Atari Falcon with Cubase on ebay (UK)

[mal7921]

Right, first test out of the way and I can report that the MCA crack works recording to my Jaz drive just fine. Well, it does so long as I boot holding the control key down for low memory mode.

Having said that, for the quick tests I did, there were no errors recording audio and the FDI was detected just fine.

When I get chance, I#ll try the other out.

[NCGM]

Thanks and at some point I will make a note of all settings used within each application, particularly HD Driver as you never know I may have set something wrong.

Another thing is, has your Falcon had the motherboard mods done for the SCSI clock etc? I doubt mine have.


NCGM

[mal7921]

Hi, neither of my Falcons has been modified, though I'm trading one of them in for a CLab Falcon soon which has all the mods already done (And hopefully a working NVRAM).

YOu can tell if the machine needs the mods doing by leaving Cubase Audio running with a MIDI track looping. Set it going, go down for a cuppa (Or 3 course meal, watch a film or whatever), then when finished go back up for a look. If the machine has locked or is at the desktop, you need a Cubase mod.

[NCGM]

Nice, is it a CLAB X?

If the MIDI test failed, which modification would need to be done...the SCSI clock fix? The other two mods are just audio related if I recall correctly.


NCGM

[mal7921]

Sadly no, the guy does have a Mk X, but it's been butchered to fix something else (though I was offered the case if I wanted it).

The one I've been offered is a Mk II, but at least it has all the necessary Cubase mods already done

[NCGM]

Okay I am feeling slightly stupid now...

I own two newly acquired Atari Falcon 030 computers, but so far all my tests have been done with my first Falcon (German) bought from Germany. This is the one with 14MB but here is why I feel silly; my second Falcon is 4MB and English and it came with Steinberg the FDI and FA8, but the lack of RAM meant I ignored it.

Anyway long story short, I plugged in my external SCSI 1GB IBM drive circa 1995; installed HD Driver v7.93 onto the SCSI drive; created and AUTO folder and copied the FDI initialisation file into it; installed the cracked Cubase Audio by MCA; plugged in my digital valve preamp into the SoundPool SPDIF and fed some CD audio into Cubase. For the first few minutes I did not get anything recorded, until I had figured a few simple operational things out. One thing I did NOT get was any SCSI error messages or any errors at all for that matter. Minutes later I had a track in Cubase with audio recorded successfully onto it, and it sounded fine. Now I need to try doing a full song with MIDI and eight tracks.

So two seemingly identical TOS 4.04 Falcon 030 machines apart from the RAM installed, but only ONE works with Cubase Audio!


NCGM

[NCGM]

Another update; I have since bought a cheap Fujitsu MAJ3182MC 10,000rpm Ultra Wide 3 SCSI Hard Disk and this is connected via a 80-pin to 50-pin adapter. Now this works fine with my Falcons and weirdly enough, Cubase Audio is working again except this time with my German Falcon 030! This has never worked at all with Cubase Audio. Also I am using the same IDE drive with all files unchanged, that was previously working with Cubase in my UK Falcon 030. So after using two different SCSI drives and also other connection methods with IDE and CF, I suppose the conclusion is that using a drive that Cubase likes is the crux of the matter. At one point I even accidentally knocked the power supply to the hard drive and it turned off while the Falcon and Cubase were on. I then got all the usual SCSI error messages including the dreaded 'Channel 0' one, but after a cold boot everything was back to normal which I could never do with the external SUN/IBM SCSI drive.

One of the main reasons why I wanted to return to using an Atari and particularly a Falcon 030, was so I could run a silent setup which is crucial when recording with quality microphones. If I could have used a silent type of drive that would have been perfect, but it looks as though only a real old noisy hard drive will do. So I am kind of back to square one in that I have noisy drives in PC towers............which is the same as using a PC with noisy PC drives in a noisy PC tower! Ahh well at least a tower with Atari drives is not going to need lots of cooling fans!

[NCGM]

Regarding IDE drives, I bought a nice Western Digital WD400VE-75HDT1 laptop drive and it is TOTALLY SILENT, even with my ear pressed right against it I cannot hear anything at all. This drive works well with the Falcon and also fine with HD Driver, including v7.93 which is required as you know for Cubase Audio. The 40GB drive is way too big to be fully utilised by TOS, but maybe with MiNT or BigDOS it will be used better at a later date.

Oh and another thing, my German Falcon 030 seems to have the SCSI mod fix done on the motherboard, although it differs from the one published here.

I posted photos of this on the Atari-Forum.com site at http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.ph ... 51#p164681

[mal7921]

We just bought some SSD drives at work, it now takes longer for the PC to POST than it does to boot into Windoze, just a shame there is no easy way to attach them to a Falcon (SATA interface sadly, no IDE versions that I'm aware of).

[NCGM]

Today I received a Motorola MC68882FN33A PLCC FPU from Amiga Kit.com, although I need to work out the correct orientation of the FPU to the socket on the Falcon. I also need to decide upon which Falcon to install it in...the UK or the German (with SCSI mod fix I think) machine. Of the two occasions that I have got Cubase Audio working on both Falcon 030, the UK appeared to run more smoothly with all eight audio tracks running.

I've also received my Hydra (NETUS-Bee) Ethernet cartridge today, so that is something else to grapple with. So I may have network and internet access in the near future!


NCGM

[mal7921]

If you can read the labling on the chip from the front of the Falcon, it is the right way around, at least that is how it is on my machine.

[NCGM]

It's okay, I managed to find a bit of info to clarify things; Align the dot on the FPU chip with the arrow on the Falcon FPU socket. Afterwards everything fired up and worked fine, with SysInfo reporting it correctly. I decided to install it in my UK Falcon 030 which is still working fine (sharp intake of breath).

Next thing to do is buy a drive enclosure from QuietPC.com that can take 10000rpm drives, as my recent Fuji SCSI drive is the noisiest I have ever heard and it is VERY painful on my ears. This one seems suitable http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/produc ... quietdrive . I bought a SilentDrive back in 2003 for my old PC and it is very effective indeed, although is limited to 7200rpm drives. This newer version is apparently even more quiet! I certainly hope so...

I've still not tried my Hydra ethernet interface yet, but I will soon. I've also got a couple of dual TOS EPROMs + switch for two of my STE to fit when I find some time. It's all go here with the Ataris!


NCGM