Atari Falcon with Cubase on ebay (UK)

[NCGM]

I forgot to mention that I get the same error window saying, "Channel 0 cannot record onto the drive '", when I choose the RAM option instead of Hard Disk. So it cannot even save to RAM at the moment! The plot thickens...

I suppose I need to try a more simple audio recording app that works with the FDI interface, just to see if it really does work. Perhaps Zero X.


NCGM

[mal7921]

Zero X should work fine with the FDI, after all it did for my machine, even with a 24 bit input (Ooops!). Zero X can also do direct to disk recording, so you can test the FDI and the drive at the same time.

As I recall, your not too far from me, if came down to it, I could always test your device on my machine if need be.

[mal7921]

With the channel unable to record errors, I have found some stuff online here regarding troubleshooting with the Falcon and Cubase Audio. I'm working through a few things at home and will go into it a little more over the next few days. With any luck I should also have another Falcon to play with for testing...

[NCGM]

I was reading this the other night and it has a lot of good info and help. At this very moment I am using a program by Ppera Putnik called Drive Image to create images of my 44-pin IDE drives. I can maybe then wipe them, format them and try them with my Falcons and Cubase etc.

I've just plugged one ancient 720MB IBM drive in to test and the program found it and imaged it. I've now got it plugged into the PC via a SCSI PCI card and a load of adapter cards and cables; I cannot access the files on it with Gemulator 2008 v9 yet though, nor with the imaging program so I may be doing something wrong.


NCGM

[mal7921]

Right, cracked it, the issue is as simple as not enough memory, even on a 14MB Falcon.

I had the same issue crop up with a test machine and went through as many things as I could think of. As a last resort I booted while holding the Control key to use minimal memory. Low and behold, the test Falcon ran fine recording audio into my 1Gb Jaz drive (Split into 2 partitions).

Rebooting the Falcon as normal without holding the control key resulted in the recording error.

Also there is a clue in the description of Cubase Audio, mentioning that you should not use a colour mode and have as few a number of desk accessories loaded as possible.

Also with HDDriver, the more partitions you have the more RAM is used (And I have quite a few), though booting into low memory mode allows all the partitions AND the desk accessories (Oddly enough).

Hope that helps

[NCGM]

Some very helpful info there thanks!

Actually on my 14MB Falcon I had a lot of messed up screen displays with Cubase Audio, when I was in certain colour modes. So I booted up with 2 colours (monochrome), 80 lines and no double thingy; this solved the display problem. My CAF is the cracked version and that states it uses more RAM due to how it was cracked.

Seeing as this Falcon is a test machine until things get sorted out, I am only using a tiny 8MB CF in the IDE port, and a small 4GB drive split into four 1GB partitions in the SCSI port. Also the CF card is not plugged in at the moment so I can concentrate on the SCSI side of things.

If I get chance tomorrow I will try your suggestions and see if that helps.

[NCGM]

Just had another go and I even removed every active module apart from the file selector, plus I tried lowering the recording sample frequency via the onboard mic input but still the same error message.

The next step is to get hold of a proper mechanical SCSI drive and IDE drive. After that it has to be either a software fault/bad setup, and/or a motherboard issue.

One thing I have not tried yet is my other Falcon 030 4MB machine.


NCGM

[mal7921]

Well, I'm only over the hill from Bradford (Huddersfield, home of the banana stadium...), so can try with my copy of Cubase Audio (With dongle) to see if that is the issue, though not in the next few days though.

One other thing to check, in HDDriver, make sure any cache settings are disabled as these interfere with Cubase Audio writing to disk.

[NCGM]

Thanks, yes I will bob over to see you shortly; just PM to let me know which days of the week are convenient for you.

[NCGM]

Minor update: I have since bought the SoundPool version of the FDI, the SPDIF and it had a sticker on the back saying 2002 so that was promising. I plugged my 24-bit valve preamp into it and great news...it worked with the SPDIF via optical cables. I ran Cubase but still had the same problems, so I then installed Zero X v2.0 and successfully recorded onto the SCSI (IDE via adapter) drive.

Next time I will double check about the cache in HD Driver that you mentioned, but apart from that I am waiting for an old external SCSI drive to arrive from Ebay. Once this is plugged in along with one of my old mechanical 2.5" IDE drives, that should solve that end of things with Cubase. If Cubase still errors then, it will be something else altogether.

Hey I should actually have three digital interfaces but the first one I bought in January from Ebay in Germany never arrived. So I have raised a claim against the seller to hopefully get some or all of my money back (£70).


NCGM

[mal7921]

I suspect you bought the unit I was looking at but decided to leave alone, well done on getting it though a step or several closer.

I'm on holiday from work next week, so if there is anything I can do, just let me know. Currently I'm unavailable on Thursday and Friday, btu should be ok any other time.

[NCGM]

Yes maybe it is the same unit you were going to bid on. It is in mint condition and I marvelled at how brand new it looked, plus all the instructions and promo leaflets are still in the original box. However as seems to be the case with all DSP related Falcon products........NO * DSP CABLE! Where do these cables go to I wonder?! Anyway luckily I have at least one cable from another auction.

I may get chance to visit you next week, so I will let you know before hand.


NCGM

[NCGM]

Sorry I did not get chance to visit you but I will at some point. Anyway today I have been fiddling around with the Falcon and CAF, except this time it is with proper SCSI and IDE drives of the right vintage and NO adapters in sight. I am using HD Driver v7.93 as advised and the drives function fine outside of Cubase. Today I also installed and tried the other crack of CAF by MCA, which actually works slightly better than the JM one. Anyway on the MCA I still cannot record anything yet and now I get a couple more error screens, although the original error I got before has gone. Instead I now get 'SCSI Error 3'. I also at first had an error saying the SCSI HD might have timing errors or something. It did attempt to record a file on the SCSI drive and it also said the drive was full! This was after a split second of trying to record, getting the errors etc, so the drive is not full. After a while I decided to unplug the proper IBM SCSI drive and plug my 4GB Fuji IDE drive back in via the SCSI adapter; This performed exactly the same as the IBM.

In HD Driver I have turned off any SCSI cache stuff and at one point I even tried switching off SCSI support completely.

I feel that maybe there is no working crack of CAF in existence, although I do not know what other peoples experiences are with the cracked versions; maybe nobody has managed to do any recording with them?


NCGM

[mal7921]

Well, to be honest it is a good job you didn't come over, I spent most of the week dealing with poorly partner and child, became ill myself then when I was well ended up being called back into work!

I've been using the dongled Cubase Audio, but I'll download the crack and try it on my working machine, that way we will know if it is the program itself causing the issue.

[NCGM]

There seems to be a lot of sickness bugs doing the rounds, but glad to hear everyone is on the mend. * I hate it when planned weeks off are completely ruined like that; you have my sympathy!

I look forward with interest for your cracked Cubase Audio results.


NCGM