MACKIE ONYX 400F (audio interface)

[Anderton]

>

FYI I didn't take this at all as criticism. We've never met but you obviously have an inquisitive and astute head on your shoulders, and I agree that this thread does have unusual staying power.

I've also noticed that the Sonar 5 thread pops up regularly, and the Variax Workbench from time to time, but not Ableton Live. Go figure.

[Music Calgary]

It's this simple -> I bought a 400F, searched about it on Google, found this thread, and here I am 15 posts later. If you wish to read "into" that, be my guest. But there's nothing to read into.

As for the 400F, it's decent sounding but not "great". None of the studios here own any, so I'm not sure where you are getting your data from. Again, they sound very good. Fine even. But not "great". You get what you pay for, and this is a very decent working unit for day to day use, but definitely not elite sounding.

Is it good enough to track an album or voiceover with professional sounding results? Definitely... Would any experienced engineer ever use a 400F to track the lead vocals for a major album production if they had a choice of gear? Of course not...

[Brittanylips]

Originally posted by MikeRivers Probably because there are a lot of people who would love to have this interface, but are still waiting to hear about successes working out some of the kinks. You're good at stats. Have most of the recent wave of posts been from people who don't own one (you can count me in that group)? Have any of the recent posts been from Mac users running the Beta software that Mackie offered at the beginning of April? There are probably some curious people out there and that's what's keeping the thread alive.

 

I bet that analyzing the responses in this thread, new vs. regular participants, potential buyers vs. here for the convo, experts vs. newbies, positive vs. negative feedback, etc. could turn up some interesting insights. But actually doing that seems too much like work, so I'll leave that for the next guy or gal!

 

-peace love and britlips

[Brittanylips]

Originally posted by Anderton So why this one?>> I've wondered that myself. My theory is that this thread touched on a LOT of subjects that are important, but not necessarily 400F specific -- the perils of digital conversion, the mysterious whine (which affects products other than the 400F), the participation from Mackie that really added something to the thread, and the fact that people are still picking up the unit, hit google, and here we are!

 

I agree with all your points. The Google thing is also an interesting part of it – this thread attracts people from outside of the forum who are searching for additional information following its release (and, symbiotically, harvests additional participants).

 

About a year ago, on an esoteric bulletin board dealing with technical minutiae of interest to almost no one, one of the participants started a thread “I am lonely.” For some reason, Google rated it highly, and whenever anyone in the world googled that phrase, they were pointed to that thread. Suddenly, a board with few participants was receiving thousands of hits. Lonely people all over the world were adding their angst to that thread. Threads on the board typically contained a handful of posts. That one grew to thousands.

 

Originally posted by Anderton > FYI I didn't take this at all as criticism. We've never met but you obviously have an inquisitive and astute head on your shoulders, and I agree that this thread does have unusual staying power. I've also noticed that the Sonar 5 thread pops up regularly, and the Variax Workbench from time to time, but not Ableton Live. Go figure.

 

Maybe because like the Personus, Live is so universally loved, there’s just very little controversy. But yeah, go figure!

 

And thanks for the compliment! In an attempt to live up to it – did you mean to type ADL 600 rather than 400F in your second paragraph, 4 posts above?

 

-plb

[Anderton]

Yes, thanks -- I corrected it.

[garry]

I just bought a 400F based on earlier reading of this thread and the $100 rebate offer. Damn thing won't work with SONAR 5.2 using ANY driver. I'm really tired, grumpy and annoyed. Don't people test this stuff? Research on the Mackie and Cakewalk forums found a couple people with the same problem but no solution.

So what majik did you SONAR 5.x users have to do to get SONAR to playback anything through the 400F? When I press the spacebar, all I get is a message telling me the playback device is in use and to go pack sand. I spent way too many hours already trying to get the 400F installed and working last night after a session.

I installed the 1.5 drivers.
I'm using ASIO in SONAR.
"Share Drivers" is checked
The Onyx clock setting matches my projects (44.1K)

ACK!

I got the same result attempting to use WDM drivers. Note that SONAR 5.2 did appear to profile the Onyx correctly.

The Onyx Console doesn't seem to save settings and there is no indication of what sample rate is actually active (on the hardware) if you have the console closed. Could the console be conflicting with SONAR? I have no other sound devices on the system. My old Creamware Pulsar card was uninstalled and removed. My on-board audio was diasabled in the BIOS.

