FW1884 & Ableton playing double notes

itsy vious

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Gear owned
FW1884
Im using a Fw1884/Ableton Live 10/Win 10 64 , replacing my trusty Edirol FA 66.
So far so good and everything is working well enough except for 1 killer issue.

Ive set up an Adat lightpipe into it and using the 'External Instrument' modules in Ableton to provide midi & audio communication & control and a coaxial spdif output from the FW 1884 into my monitor amp - and its all good except that its playing double, simultaneous notes.

The note from the DAW and the note from FW overlayed also and phasing slightly. Both going out of the coaxial spdif. And the headphone socket!

Anyone have a solution to this - so that only the DAW plays.

I hope I've described the problem well enough, I'm hoping someone else has faced and overcome this troublesome combination.

Interestingly, regarding external hardware instruments the Ableton manual states:
"Note: To avoid sound being doubled, you'll usually have to mute the output of that channel in your audio interface's control software (if available). Otherwise the audio plays both through the control software and through Live.

How do I do that?
Please feel free to ask any question for clarification & thanks in advance.
 
Ok - I kept pressing buttons until I found a combination that worked for me with this problem.
Simply use 'Computer' mode on the FW1884 and all sound output is controlled from Ableton.
All set to go now....

Additionally for stability, Ive found it to be important to let PC, FW1884, ADAT interface, external digital mixer (which is also the Clock Source) all warm up before launching Ableton.
Boot sequence:
1 ADAT
2 Digital mixer (Clock Source)
3 PC
4 FW1884

and after a 15 min warm up....
5 Ableton

I use the 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller (Legacy) driver for my TI chipset IEEE1394 host controler ('Firewire'card)

I run the Tascam driver in Win7 compatibility mode.
I run Ableton in 'Administrator' mode.
Everything is solid.
Hope the above helps someone.


If anyone has a Win10 Tascam driver (I'm currently on 1.80) or script for Ableton that makes better use of the features of the FW1884 that the 'Mackie Control Emulation' option in the Control Panel please let me know - or maybe we could collaborate to produce such a script for Ableton?
 
It takes about 20 min warm up of the FW for a solid connection re firerwire light & receive sync from external spdif clock source (from Roland VM3100 digital mixer) & a send solid sync to the Behringer adat.

The issue in my orig post has been resolved - I'm now operating in 'Computer' mode & all is good.


Im shortly about to replace my ok/working TI firewire card:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-Port-F...144539?hash=item51fca6db5b:g:56YAAMXQ74JTRUXR

with a Belkin F5U503 Rev s3 & see what improves - if anything.

T - thanks for your informative posts etc within this forum - you have provide me with results that ensured a working FW that is a joy (usually!) to work with.

I
 
Thanks and agreed.
At some point I will address that issue, its 'manageable' for now even if a little frustrating.

My hope in fitting a new card is that it will improve a latency of 512 samples required to play certain softsynths without pops./
Oddly only Ableton softsynths from within the supplied sound pack - and only certain ones - and not always the complex multilayered ones either.
Virtually all my sounds play glitch free - even plug ins from Korg, Novation, Roland etc. at very low latency settings.
But a number of the Ableton supplied library require a setting of 512 samples (approx 12.ms) and seem to hit the CPU much harder than anything others - typically 2 or 3 times the load.
My hope is that a more compliant card will help- do you have any other suggestions?

Unrelated:
I've been fortunate enough to obtain an FE8.
It works perfectly, locks sync and firewire quickly.
Ive found that Ableton recognises it at once and treats it as a separate second set of 8 sliders when listed as a Mackie Control XT surface (with FE8 set as the Input & Output) in the Ableton 'Link Midi' control panel.
The FW1884 works best for me when listed as a Mackie Control surface (FW1884 set as Input & Output). Not at all a perfect map but all of the necessary and some of the 'nice to have' functionality is present
And all 16 sliders of the FW/FE functioning independently. Super.

If anyone feels like co-authoring a complete Tascam FW1884 Native Control Surface midi cc etc map to run in Ableton please consider me in. I'm no expert, but experienced & enthusiastic about it.
 
I'm not sure the card is going to change anything, do let us know.
The fact that third party vsti are working flawlessly makes me think
that the "issue" is something related to Abelton's coding; but I'm no expert on that.
Good luck,
T
 

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