Horrible trouble with Focusrite Saffire pro 24 DSP
Hey everyone! I really hate my first post to be a distress call, but I feel that it is a necessary one.
I recently received a Focusrite Saffire pro 24 DSP as a gift. I was distressed to find that it required a 6-pin firewire (Macbook Pro's only have 9 pin female). I finally got an adapter, but to my horror I found that the unit refuses to even try to power on. I have tried turning it on without connecting to the computer (it has a standalone mode) via the 12V DC power source, but it shows pretty much no sign of receiving any power. There is no "Power" LED lit when connected to either power source. However, when the 48V button is pressed, the "Phantom power" LED will light.
I have tried It with my dad's PC as well, so it is defiantly the Saffire unit itself.
I have accepted that it is probably a stupid problem and that I will probably get bullied for asking it- but if I can get my Pro 24 fixed, I don't care.
Thanks guys.
I also have a side question about getting the FW driver to work on my Mac. I have the latest Mixcontrol installed, but there is no "Saffire" option in my audio devices menu. I have used other external audio devices before with no problems so its weird that this one would give me so much hell.
There is a power rocker on the back of the unit if I remember correctly. Did you flip it to on position?
EDIT: I see that you get 48V LED so yes you got it powered up.
My guess is you have a bad cable or a faulty unit.
Try a different cable first, then call Focusrite tech support.
I have the SAME problem... before this problem my saffire pro 24 stayed powered but wasn`t recognized by the computer..nothing oped up when i hooked up the firewire cable..i have a T`I chipset on my pci to firewire adapter , everything was ok ... after that i replaced the tsb41ab1 firewire chipset inside the interface and notning...bigger problems...the same problem OneInFiftyTwo has...HELP !!!!
I think the OP's Saffire definitely has a major problem if the power LED wasn't even lit, I mean the power LED should light up at least if its working properly whether FireWire was connected or not.
When I had FireWire connection problem between my MacPro and my LS 56, it's usually the FireWire cable, those cheap China made cables are totally unreliable most of the time, 1 in 3 FireWire cables I bought were faulty. Another problem I find is that if my LS 56 is connected via the fw 800 out from the back of my MacPro, connecting another FireWire device via the front Fw 800 port will cut out the one at the back, it's kind of silly.
the chipset lighten up with the old chipset...when i removed the faulty one and put a now one...solder well...etc...the computer still wont start install it , the power and the lkd lighten without the fw off ....only when i press 48v button the led lights this is it...maybe OneInFiftyTwo got it solved and he can help me !!!!
they didn`t help
i dont wanna send it....i need just some guide
if i will send it to repair the transatlantic costs will bankrupt me so.....they can help me from distance but they don`t wanna do that....i`m going for the tc electronics now...or motu..sorry
If your unit does need repair and your country has a Focusrite distributor generally there is an authorised service center in your country so no need for international shipping costs.
Despite this, the first step here is to verify that the device is definitely in need of repair, as there may be some other factor at play causing your issue.
If you continue to contact us we'll be happy to help look into this further for you.
If your unit does need repair and your country has a Focusrite distributor generally there is an authorised service center in your country so no need for international shipping costs.
Despite this, the first step here is to verify that the device is definitely in need of repair, as there may be some other factor at play causing your issue.
If you continue to contact us we'll be happy to help look into this further for you.
Chris
Focusrite Support
10 emails and that`s it...
no more cheap focusrite products for me...
only class A from now on !
Hi! I'm new here and didn't want to start a new thread since there seemed to be a lot of troubleshooting threads on the Focusrite 24 already so I figured I'd just add on to this one. Hope that's cool.
I'm definitely new to the recording world so I apologize in advance if this is a common error/mistake.
I have a pretty basic setup:
MacBook Pro 2011 connected firewire 800-800 to a 1TB external harddrive and daisy chained 800-400 to my Saffire PRO 24 DSP interface. From there I'm using a Rode NT1000 microphone and some KRK Rokit 5s. I'm running Pro Tools 10 as my DAW and have Saffire Mix Control 3.0 installed.
I had no problem hooking up the Saffire to my system and after messing around a bit I got it to work to play back sound. The first issue I had was Saffire Mix Control freezing after a couple minutes of running. It would still play sound, but any attempt to click on it and use its controls would result in the Mac "beachball". After upgrading to 3.0 (from 2.4), it seems to run smoother.
So yesterday I went to record an A Capella group (5 members, vocals only). I set up the session and began to record on the first track per usual. About 2 minutes in to the recording, Pro Tools gave a hardware buffer size error, something I've rarely seen and only when I'm really pushing the limits of what my computer can handle. With 1 track and no plugins on anything, I was quite confused. (I tried every hardware buffer option pro tools has and nothing fixed this problem. I've never had to record at higher than 32 before purchasing this interface.) I dismissed the error and went to try and continue recording. When I record-enabled the track, I was getting no signal (within Pro Tools) even though Saffire Mix Control seemed to be working fine and showing normal levels from the mic. I tried rebooting Pro Tools and it didn't fix the problem. I then quit Pro Tools, Mix Control, and rebooted the Saffire in order to get Pro Tools to recognize it. After that, the same thing kept happening. I got some other errors along the way including something about other software changing something within Pro Tools and forcing Pro Tools to quit. Another one saying that a 44.1 bit rate isn't supported in my current session. (I made sure Pro Tools and Mix Control were set to the same thing, still got errors). I ended up getting through the whole recording doing 2 minutes at a time and rebooting after every single take but it was miserable. I tried opening other sessions I'd previously recorded and mixed and what used to work perfectly was giving me hardware buffer errors all over the place. Really hoping someone can help me out here. I have not yet gone to Focusrite support because I'm not 100% positive it's a problem with their product or just me not being educated enough to know what's going on.
Could be a myriad of things, but the first thing I would do is get rid of the external hard drive and see if that helps. I'm pretty sure Focusrite advise to not have anything between the interface and the computer.
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It sounds like a faulty unit if the power led isn't even turning on. No amount of PC troubleshooting will help you here. You got a lemon - go get a refund or exchange.
Could be a myriad of things, but the first thing I would do is get rid of the external hard drive and see if that helps. I'm pretty sure Focusrite advise to not have anything between the interface and the computer.
Thanks for the quick response. I tried removing the external hard drive and the problem still persists. Upon more experimenting, I have noticed that when the hardware buffer error occurs, the Saffire generally loses its firewire connection with my computer, which is why I need to restart my whole system to get it back up and running. The little "FW" led on the front starts blinking slowly and Saffire Mix Control goes to the No Hardware Detected screen. I'm going to borrow a 400/800 cable from a friend to see if it could possibly be the cable that I purchased but any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Reverb - I kind of started a new question with this old post so my Power LED works fine. It works wonderfully until I get that error and lose connection. Sorry for any confusion about what my problem is.
I know that the firewire connection in the MBP's are loose as hell, so make sure the cable is getting jiggled about, but yeah it could very well just be a dud cable, i've heard of a few horror stories like yours where bad cables were to blame.
Nope. New cord/adapter didn't work. Same problem. I sent in a report to Focusrite support so we'll see what they say. Any suggestions in the mean time would be great.
You haven't been hot swapping anything on the firewire buss have you? That can fry your firewire buss, and that could cause the troublesome connection possibly.
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