Steinberg MR816x problems...

[FrankH]

I just upgraded from a Tascam FW-1082 to a Steinberg MR816x. Definitely an improvement sound quality wise, but I'm running into a couple of issues. I'm pretty new to this stuff so I'm sure they're ""user error", but I don't know how to address them and the manual it came with is a joke.

Here are my problems below. Oh, it's worth noting I'm running an iMac (2GHz Duo Core, 2GB) with Logic Express 7 and I never had anything like this with the Tascam and I didn't change anything that would've caused it.

- I'm getting some pretty noticeable pops & clicks during playback

- When I've tried punching-in on spots I get a pretty nasty pop at the end of the punch-in spot during playback. I've experienced this recording with a friend of mine years ago on his interface, but this is much louder and I never had this problem with the Tascam.

- Here's the most annoying one so hopefully I can explain this and make sense. I was tracking a D.I. bass a couple of days ago. When you plug into one of the mic/line-ins you instantly get that signal passed straight through to the monitors. You don't have to select any track or input source in the DAW. Doesn't seem like an issue; however, when you do select a track, assign mic/line input, and activate that track to record you can still hear that signal being passed straight though the monitors in addition to the sound being processed in the interface. If I'm using any plug-in's during monitoring it only gets worse obviously because I have no idea what the track will sound like until it's already tracked. Really sucks for work flow.

Any ideas how to address these?

Thanks,
Frank

[Heartfelt]

I believe latency is your biggest issue there. With good latency, there is
no popping or clicking. PCIe wireless adapters can have an impact on
latency. I had to disable mine when using the MR.

Try visiting the Steinberg forum for the MR series. There is a tool
somewhere in the forums for testing latency. It helps with the process of
elimination... finding the offending cuprit.




The other issue is direct monitoring and can be switched of, via the MR
control panel. You simply mute the channels on the virtual mixer, leaving
the DAW send active.



Another good thing to do, if you haven't, is to get the latest driver and
firmware. The firmware seperates the main and headphone operation for
complete independence. Just be careful and follow the directions for thr
firmware upgrade precisely as to not screw your unit up.
Rob

[XXXEsq]

Pops and dropouts are a common problem if the firewire card or interface you are using doesn't use a Texas Instruments chipset. If you review the Cubase.net forum under the 816 section, you will find many threads on the issue.

[FrankH]

Cool. Thanks for the info. I figured out the third issue I mentioned. There is an internal mixer so that "overlapping of sound" was fixed by muting the mixer. I'll check out the new drivers and the Cubas site.

[Gearowner]

So, are your problems fized now? How did you solve em?

[wavcatcher]

The MR816 is very finicky about its firewire bus. IT wants it all to itself, with nothing else sharing it.

Lots of users had lots of troubles with it because of the shoddy drivers. So the quality of the MR816 is amazing but getting it to work reliable for some people can be a challenge.

For me, I had to move onto something with more reliable drivers as after a year of fighting them it was no longer worth it. Supposedly the latest drivers are much improved so I would suggest you do the following...

Make sure you have the most up to date drivers for your system.

Give the MR816 the entire firewire bus. Nothing else should share that bus even hard drives.

Good luck,

[mikedboh]

For the record I use onboard fireware on an intel i7 2600k setup and I have no issues with pops/clicks at extremely low buffer recording at 88.2/24. I use 128 for tracking and 256 for mixing(although I could prob get away with lower for mixing). I run 30+ tracks in each project with full blown processing/effects..including some hogs(like using 8 instances of guitar rig 5 on hi-cpu setting)

[kaiO]

What I read on Nuendo forum is this: Asus or other companies' onboard VIA firewire chip may have a compatibility issue. If so, TI chip FW PCI interface card is needed. And/Or Use Legacy FW driver instead of the newest FW driver.

[norbury brook]

I've used my two 816's on 3 different machines; OSX 10.5.x - 10.6.x windows XP and Windows 7 x64 never had a clicks and pops with any of them, they have all had T.I.fire wire cards.



MC

[lukejs]

I heard you should delete firewire as a network device... go to system preferences, network, and delete firewire as a device for connecting to network.... maybe this will help .....