TM Companion not working -- DM4800 newbie

[madoues]

Hi to all DM 32/4800 series users,

Well I've finally gotten my DM-4800, about a week ago actually. So far, I'm very happy with it and all seems to be working fine and all seems fairly intuitive in the mixer itself. The IF-FW Mkii i/f is working. I think I am going to love this mixer.

Finished are the days of constant plugging and unplugging for each setup, running wires, looking for adapters, etc. Everything is plugged in on a permanent basis, (well not quite everything, but it will all be soon) and available at my fingertips. Yeah! Gotta love that. And I have even revived some of my old analog gear that I had up for sale, TC2290, H3000, PCM70. My finalizer is plugged in if I need it; UREI 1176N which will see a lot of use, as the VMP2 tube preamp. I really feel that there is a recording studio available to me, like in the analog days.

My problem however, is that I can't get TM Companion to communicate with the mixer. The setup is with the supplied USB cable on a fresh Win7Pro install.
I have tried several of the USB connections.

A message appears saying the software(v 1.51) does not find the mixer.
In device manager, there is one instance of the DM4800 in Sounds section, but not a USB audio device as expected from reading the Readme file included with the software. Nothing I have tried has ever resulted in having two devices listed in device manager.

If I remove my audio interface so that the only devices connected are the DM4800 a mouse and a keyboard, the situation is a bit different. The software hangs after the splash screen; it is still running as seen in task manager, but no GUI appears. If I disconnect the USB cable, a warning comes up saying communications with the mixer was interrupted.

My computer is an Intel Q6600 based system with 4GB of RAM.
It's fairly old but it's a solid system that has always worked well.
Sonar recognizes the DM 4800 in midi devices and adds six extra midi i/o ports

Is that second driver that is missing the cause of the TMC software not communicating? What does that driver do?

Is there anything I can try to resolve the situation?

Cheers,
Dan

 

[Will Miho]

Not sure the problem but I don't think the usb connection should show up as an audio device, it's data. You might check the TMC app's preference settings for what usb port it's looking at.

 

[madoues]

Re: TM Companion not working -- DM4800 newbie **SOLVED** tha

Hi Will and thanks for the speedy reply, which was right on the mark.

I had the USB port enabled in Sonar which was preventing TMC to start.
It has now started OK. It's funny that it prevented TMC starting even when Sonar was not running.

You can't imagine how long I fooled around trying to figure it out, and like many solutions, it seems simple when you know the answer. But I was stuck on the idea that there should be a second driver there, which is not correct; I realize now that I had misunderstood, that second driver was the audio device, i.e. my audio card.

I also had trouble getting the remote layer to work, but I've got most of it working now.

Thanks again!
Dan

 

[jimbo333]

Can you be more specific on how the USB port was "taken over" by Sonar? I don't have sonar installed but am getting the same problem. The companion application starts but no GUI is shown. I don't have any audio software install on this PC, it is basically a "fresh" install of Windows 7 x64. I see the "audio" device, which I am guessing is really a USB->MIDI device node.

 

[madoues]

hi jimbo333,
It's been a while since this happened.
I'm not sure of the details,
but in my case, it was Sonar that was "hogging"(for lack of a better word) the driver.
I would say first make sure the driver "TASCAM DM4800" is present in sound, video, and game controllers in Device manager and that it is reported to operate properly.
Judging from my situation, the only other thing is making sure no program is using the driver. If you don't have any programs installed, I would check windows itself in control panel, sounds to make sure it is not selected anywhere in there. I'm guessing here, because your situation seems a bit different than what I had.
Dan

 

[Will Miho]

Jimbo, he was assigning the usb connection as an audio connection. You should not be seeing the DM4800 usb connection as an audio device, the USB connection on the DM4800 is for data _only_.

 

[cmaffia]

Jimbo, he was assigning the usb connection as an audio connection. You should not be seeing the DM4800 usb connection as an audio device, the USB connection on the DM4800 is for data _only_.

I wonder if this is what is causing my problem with Cubase and TCM? Windows 7 has the DM3200 listed as an audio device. But isn't it? I was wondering if Cubase's default MIDI setup was the culprit 'hog" as well in my situation since MIDI is essentially the USB port when it comes to the DM3200.

 

[madoues]

Jimbo, he was assigning the usb connection as an audio connection. You should not be seeing the DM4800 usb connection as an audio device, the USB connection on the DM4800 is for data _only_.

You are likely right, I may have misunderstood exactly what was happening, and I may still be misunderstanding it, lol! All I know is that everything has been working great since then and couldn't be happier with my DM4800.

I hope you get it sorted out, Jimbo.

 

[Arjan P]

I wonder if this is what is causing my problem with Cubase and TCM? Windows 7 has the DM3200 listed as an audio device. But isn't it?

Windows does see the DM as audio device, but that should be through the firewire interface. The USB interface is for control (TMC) and controller data (MIDI).

 

[Will Miho]

Maffia, you should try to remove the usb connection from your DM4800 as an audio device. It could be really confusing to your computer!

 

[wm_b]

I'm going to wake up this thread because I had to swap out my DM3200 for my DM4800 on my main studio computer. After culling out over a decade of cables that are no longer in use and re-racking a bunch of gear I got everything connected and up and running. I'm not able to get TMC Companion to successfully start and my problem is exactly like the OPs issue. The splash screen starts and then nothing happens. If I pull the USB cable I get a "lost connection to the mixer" type message. In device manager under audio devices I do see a Tascam DM4800 as well as the If-fw/dm or whatever the firewire is called. When I was using the DM3200 I could use the TMC companion software as long as I opened it before pro tools.

Any enlightening ideas?

 

[Headroom]

http://www.tascamforums.com/threads/migrating-to-windows7-tmc-sees-no-mixer.2241/