. Very powerful and can be very compliated....
 
it's samplitude project v5.5. it came bundled with the ews 88d. i'm new to this whole recording thing, and i must admit, i'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. i've copied most of the tutorial that comes with the program, bit i think there is an assumption that you already know what you're doing. a false assumption in my case.

i'm having trouble with basic things like how to retrieve files that i've saved after i've transferred them from my adat. i think i've got it figured out now, but that's an example of how little i know.

do you know where i can find a basic overview of how samplitude is laid out? i've tried to download the video introduction from the website, but the page wouldn't come up.

are there any resources, or are there any threads on the bbs that might help a beginner?

i'll keep hacking away at this, but in the end i may have to find a program that is a little less daunting.

any tips or hints would be appreciated. thanks --- marc
 
Help again.... Well after experimenting etc... and the 300 Mhz machine hit its wall.... So I got a new PC:

2GHZ machine
512 memory
XP Home Edition etc...
to run with the EWS88D Terratec Card

I downloaded the 90 day trial Samplitude 6.0 s/w. Everything worked when I played back my FD-8... the Samplitude s/w was able to record the tracks. The problem I got was when I played back the recording. I got the same error message Little Brother did...

"cannot open waveform output device ews88d system wave. reason: the specified format is not supported or cannot be translated. use the capabilities function to determine the supported formats."

I played around and verified the sample rates where the same... still no luck.... So little brother.... any magical idea's what I should try next.

The Samplitude s/w looks really good if I can get it to work.

Also any comments on Cool Edit Pro with XP Home Edition. From strmkr comments that appears to work. How do you like Cool Edit Pro. How does it stack up against Samplitude, Cubase, Sonar XL etc... It appears you are using XP Pro. Any percieved difference with XP Home vs XP Pro for Home recording.... I would imagine not, but.....
 
I'm using Samp 6.03 with XP Pro & it seems to be rock solid.

1. Verify that you have the latest EWS88D drivers from Terratec for XP. The EWS package I got when I ordered my card didn't include XP drivers. I had to download them from the site.

2. In Samplitude, under:

Options----> System/Global Audio Options
Make sure the box that says WDM compatible 24/32 bit support is checked.

If you've verified this already, I don't have any other ideas except to make sure the output of Samplitude's master I/O is configured for the EWS88 or a WDM compatible card. I had to reset mine, as it was still set for my system soundcard -

Good luck.
 
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