Note that I can play MP3 or WAV files in Media Player and WaveLab 3.x

I'm SO frustrated right now. I've got a session tomorrow night and need to get this thing working or send it back for a refund. I have no patience for stuff that isn't rock solid reliable in my studio. Paying customers deserve as much.

I'm suspecting some kind of turf war between the various drivers over the 400F. Mackie Tech Support is supposedly looking into it too.

[Anderton]

Why do you have "share drivers" checked? Can't you just dedicate the drivers to Sonar? I would recommend unchecking this if at all possible.

Also, if you have multiprocessing checked, try unchecking it. MBox 2 does the same thing you describe when multiprocessing is checked, yet works perfectly when it's unchecked. The hyperthreading thing is the source of lots of problems with computer setups.

Note that if you do have a dual processing system and multiprocessing is unchecked, Sonar still does make use of the two processors to some extent so you still get some benefits from having two processors.

Let me know if this works for you.

[garry]

Originally posted by Anderton Why do you have "share drivers" checked? Can't you just dedicate the drivers to Sonar? I would recommend unchecking this if at all possible.

 

 

I'll try again, but I believe it was unchecked to begin with and didn't work, so I tried selecting it since the error message is implying there is some sort of contention for the device.

[Music Calgary]

There are definitely a few ASIO driver anomalies for the 400F. Hopefully we're just a software update away from less anomalies.

[garry]

SOLUTION: It turns out that Windows monopolizes the Onyx if the Onyx is the default audio device in the Sounds and Audio Devices control panel applet. So I enabled the onboard AC97 sound on my mobo, loaded the latest drivers for it, and told Windows to use that instead. Now SONAR 5.2 plays fine with the ASIO drivers. And WaveLab 3.x works fine once I selected the Onyx as the audio device. I have yet to really experiment with ASIO vs WDM and latency settings, but at least it appears to work. I have a session tonight and we'll see how the input side of things works. I have yet to try MIDI or soft synths or any of the multitude of other stuff in SONAR, but at least playback works.

One last minor issue: Windows Media Player now wants to use the onboard mobo audio which isn't connected to anything. It doesn't appear that I can tell Media Player which device to use. It's easy enough to switch audio devices in Control Panel, but that's a PITA. I might just burn a couple line inputs on the 400F and feed the line output from my onboard/mobo audio into them.

[Badside]

I bought a 400F yesterday, mostly because of this thread. It is sad that the mail-in rebate isn't offered in Canada but what ya gonna do?

Anyway, installation went smoothly and I got it working in Sonar 4 with no problem. Used ASIO as per Craig's recommendation, they only problem I had was that my projects are all in 44.1 but the default clock setting is 48 (I'm not used to having to change the clock setting myself, it was automatic on my Delta44), so Sonar would say that the audio device didn't support the audio format. After a quick adjustement everything was working.

I can't really comment on the preamp quality yet, I'm mostly happy to now have a good DI to record bass tracks without additionnal gear.

I toyed around with various little projects and noticed how stable it was. WIth the Delta, I was getting clicks and pops as soon as the track count was getting high or plugins were used (had to mixdown everything to a stereo track when tracking something new) and that was with the buffer size set high. With the 400F, I opened up a fully mixed project with tons of plugins running (the CPU meter was at 30%) and re-tracked the bass with no problem. I could even get the latency down enough to monitor my bass through the DAW with compression and digital-tube saturation plugins.

DIing my Strat was quite revealing too, I now understand what Craig meant. I might do this for clean parts instead of going through my PodXT.

As for the preamps, the real test will be at the next tracking session. They do pick a lot of details through my only condenser mic... I thought my computer was practically silent, now I hear just that. I even tracked a little song with my singing while playing the guitar (recorded in stereo through the PodXT), and the "pick strumming" sound is picked up so clearly by the mic that the take is basically unusable.

Anyway, thank for this great thread.

[Anderton]

It's the "Thread that Refuses to Die." But I think there have indeed been some really valuable insights in here.

[Anderton]

By the way, also check out this thread:

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1216099&referrerid=37224

Dan Steinberg, the 400F project manager, sets a few things straight.

[Badside]

BTW, some people have inquired about the Tracktion2 software that came with it.

