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Topic: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

Hello,

the next USB driver coming up includes some significant changes. After a lot of internal testing it is now ready for public beta testing. As usual do not use this one on a production system and with sensitive data. If you need to make money with our hardware - don't fool around, use what works, stay safe!

Its most spectacular feature is the addition of multi-client mixing. You can now use any number of programs of any sort (WDM, ASIO) to play back on the same channels. Note that as long as you use only one program per playback channel the driver works as before, including bit-perfect playback.

- Correct installation of the Settings dialog under Win 64 (solves crash when called from Cubase)

- New TotalMix FX 0.93

- TotalMix FX help correctly installed under Win 64

- Settings dialog saves the current position

- Settings dialog: Pitch menu/list box improved

- Settings dialog: sample rate list box improved

- Settings dialog UC: partly wrong status information fixed

- WDM UFX: ADAT 1 1/2 is no longer labelled SPDIF

- Various small improvements of the WDM driver

- Multi-client playback mixing on identical channels



Happy testing!

!!!!!Update 04/15/2011 !!!!
- WDM: playback with buffer size 512 or higher had clicks and drop outs

!!!!!Update 06/15/2011 !!!!

General:
- Settings dialog: TMS had been switched off on every restart
- Settings dialog: In some situations a tab for non-existing devices was shown
- New TotalMix FX 0.94

Babyface:
- Bug fix high interrupt load when removing the driver under W7 SP1

!!!!!Update 06/15/2011 !!!!

There are also new firmwares available for Babyface (184) and UC (115):

!!!!!Update 06/17/2011 !!!!

Links removed as all drivers and firmware have been released on our website.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

Hello Mr. Carstens,
this is exciting news! Thank you!
One question regarding multi-client mixing:
What happens when I playback a 48kHz signal from one program (e.g. DVD) and a 44.1 kHz signal from another (e.g. jingle)?
Is one of them samplerateconverted automatically?

Thank you - and because I'm on production, I'm waiting and looking forward for the release :-),
Hermann

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Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

There is automatic sample rate conversion in WDM. Let's say you start ASIO and the SR is set to 48 kHz. Then whatever you play via WDM is sample rate converted to 48 by the OS. If you don't use ASIO the sr is set in the Settings dialog, and again WDM will automatically convert eveything to this value.

If you start ASIO at 48 and then start a second ASIO at 44.1, the SR will not change and the second program will play back in wrong speed. Or it will change and the first plays back in wrong speed? Forgot, but anyway, it will not work that way.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

Thank you, that's good to know - and multi-client is a great feature!

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

Is WASAPI support in the works?

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Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

I didn't know WASAPI is not supported...

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

7 (edited by Gr8h8m 2011-03-15 02:13:23)

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

Thanks for the update - so far so good. The new driver has eliminated BF iTunes / multimedia glitching here (Win 7 x64), which is very welcome.

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

Ok - glitches not totally eliminated, maybe 1 every 8 minutes, but greatly reduced.

9 (edited by Dr Tone 2011-03-16 00:10:10)

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

MC wrote:

I didn't know WASAPI is not supported...

Well not sure what RME's definition of "supported" is, but I do know it simply doesn't work with foobar or J River Media Center.  Both pieces of software just returns an error code with unsupported format.

Both do WASAPI to my built in sound card and my hiface usb to spdif adapter just fine, so something is not right with Fireface UC driver in this regard.

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Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

Foobar with WASAPI works. If you take the time to read the error message it most probably tells you that the sample rate does not match. So set it to the correct value in the UC's Settings dialog.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

MC wrote:

Foobar with WASAPI works. If you take the time to read the error message it most probably tells you that the sample rate does not match. So set it to the correct value in the UC's Settings dialog.

Are you kidding?  I'm not going to manually set the sample rate for every different piece of music I want to listen to, I have stuff all over the map as far as sample rate goes.  Random is right out of the question.

If the driver implementation is done right, the software using WASAPI can switch it on the fly.  I know my other hardware allows it and works perfectly in this regard with foobar and J River.

Why doesn't this work with my RME?

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Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

No, I am not kidding. But maybe instead of first telling me that it doesn't work at all you could have asked for support for automatic sample rate change in the first place?

