IF-FW/DMmkII discontinued

[captdan]

My whole studio is built around the DM3200

So's mine. And so it shall remain. I've got other creative concerns which have no bearing on hardware. I wish it did; then it would be easier.

CaptDan

 

[Gravity Jim]

Likewise. I have to learn to play guitar and keyboards better and write better arrangements before gear becomes an issue.

 

[captdan]

For me it's challenging myself toward better arrangements and taking more creative risks. I've been listening to tracks from others in my genre who're doing some compelling things a bit outside the 'norm.' It's inspiring me to try to do the same.

Would be nice if there were a 'routing button' for that.

CaptDan

 

[jamsire]

Well, if my DM4800 went "down", and the repair was too costly - I would just play guitar and use my Eleven Rack. There are no obstacles, just opportunities. Then again, I'm not "making music" that much anymore (haven't for a long time, I just do mixes), just because of my injury to my leg.

My point is, I wouldn't be held back if my DM4800 went down.

 

[Gravity Jim]

I'm waiting to take delivery one of these.

 

[captdan]

.........On a somewhat related note......................................

Just finished yet another glitch-free session for a new track I'm trying to get through. I'd just gotten done 'Pre-automating' a troublesome ProTools channel, and as I played the section back - watching that single DM fader bow to my swift command - I thought to myself:

"I'm a knave and a jerk for having said ANYTHING negative about Tascam - or by extension - the DMs. I truly covet for nothing else at this stage of the game, and I will really really try to avoid any 'serious' commentary on anything to do with the consoles' demise - premature or actual - on this forum again. Back channel? Maybe - and at $99 a minute."

CaptDan

 

[cmaffia]

.......And it's not ok to publicly express disappointment? Bollocks! I've been faithful to Tascam for more than 31 years and I'm really disappointed with their new marketing direction whether it be Gibson's hand or otherwise. I will apologize only after they have . This forum should also be utilized as VOC for said company if it hasn't already.

 

[captdan]

Didn't say that at all. Everybody's free to say what they want. No apologies expected or required - from anybody including myself.



CaptDan

 

[captdan]

Might be premature to assume that there isn't a replacement coming down the road.

Here's a pix of a new 'TasGib' LPX mixer concept, utilizing the flexible power of a Les/Polfus guitar's volume/tone pots to increase encoder functionality. Should be a great companion to those lovely new Polfus_faux_timber ref monitors. .................................


CaptDan

 

[Gravity Jim]

Here's a legit question for RedBus:

I'm guessing we are probably seeing the end of any updated drivers for the card or firmware for the console, which is fine (as I say, I'm sure we're good for years come). Bu since it's not affected by the chip EOL, how long do you think we might expect to be able to buy replacement LCD screens? In other words, should I buy a back up now?

 

[AudioWave]

MS is in a real hurry to get everyone on W10 ASAP to compete with OSX Yosemite. Enough so that they are offering W10 for free to every one that has a legit copy of W7, W8 & W8.1 to get everyone on the same version and then drop support and updates for the previous versions.

I've been using W10 since last September and it's really more of a W8.5 then anything fresh to qualify as a new W10. They jumped to version 10 to skip the every other OS curse they have had for years and to message that W10 is as good as OSX 10.10. Well, we will see. At the "Build" Conference in San Francisco a little of a week ago they do seem have made great strides in better cross platform developer tools for W10 that include mobile devices that has their version of the Apple store. They are clearly heavily focused in W10 for Games and Virtual Reality.

But audio still lags and takes a back seat at MS. While they are now talking to pro audio developers more so that have in the past, much of this is Game specific. They even were trolling round in full force at the last NAMM show that seems something new for them. They are just starting to take Thunderbolt seriously, but are not offering any firm plans or timeline to offer official support.

One thing to note in W10 audio is that they have again seem to have updated and re-wrote the Windows low level Firewire driver and it has hosed many legacy devices from working as they once did in W7 and W8. The TCAT DICE chip that is used in many audio interface products including the UA Apollo & Tascam IF-FWMKII are noted has having performance problems. MS being typically slow to focus on such issues, have just recently opened up the legacy Firewire driver to be installed in W10 as a band-aide, but this has to be installed after almost every full W10 update build. I haven't tried W10 with the legacy Firewire driver yet.

One other thing to note is that the entire TC Electronics Group that includes TCAT (TC Technologies) who designed the DICE chip and creates the low level Firewire driver that many Firewire audio interfaces use including Tascam, has been bought by Behringer's Music Group so their long term future is really unknown. Uli Behringer and company could now at any time choke off DICE and it's driver current support, keep it just for their family in any new product development or even kill it off to stamp out competition. Only time will tell...

 

[Arjan P]

MS being typically slow to focus on such issues, have just recently opened up the legacy Firewire driver to be installed in W10 as a band-aide, but this has to be installed after almost every full W10 update build.

I would say this is very good news and certainly NOT typically slow. When has Apple ever opened up a new OS to users before its release (not to mention the times stuff was broken after a release)? W10 will officially lauch sometime this summer, so kudos to MS to pick up on this before release!

