IF-FW/DMMKII beta drivers for DM3200/DM4800

[Darryn]

No thank you again for your help. I will keep trying and report back if i discover anything worthwhile. But in the meantime its ridiculously late where i'm from so i must sleep. Cheers

 

[Carl Simmonds]

Hi Marvel.I'm wanting to update too,but can't get on the beta site (it seems constantly down).My dm software is 1.10,so I guess that's ok.I've downloaded the el capitan driver from the tascam main site,but I'm not sure what else I need.I'm migrating from osx 10,8,5 to el capitan (hopefully!) Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[Darryn]

Its seems to work fine with my older Mac, which has a firewire port. So the problem is certainly not the cable. Could be one adaptor too many perhaps? But then i still dont get it, becuase the drivers do not even appear on my sound options. SO dis the problem rather with the Mac?

 

[Carl Simmonds]

Hi, I'm really new to this and I'm hoping someone can help.
I need to upgrade my Mac OS from mountain lion to El Capitan.(running on a 2010, 6 core, 3.44 mac pro) DM4800 with If/fw mk11 firewire card
I've been trying to access the beta site without any luck (looks like it's permanently down)
I've checked my DM4800 and it's running firmware 1.70
the FW card is saying- 1.10 build 188685
I've downloaded the El Capitan driver from the main Tascam site.(I guess this is the 1.30f10 file that members on here talk about.)
I need to know if it will work with the current DM firmware, or will I need the 1.72b4 file which I can't find? If so, is there somewhere else I can download it. All the files on the Tascam site seem to be 1.70 or older.
Also do I need anything else "firmware-wise"
Thank you in advance for anyone's help in this matter.
System is running perfectly at the moment ,so updating this scares me to death, but I need to update Kontakt 5 to an up to date version(5.7), so it looks like I have no option. Would it be better to go straight to High Sierra, or am I better settling for El Capitan at the moment?
Thank you in advance

 

[Darryn]

Im all up to date now. DM3200 is 1.10 Build # 88685 firewire driver is 1.30f10 (latest) and firmware is 1.70 bl1 rebooted to factory settings on my new MacBook Pro run-in high sierra and still no communication with the firewire drive. Cable is definitely working... Please can anyone help... :/

 

[Marvel]

I'd say it's probably one converter too much... You really ought to try and get hold of a Mac with FW or at least TB2 to see if this works.

 

[Darryn]

Hey @Marvel , not to worry about the PM. I am all up to date with everything. I have already tried it with my old Mac and it works, but that was a firewire cable directly in. I cannot use that computer anymore as its very slow and old. It may be too many adaptors, but I really do not have much choice. The last thing to do is to downgrade the operating system on the new Mac and see if that works. And if that does not work I think I'm out of options... :/

 

[Marvel]

@Darryn: You could do what I did. If you're not using your brand new MacBook for anything else but music, sell it and buy a trusty 2010 Mac Pro. It has FW built in and with some modern-day optional extras it will be a monster of a computer which you can use for just about anything that requires processing power. For years to come. The only thing you CAN'T do is take it with you. If you really need THAT, I suggest buying a speedy i7 2013 MacBook.

 

[Darryn]

@Marvel I would totally do that, but i just bought this MacBook, and I would loose significant amounts of money on it... A little annoyed because a few people assured me that the converters would not be a problem hence why I went with it...

 

[Marvel]

I have this new MacBook Pro as well, the 2017 model with touch bar. Can you tell me which adapters you are daisy-chaining? I will try to find similar and see if I can hook up my MacBook to the DM4800.
If this works (which I doubt to be honest), we'll have to compare our configurations, to see where yours differs from mine.

 

[Darryn]

Great! Thanks heaps! (fingers crossed) So the first cable is firewire 400 coming out the Firewire MK11 from the back, then the cable becomes firewire 800 on the other end. From there its into a firewire to thunderbolt adaptor, and then another thunderbolt to new thunderbolt adaptor and into the new MacBook Pro. Im not sure of the precise names on the thunderbolt cables. but ones old thunderbolt the other is the newest one. , but I have attached a picture of the chain and the ends of the thunderbolt cables..

 

[Marvel]

hey @Darryn, you might want to check out this thread over on Apple.

https://www.apple.com/shop/question...to-an-old-firewire-400-port/QU9FDKH2979JHJ7CK

There's lots of useful stuff there about the exact daisy chain you're using. And I also found this reply:

"I got Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 working with OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock using a Firewire 400 to Firewire 800 adapter, connected to a 2017 MacBook Pro running Mac OS 10.13.1. If you see a situation where the Mac system report shows the Thunderbolt 3 device, and the Saffire Pro 40 Firewire device, but not the audio device, then this is likely a preference problem. Try removing all your audio preferences, and rebooting. This worked for me. Remove these files and reboot:

/Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/Audio
* com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist
* com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist
~/Library/Preferences
* com.apple.audio.AudioMIDISetup.plist

After doing this, all my Firewire audio devices are now showing up on my new MacBook Pro connected through Thunderbolt 3."

Could you try this and see if it works? Looks like the exact problem you're having. I have to say they are using a dock to convert from firewire to Thunderbolt.

And like @Peter Batah says: google is your friend.

 

[Darryn]

@Marvel, this looks promising! I'll report back ASAP

 

[Darryn]

Oh dear, I have done this and its still not working... But people on that thread seem very confident that my setup would work... So at least that is reassuring....

 

[Marvel]

I think you could still try to hookup a docking station as this guy mentioned. This would put some intelligence in some of the conversions.

 

[Darryn]

Hi @Marvel , I really appreciate your responses thus far, you have been very helpful in isolating the problems for me one by one. My operating system should work according to many on this forum. check. My driver and firmare are certainly up to date. check. Full reboot of computer system to factory settings. check.. so according to everyone, it should be working. The Apple forum you sent me seems to suggest that my adaptors should work, Although, if my computer is not even recognising the firewire drive, As far as I can tell, it has to do with that, logic dictates that it cannot be anything else. I will spend yet even more money and try a docking station without any certainty that it will solve the issue. (finger crossed)... this ones not cheap: https://www.macfixit.com.au/owc-12-port-thunderbolt-2-dock/

 

[Marvel]

Hey @Darryn, no problem, this is what these self-help forums are for. I got some really useful things out of it myself, so glad to be able to give something back.
You could be right about the power issue with all these adapters connected. The dock is powered, so it might be the solution. However, this is older technology, so you really should be able to get one more affordable second hand.

 

[Fiber]

Its not the adapter unless its broken, Ive been using the same adapter combination without any issues with with a late 2016 MBP, using the latest High Sierra.

 

[hammadejam2013]

Can someone provide a link to the latest IF/FWmkII Driver?

I believe I read that there is a newer one that ends in "F8"

Thanks
John

 

[wm_b]

Hi John, For Mac or PC? I think the driver I currently use for Windows is this one "IFFWDMmkII_Setup_172407_Release". If there's a more recent one I'd love to try it out. My new build has a DPC reported latency of 1000 microseconds with spikes. My old build was sub 100 microseconds in the DPC spike reporting app. Total bummer that the beta site is inop. I've spent the last 5 days pulling my hair out trying to get a new computer to even get close to my old one for tracking latency. I'm sure I could mix just fine but I think it would stumble on tracking. Still need to field test but preliminary doesn't look great.