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

MC wrote:

No, I am not kidding. But maybe instead of first telling me that it doesn't work at all you could have asked for support for automatic sample rate change in the first place?

Well I think you can see the reason's why I feel it doesn't work at all.  If it was documented that manual frequency matching was required in WASAPI mode that would be another story.

So will automatic frequency matching work with this new driver?

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Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

No, and it is the same with any other pro interface out there. The WASAPI support that you want is limited to single device interfaces. As soon as you have a multi-device interface you need to use Windows' sample rate handling in a way that it doesn't screw up your card and settings. This, btw, is not our idea but follows what MS wants in W7.

Simply use ASIO instead and you have no such problem.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

My TMFX is still crashing every now and then (program shutdown) when using the Mackie MCU and working the faders a lot.
Also two times today I experienced that the MCU - TMFX communication just stopped working (No reponse any direction).
I'm running USB from the MCU to my W7 64.

Geir.

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

I'm looking forward to this being ready for production... any estimated timeline?

I haven't got an extra system to do beta testing, but is it likely that i'll be able to record system audio into pro tools via loopback with this installed? (with the current version of the fireface uc driver, i can't do this pro tools9/windows7... it does work with cubase or sony acid though)

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

MC - You mentioned previously to wait for the next driver release to resolve the delay when arming tracks to record in Sonar. 
I don't see it in your fix list above, so am assuming it didn't make it into this release, correct? 
Thanks
Russ

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

Russ, did you try yet to revert back to X1a to see if it solves your delay issues (if you are using X1 and not 8.5.x that is)?

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Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

Unfortunately the driver change that was supposed to fix this as side effect did not work out at all. So this specific issue is not adressed in the upcoming release, at least from our side. Sorry.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

20 (edited by russwsoper 2011-05-11 15:03:46)

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

MC - No prob.. it's only a minor thing, not a big deal at all.  Thanks for the quick response.


Timur - First - thanks for your testing of Sonar X1a & b in another thread - your analysis was fantastic and a great help. 

I haven't gone back to X1a, as there were several Cakewalk bugs in X1a that were affecting me far more than this minor issue, so after having better results with RME's USB driver (I had issues with Firewire), I decided the lesser of two evils was to go with Sonar's latest for all their fixes and just deal with the arming track delay in the RME USB driver for the UFX.

Thanks!
Russ

21 (edited by Timur 2011-05-11 19:06:37)

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

My pleasure! wink

Still it would be useful to know if those people who can reproduce the arming delay (there was no delay for me, just other quirks) can tell if X1a behaves different from X1b. Because in that case the ball would be on Cakewalk's ground.

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

I definitely had the arming track delays with X1a.  I submitted a tech support ticket to Cakewalk about this issue - they felt it was an audio driver issue.  I didn't pursue the matter given the new RME USB beta driver seems to work a bit better and it's not a big issue for me.

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

thanks for the update - driver / totalmix is working smoothly so far

couple of questions on the Mackie interface
will it be possible to get the user channel names (rather than original names) onto the LCD strip?
will it be possible to use mackie extenders to control more than 8 channels simultaneously?
any chance the mackie C4 could be supported for adjustments such as mic gain, EQ and dynamics?

thanks for your help

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Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

Only in TotalMix FX.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

thanks

so is that a 'yes - these features will be available' - as long as you're running the UFX over TotalMix?

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Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

Like that.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

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Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

I updated the first post with this info:

!!!!!Update 05/20/2011 !!!!

General:
- Settings dialog: TMS had been switched off on every restart
- Settings dialog: In some situations a tab for non-existing devices was shown
- New TotalMix FX 0.94 RC1

Babyface:
- Bug fix high interrupt load when removing the driver under W7 SP1

***Link removed***

Users of Babyface and Fireface UC will get the latest version of TM FX. The biggest or most obvious difference to 0.93 is that the outputs can now also be set to mono (single channel) mode. Plus some more MIDI options and lots of improvements and bugfixes, as you would expect.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

Mute for 48V Phantom Power is perfectly working now, thank you for that!

Current: RME UCX II
Previous: Multiface > Fireface 800 > Babyface > Babyface Pro > Babyface Pro FS

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Re: New USB series Windows driver - public beta - update 3

Thread closed as all drivers and firmware have been released.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME