MACKIE ONYX 400F (audio interface)

[Badside]

 

Not having read 500+ messages.... (getting that out first) How are people finding mac os x working with the 400f? Both intel and ppc please - i will be switching but still on ppc for now... NO FLAMES please - mike rivers brought up a bunch of design issues and there were also other firewire issues... have these been addressed?

 

 

Apparently there was a problem when upgrading to the last version of Mac OX, but I think it's fixed. More info on the Mackie forum.

[azalaquett]

Hello Craig:

 

After reading your fantastic review I decided to buy the 400F.

I installed and updated the drivers to the latest version but I have problems running Tracktion 3. When I launch Tracktion it gives me the following message:

"One or more of the selected outputs are already in use by another application.

Audio output from this application will be muted"

 

So I'm not able to hear nothing coming from Tracktion. I've restarted the PC, restarted the device in Tracktion, re-installed the drivers and nothing.

 

PLEASE HELP!!!

[quadrant6]

Having read some of the messages in this thread but not all, I'm wondering whether it's safe to purchase an onyx 400f in conjunction with one of the new apple iMacs.

 

I contacted Mackie but have had no response. Is anyone using this combination? or at least with an intel mac of some sort? Should I expect any dropouts, glitches, bad latency or a high pitched whine?

 

(I have to order it in where I live and can't easily return if it doesn't work )

[rockappalla]

Ok, I want to buy a Onyx 400F, but I have no time to read all the thread...can someone tell me if it will work with no problems on a Mac G4 with Osx 10.3.9 panther and Logic express?

 

Thank you!

[CatchTheRhythm]

I have 2 questions:

 

-Is it free to update traktion 2 to traktion 3?

 

-Are any of you guys running the unit suing windows vista? my computer broke and im forced to get a new and it seems that every computer now comes with windows vista. Should i try and get XP better?

[Edward_Kitaju]

Hi there!

 

The Onyx 400f seems to be a cool product, but a signal-to-noise-ratio of only 87 dB doesn't look very good to me (tech specs on the product's homepage). If I remember correctly, the review said this interface was quiet ??

 

I'm planning to use the 400f with Cubase 4 on an XP-computer (Intel T2500 @ 2 GHz, 1 GB RAM) and I'd like to know the approximate total in-and-out-latency I would be able to achieve using the latest drivers (update 3.2.8) when streaming 10 channels in and 10 channels out simultaneously at 24 bit/48 kHz. Would that be doable at about 5 ms or should I rather get something like the RME Fireface 800?

 

Thank you in advance,

Edward

[sonika]

Hi Guys, firstly, just like to say great job on the review Craig, it's definitely the best format for a review that I've ever seen and your input has been fantastic, as has yours Mike and everyone else.

 

I'm pretty sure a lot of the earlier problems have been resolved with these units now, so the high pitched whining, driver issues, aren't so relevant. I'm pretty close to buying one of these, but for me, my only real concerns are the lack of gain on channels 5-8 for some of my older gear (and yes I am aware I can get another unit to plug into it to increase this) and also the lack of expansion.

 

Some of the older synths I have, might be consumer levels and not pro, so would it be correct in assuming that these would be ok with inputs 1-4? If so, I might just be able to get away with one of these, but I'd definitely want to know before I buy one.

 

As for lack of expansion, I'm pretty certain that at some stage I'm going to need at least 8 pre's to record some local bands. That said the 400F doesn't seem to have any real expansion, other that buying another one, which is still not a bad way to get around it, but I'm not sure it will be enough. 1200F added definitely would, but it's a bit pricey for the budget right at the moment.

 

The other unit that I've seen is the Focusrite SaffirePro: FW 26 In / out Interface which fits the bill to a T, but how do the Mic pre's, AD, DA and drivers, etc compare with the 400Fs? It's got 8 Mic pre's as standard and good expansion.... but if they don't sound any good it doesn't really matter how many they have

 

If anyone has used both of these, or can help with the low gain questions, it would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers and keep up the good work!!

 

Sonika

[lafeuille]

Page 18 of the user manual (400F) mentions you may have to use a 7200 RPM HDD to record 10 inputs at higher sampling rates(96kHz+).

 

Is this overkill?

 

Or has anyone experienced this kind of limitations with a 5400 RPM drive?

[lafeuille]

With 6 channels, 24 bits depth and 44.1 KHz sampling the 5400 rpm works fine recording. When playing back however, it phases out about 2 seconds out of four. I got it to play back ok by turning off other applications (wireless network and anti-virus). I would suppose a faster HDD might help... to a point. Over.