I installed it on my computer yesterday to try it out, and I must say I'll probably be sticking with Sonar!

Maybe it's just because the interface is so much different, but I was getting frustrated navigating through this Flash-looking software (it really does look like a Flash application). I noticed however that the claims of low CPU overhead seemed true (especially since I installed it on my "normal" OS drive, the one connected to internet via WI-FI, with useless iTunes services in the background...).

I was hoping to like it cause there are some advantage to Sonar: the click track is much easier to use (it blows the Sonar away by a large margin), it has native VST support and allows sidechaining and softsynths with multiple output (with Sonar, I have to manually render a track for each drum sound so I can process them individually, it's a PITA).

Actually I was starting to like it until I tried programming a MIDI drum track... I've been using piano roll grids since DOS-based Voyetra back on my 286, and I've never had so much trouble putting down a simple drum beat (something that is so easy in Sonar).

I also miss the intuitive virtual mixing board (the thing I loved the most when Cakewalk became Sonar). Perhaps for people who've never worked with a real board, this doesn't matter, but for me, it's still the best way to work when mixing (instead of using pan/volume filters on each track).

However, these are really my only two major quirks. I guess I could easily get used to the cartoon-looking interface (ok I'm exagerating a bit) and some people might actually prefer that. I do appreciate that they took a fresh approach.

I might actually use it when I buy a laptop for mobile recording (since Sonar is already installed on my "real" DAW). The part I hate the most is MIDI programming, but for an audio only project, I could live with it, it seems stable enough.

Bottom line is, it is much better than the price would lead you to believe (considering the 400F itself is already a pretty good deal, IMHO the software is pretty much a freebie). But I still prefer my good ol' Sonar

[Music Calgary]

I respectfully disagree on that one point. Tracktion is superb. Just takes a minute to get used to. Here's a backing track I did with Tracktion/400F last night, sounds fine to me and it was quick and easy to put together...

http://ia301137.us.archive.org/0/items/Music_Calgary_PD_1/The.good.the.bad.and.the.ashy.mp3

Another HUGE problem is of course that because the 400F hijacks the drivers, you can't say have Powertab open on one screen and an active Audition session going on the other. All sorts of glitches. That's the thing about product reviews, they rarely take into account for the sort of tasks which drive real life production scenarios.

To be clear, even the cheapest soundcards on the market do not hijack your drivers like the 400F does. So even though it's decent hardware, it's not particularly helpful as a production tool until Mackie finally addresses these issues.

I've been telling all my friends who ask about my 400F that it's time to wait basically. Mackie will get this right but the current generation is not a good solution for one-computer studios. It hasn't learned to play well with others yet.

[MikeRivers]

Originally posted by Music Calgary Another HUGE problem is of course that because the 400F hijacks the drivers, you can't say have Powertab open on one screen and an active Audition session going on the other. All sorts of glitches. That's the thing about product reviews, they rarely take into account for the sort of tasks which drive real life production scenarios. To be clear, even the cheapest soundcards on the market do not hijack your drivers like the 400F does.

I understand what you're trying to do (seems reasonable to me and definitely worth checking in a review) but I don't understand what you mean by "hijack your drivers." What other drivers? I guess you're suggesting that the drivers can talk to only one program at a time?

 

Is this a Mackie problem? My sense is that this is one of the quirks with Windows and ASIO drivers, and the cheapest of sound cards don't usually use ASIO drivers. Did you try the WDM drivers?

 

Of couse using a different driver type could still be a major pain in the patootie if you have to share a driver among programs and one of those programs insists on talking ASIO.

 

What were you using before the 400F?

[Music Calgary]

I was using an Emu 1212m, but I've used many others also, Lynx, etc... I've had maybe 6-8 different audio cards in my day and this is the first I've seen which does this. It also does some random sample rate skips which result in chipmunked audio, I've not seen that before either.

Here's an example of what I meant by hijacked. With any other soundcard on the market that I've seen you can be playing an MP3 in your MP3 player at the same time as you open an audio app, no problem. With the 400F you can't. So it makes it's impractical for use in a real world production scenario since most producers tend to multitask.

Another example of how the drivers don't work right. You can't record audio in Techsmith Camtasia with the 400F but you can with any other soundcard I know of.

The hardware seems fine. I've got no problem with the unit itself. The bugs are in the control panel software (not retaining settings) and in the drivers as far as I can see. Seems like all fixable stuff though, so that's the good news.

