USB 2.0 and simultaneous tracks

[Ericlingus]

It's a SIIG FireWire 2-Port PCIe (NN-E20012-S2). The customer reviews say it worked fine with the Saffire Pro 40 in Win7. I contacted Focusrite's tech support and after like two weeks I them being half assed they finally say that the TI chipset is not compatible with my MOBO and they saw the same thing happen with someone else with the same MOBO. Their tech support is really bad btw which is kinda turning me off from any of their other products even though they have the exact specs I am looking for in an interface.

 

[Ericlingus]

oh btw how do I set up an interface to playback windows sounds? Wouldn't I need separate speakers hooked up to it then? Or actually maybe I could just hook up the monitors to both interfaces at the same time with one interface handling the DAW and the other doing everything else? I don't know if I'd even want my Pod playing back windows sounds because it's obviously not the best quality..I suppose I could try it though or just buy another interface or something.

 

[AD Chaos]

You can go out of your HD500 via S/PDIF into the Saffire, that way you get less conversion from the POD sounds going into the DAW. Connect the USB on the POD to the computer; to configure which device you want to handle Windows sounds go: Start > Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound - Manage audio devices > Playback tab and choose 'Set as Default Device' and 'Set as Default Communication Device' by right-clicking over the options with the mouse. You have to keep both devices turned on when in use, or Windows reverts back to the only one left available.
Then on the DAW, you disable the POD's input and output drivers.


It could be a long shot, but why not trying another FW to PCIe card?
I have this one, costs only 20 bucks.. Who knows, it could work.

 

[Ericlingus]

well tech support did say a VIA firewire card might work. I'm just going to try the thunderbolt card with the adapter first. It should arrive soon. Hopefully that will work.

 

[Ericlingus]

well great news! The thunderbolt card with the firewire to thunderbolt adapter worked! My Saffire Pro 40 is now working. I'm having a little issue with SPDIF. I'm trying to hook up my Pod HD500 via SPDIF and I'm getting clicks/pops here and there when I'm monitoring in Cubase. When I'm direct monitoring with the Saffire I am able to use it just fine without and artifacts. I did not have this problem before with my old computer. Other than that it works great though. Man my new computer is wayyy better than myold one. Before I could not run Thermionik at 8x oversampling with TSE 808 and a noise gate at 96 buffer rate. I can now run 4 instances of it at half the buffer rate and still have plenty of resources left. I can't wait to try running my orchestral libraries. My old PC couldn't handle that for shit.

Focusrite finally got back to me again and are sending me a VIA firewire card free of charge to see if it will work. That was cool of them.

 

[JeffTD]

What kind of SPDIF cable are you running? Using an RCA cable instead of a proper digital SPDIF cable has given me clicks/pops in the past. Clicks/pops via SPDIF is usually more due to wordclock discrepancies/connection issues than it is due to CPU power/buffer rate.

 

[AD Chaos]

*^ That

Check if both the POD out and the Pro 40's SPDIF input are synced at the same frequency (44.1 kHz, or 48). If not that causes artifacts/digital pops.

 

[Ericlingus]

they are synced at the same frequency. Thing is I did not have those problems on my old computer. The cable and interface are the same on both computers. The only thing that has changed is the computer itself. The cable is not an rca cable. I have no problems with artifacts when I am direct monitoring though the Saffire. Only when I am in Cubase and monitoring though there do I hear the clicks/pops. They are very slight. BTW are you guys configuring BIOS to make it ideal for recording? I turned off turbo boost, hyper threading, Speed Step and C states.

 

[Ericlingus]

come to think of it I installed the latest firmware for the Pod recently and maybe that could have something to do with it.

 

[JeffTD]

I'm pretty sure you want all of those on except for speed step, which ramps up the processor to accommodate for usage rather than letting it run full-bore all the time.

 

[Ericlingus]

according to Steinberg,Focusrite and Sweetwater you want those things off.

Disable C-State Transition and Turbo Boost (BIOS)

Note that not all computers have these settings. If yours does, it is recommended that you disable them if possible. These two settings can cause the processor to change speeds depending on the computer’s activity. This can cause errors in your DAW.

are you running your computer on "High Performance Mode"?