 

[AudioWave]

You must be out of the loop as far as what Apple has been doing for the last few releases as they have had public Beta for 10.9 Mavericks as well as for 10.10 Yosemite.

I say MS is slow in regards to Firewire in W10 Beta as the new Firewire driver broke many devices and they did not seem to have any clue about the issue until they got hundreds of complaints. You'd have to think they would have or should have tested it before Beta release to either fix it or offer a the band-aide work around with the legacy driver at the time of Beta release and at least make some mention of it's status in the Beta release notes.

We don't know for sure if it will be fixed for W10 release or if it will ever be fixed because MS attitude is that Firewire is basically a dead format going forward so few if any resources may be allocated to truly fixing it to work in W10. Many thousands of users of Firewire devices that now use W7 or W8 would like to continue to use all those working Firewire devices for at least a few more years, but now many of them may be plagued with issues.

 

[Gravity Jim]

Arjan: The last couple of Apple OS's were put into Public Beta.

 

[captdan]

If a computer of any flavor is the central means of processing audio, there will NEVER be a time where users aren't concerned about obsolescence. Today it's Firewire; tomorrow - who knows?

This is one reason why some audio engineers are reaching the ends of their ropes - looking into entirely different ('classic') analog solutions which rely on nothing related to bits 'n bytes. For the rest of us, musings like that are impractical rhapsodies. But dammit! I've had a few of 'em myself.

Reminds me of a discussion I had with an acquaintance who just retired from Intel(c). I jokingly asked him about that 'secret 24 core monster CPU in the works,' and he'd say "..well, users demand more power, software manufacturers try to provide it and we (Intel(c)) are just trying to keep up!"

Yeah. It's always the other guy - never the companies driving the ships of technology.

Rant.

Off.

CaptDan

 

[Arjan P]

You must be out of the loop as far as what Apple has been doing for the last few releases as they have had public Beta for 10.9 Mavericks as well as for 10.10 Yosemite.

I stand corrected; I don't follow Apple much, and don't care for anything that company does or makes. I must have been confusing OS10 or X with the iOs troubles (locating Berlin on Antarctica and such)..

Many thousands of users of Firewire devices that now use W7 or W8 would like to continue to use all those working Firewire devices for at least a few more years, but now many of them may be plagued with issues.

That was my point, really. W10 is Beta so we don't know what may or may not be when it finally releases. Even still, no release of software will by itself break any previous version.

 

[Gravity Jim]

Yeah, well, the troubles of which you speak were early days and long since fixed, while MS continues to make third rate software that even its fans steer clear of. Everything that works comes from Apple or Google, with the currently decimated MS lost in the weeds. Vista. WindowsPhone. Zune. Bing. Etc., etc. Picking nits about Apple's comparatively minor and infrequent failures seems bitter, somehow, in the face of such devastation.

And if you're saying, as it appears, that MS won't release an OS that will break existing third party drivers ( because that's what the topic is here), well... that's just wrong.

 

[AudioWave]

Knowing what I now know of W10 scuttlebutt Dev talk, I have Zero confidence that anything Firewire related will be of any priority to MS. I am expecting that the best that can be hoped for is that W10 will allow the use of legacy Firewire driver and nothing they do in W10 will break it or have it perform worse than it does previous versions, but that seems to be pretty optimistic high in hopes.

It doesn't take much to remember or research that MS has consistently broken stuff from one version to the next from the very start going all the way back to Windows 3.1 to W95 to W98 to W2000 and forward. if you were involved in audio paying attention to what MS did going from XP to Vista, where late in the Vista Beta cycle just before release they made severe changes that hosed almost everything involving audio and made developers scramble to throw out what they had been working on for months and basically start from scratch with no warning from MS. Thus helping make Vista's reputation a fail right out of the gate.

W8 was such a total fail for MS compared to their expectations that they now admit publicly. So much so that they had to revert back back dozens of changes and new forced features they made in W8 into a hurried W8.1 version release due to a very upset user base demand. Many Enterprise level Corporations have only accepted W7 from XP within the past few years and have forced MS to continue to develop & support XP for their needs as W8 has had way to many issues and risk of in-stability for their needs. Corporate W7 acceptance is mostly only driven by security needs that can not be addressed in XP.

 

[captdan]

Everything you LOVED about Win7 you can have BACK again with W10!!" -
---- Paraphrased from an MS advert....................

"MS has consistently broken stuff from one version to the next from the very start going all the way back to Windows 3.1 to W95 to W98 to W2000 and forward."

I couldn't agree more. And I say this as a died in the wool (masochistic?) MS user from the 286 days of the late 80s. (I don't expect to put that on my resume, but it enhances credibility. ).

Then again - to be fair - considering the tasks and duties I've expected from my PCs, most all have delivered inspite of OP/Sys upgrades, 'service packs,' obsolete apps, and all the rest of it.

And, I guess I'm just cheap.

CaptDan

 

[Arjan P]

Interestingly though, worldwide market share of desktop operating systems is 91.2% for the 'decimated' Windows and 7.3% Apple (Net Applications, March 2015). I guess those people and companies must all be wrong, using that third rate software..