[Music Calgary]

OK an update to that too, there's also a bug which cause the drivers to initialize whenever a new window gets focus. So if I'm sitting here with no sound at all going through the system, and I open a folder from my desktop, I hear "click click" as the driver does something with the sample rate it seems. That would explain the chipmunking.

Anyhow this is one I've never seen or heard of from any audio interface before. I think this is the root of the main problem.

[rickenbacker198]

Originally posted by Music Calgary Anyhow this is one I've never seen or heard of from any audio interface before. I think this is the root of the main problem.

 

 

I love the sound of the 400f... excellent quality,,, but

I am having the same "hijack" problems,

 

especially when switching from a wdm device (media player) to an asio device (Cubase Sx3).

 

I usually have to shut down both apps to get the asio app to load the drivers. and sometimes it requires a computer restart as well.. very annoying!!!

I have it set to release asio driver in background like I have with any other card.

My delta44 never had a problem switching drivers!

 

Mackie are you aware of this issue and working on a solution??

Thanks

[MikeRivers]

Originally posted by Music Calgary: Here's an example of what I meant by hijacked. With any other soundcard on the market that I've seen you can be playing an MP3 in your MP3 player at the same time as you open an audio app, no problem. With the 400F you can't. So it makes it's impractical for use in a real world production scenario since most producers tend to multitask.

They do? In that way? That doesn't sound very "professional" to me, but if you want to distract yourself from whatever serious production you're doing with your 400F (and presumably more sophisticated software than an MP3 player) that's your choice. Perhaps you should choose other hardware.

Another example of how the drivers don't work right. You can't record audio in Techsmith Camtasia with the 400F but you can with any other soundcard I know of.

Well, not every program works the same. Is recording in Techsmith Camtasia really important to you? As important as doing what the 400F does best and probably the reason why you bought it? I've never heard of the program. Maybe it's the next ProTools.

The hardware seems fine. I've got no problem with the unit itself. The bugs are in the control panel software (not retaining settings) and in the drivers as far as I can see. Seems like all fixable stuff though, so that's the good news.

If only the manufacturer thinks it's important enough to fix. You haven't convinced me. I don't play around with my audio computer and I don't waste "professional" grade hardware on my "play" computers.

I don't mean to lecture about how you should live your life, but understand that professional equipment (and I'm sure Mackie would like to think that the 400F deserves to be in this category) is designed to work in a professional environment. That may exclude some consumer appllications so that the pro applications work better. Now, given the number of people who have had problems with the 400F and programs like Sonar, this isn't a very strong argument in practice as of now, but that's the concept.

So what are you going to do? Play your MP3 files on another computer and use the 400F for serious work (assuming you have applications that work well with it), or are you going to off it and get "any other sound card?" Not a challange, just looking for how important this is to you and how adaptable you are. We all have to live with a hole in the head some time.

[Anderton]

>

I'm a huge Techsmith Camtasia fan (it's a video "screen grabber," great for training and capturing what's happening on screen) but haven't had any luck, capturing audio from pro sound cards (e.g., ASIO). You can use MME drivers and it will work but that's no fun At least that's my experience.

[d. gauss]

ok folks, after returning my first, humming, whining unit, a week or so ago, i bought a new 400f today (and a 1620). all from a different store. haven't fired it up yet, but if this one has issues, i hope dan s. from mackie makes good on his public we'll send a "working replacement" vow asap...

fingers crossed.

[Badside]

Originally posted by d. gauss ok folks, after returning my first, humming, whining unit, a week or so ago, i bought a new 400f today (and a 1620). all from a different store. haven't fired it up yet, but if this one has issues, i hope dan s. from mackie makes good on his public we'll send a "working replacement" vow asap... fingers crossed.

 

 

Keep us informed. I returned mine for the same reason as you (squealing when phantom power engaged, most evident on channel 4) and after reading and reading about all my other options, I just wish I could find a 400F without this issue...

[Anderton]

>

A cliffhanger!! Stay tuned...

[Brittanylips]

OK. My latest theory.

The 400f is the audio equivalent of "Lost."

(A TV show about a paradisiacal island that meets the needs of everyone on it, but with pitfalls lurking at every turn generating endless adventure.)

-peace, love, and brittanylips