Falcon + CUBASE AUDIO + SCSI - Experiences?

[JezC]

Does anyone else have a DFB1/X and Cubase to see if anyone else can replicate the same issues?

Yes, though I've never had the time to try Cubase Audio beyond starting it up to check the dongle worked (a few years ago).

I also have a spinning rust 1Gb SCSI drive that I've used with the Falcon in the past (90s & later) as well as the BlueSCSI but as per my other post, I've not yet had time to try the BlueSCSI with anything.

Time is going to be my big problem for the next 6 weeks (then I finish my current job of over 21 years) and so might actually get a bit of retro time...but most likely @exxos will have the Falcon & other bits after CL4.

Frustrating to me that I'm not able to help you more at the moment...

[whomper]

I wonder if you could benchmark your SCSI drive with and without DFB1X..

In both cases I get 1770 kb/sec

[Badwolf]

I tried Ace Tracker and without DFB1X is loads and works as should however with it I can not get the UI to load as it gets stuck mid load with the green DSP led stuck on always on. Is that what the other person who discussed his Ace Tracker issues experience as well?

I've had all sorts of problems with AceTracker ranging from the screen not even displaying to it crashing on load, the screen displaying at first then not displaying after loading the module, the module starting to play then locking up all sorts.

I spent a week trying to get to the bottom of it as I consider it a bit of a showcase program and really wanted it to work with DFB1 if it were feasible, but I couldn't work out what was wrong.

My current solution for a closed box Falcon is to have a rocker switch that disables DFB1X whenever I work with Cubase Audio, and Enabled for any other use. I wish I could have solved the Cubase Audio thing with DFB1X as the computer runs so much faster....

We could possible add a reset-switch toggle to enable/disable DFB1X if that helps?

Eg. it always powers on in the state of the jumper but if you hold RESET for (say) 3 to 6 seconds it toggles the enabled state?

That way, long reset to switch into "Cubase mode" (DFB1 disabled), long reset when done to get back. What do you think, @exxos? Want me to have a go with the firmware?

BW

[Badwolf]

I wonder if you could benchmark your SCSI drive with and without DFB1X..

In both cases I get 1770 kb/sec

My guess is it's not the speed of the transfer that's the problem, but the time between the transfers being outside whatever expectations Cubase has.

With direct-to-disc (or direct-from-disc) audio on the SCSI bus the CPU is basically only controlling DMA channels. Telling one to read and one to write. This is why I'd expect the red (first) LED to dim quite a lot. But I wouldn't expect it to basically be out!

Perhaps it's something like issue a DMA read, count some cycles, issue a DMA write, count some cycles... and in accelerated mode there are more cycles than expected between commands and in 16MHz mode there are fewer available than needed (bus arb takes longer)? No idea, really.

Either way, I don't think it's related to clock patches. The crackle problem maybe is, but not the audio crashing.

BW

[exxos]

I just got home, so I will download Cubase and see if I can get it running. Things will be a lot easier if I can replicate the problem here.

I never had any problems with ACETRACKER. My Falcon never seems to care what clock patch is installed either.

If Cubase is "cycle counting" then it may be a problem which is not fixable. But I would have thought problems with CT60 as well if that was the case (which I don't know if CT60 works fine or not anyway)

[exxos]

@whomper Can you send me a audio file to try

I get this so far.. Assume I really need high res.. I have it on IDE, but will copy it to my SCSI drive next.

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[exxos]

I'm gonna party like it's 1999 !!

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EDIT:

Damn this booted up way faster than IDE stuff does !

[exxos]

So copied to SCSI.. Won't even boot up, it did from IDE.. But not sure if something else has loaded which may be a factor yet..

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I then disabled DFB1X.. no change..

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[whomper]

I think you need a cubase clock device to get to 44.1Khz

[exxos]

So I am not sure my SCSI is working well. I copied HD12 from IDE to SCSI. The driver loaded fine, but the util comes up 4 bombs

HD8 already on the drive loads fine. I copied HD8 to another partition.. loads fine also.

But I think I had issues using 2 drives before. So I will copy HD12 to floppy, then from floppy to SCSI to see if that works..

EDIT:

Yep, copying from floppy is fine. So I will have to copy cubase over a few files at a time via floppy to my SCSI drive now