[Sam Lord]

...a signal-to-noise-ratio of only 87 dB doesn't look very good to me (tech specs on the product's homepage). If I remember correctly, the review said this interface was quiet ??... Edward

That's mic-to-line at +4dB and unity gain, not bad. If you send a hot input, which will typically be a good idea, the figure jumps above 100dB. Use the EIN spec and THD+N specs instead. They can certainly be abused to report maximum numbers, but are the best guide.

[lafeuille]

Well, got tired of waiting for a reply so I just bought 1Tb 7200 rpm seagate firewire external HDD, and hooked it to the back of the 400F.

[its5knobmike]

Hello Anderton and harmony central forums users,

 

I know I'm a little late on this but I had a question regarding the 400f and any help would be awesome.

 

Here is the deal, I am running:

 

Sonar 7.0.2 with a

Onyx 400f interface.

 

When using the external insert plugin I am encountering the following problems:

 

It will only let me select stereo ins and outs from my 400F.

If I put in on a track (a mono one) tell it to go to just the Left of "Stereo 3" as its labeled I will not be able to open up a new insert on another track and have it go to the R of "Stereo 3"

 

 

In short... How do I get the external insert plug in to let me send and return things in mono! All my options are Stereo 1 ,3 ,5 ,7!

 

I'm baffled because I feel like this should be a simple thing.

 

Well any help would be greatly appreciated as I am planning on starting to do some mixing tomorrow... and i would really like to use my LA 2A... really badly.

 

Thanks again.

[lafeuille]

Well, got tired of waiting for a reply so I just bought 1Tb 7200 rpm seagate firewire external HDD, and hooked it to the back of the 400F.

 

I found the answer in

www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov08/articles/pcnotes_1108.htm

"How green is your studio" specifically the part about config panel power options. "you need to make sure the Power Scheme is set to 'Home Office/Desk' for Windows XP".

 

Indeed, since my CPU was not very busy it was switching to a lower frequency to conserve energy which cause audio dropouts. Heeding this advice solved my problem.

 

Case closed.

[lurking spiders]

Hey, thanks to everyone for a very interesting and informative product discussion.

 

I decided to go ahead and purchase the 400f based on the positive reviews I read, coupled with the current sale that 'musician's fiend' is offering for $399 on some refurbished models.

I'm definitely not a pro, just a musician who likes to record in my home studio. My previous interface was the Behringer FCA202 which I used for about 5 years (don't make fun of me!) in conjunction with various mixers. I'm also still using an iBook G4 1.2 Ghz, and just recently upgraded to 1.25 GB of ram. So obviously, for me, this is a huge step up.

 

The refurbished 400f looked brand new and had no problems interfacing with my computer right out of the box. The first thing I noticed, was that the Onyx pre amps sounded fantastic. I was using a VLZ3 mixer, and that thing doesn't even come close. I was able to record one track at a time in Ableton Live at 96 kHz without any glitches. I listened to my old recordings using the FCA202 (which is also 96 kHz) and it was like night and day.

 

Next I opened up iTunes and tried listening to some music. There was a weird crackling sound in the right channel when I listened to some mp3 files, and also when listening to a rendered aiff file that I created using the 400f. I reset the 400f and it went away. I'm still not sure what caused this. It only happens in iTunes, and only infrequently, but it is still somewhat distressing.

 

I still have a lot more testing to do, but overall I am happy with my purchase. I'm starting to think that it was worth $399 for the Onyx pre amps alone.

 

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed to this thread and hopefully it will continue. I think that this product is still a viable option for project studios, and would love to hear some more opinions.

[futurekey]

Folks,

 

A newbie question here. I was wondering if I can use TRS patch cable to connect 400F output to its input for quick recording. For example, sending the output 1-2 back to input 7-8 for direct recording. And of course, I would have to mute input 7-8 in the output 1-2 mix. Has anybody tried this? Is it safe to do so? I just want to make sure I am not doing something stupid before I plug in the cables. I'd appreciate a lot for you guru's opinions!

 

Thanks,

Yan

[satannica]

Why would you want to do this? Only reason I can think is to render a DRM-protected file to a clean file?

[futurekey]

The reason is some times I don't have my lappy with me and had to use other people's computer. And it seems that without the softwares like tracktion, there is no way to record the performance to the computer. Is there a free software that can let me record the mix on the fly. I don't necessary need to have much control, just record the damn thing at the output. Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

 

Why would you want to do this? Only reason I can think is to render a DRM-protected file to a clean file?

 

[satannica]

So you have software x broadcasting on outputs 1-8, say, and you want to take that mix and record it to a 2-track mix?

 

I'm missing sommat I think.

[futurekey]

Yes, I just want to record the outputs, e.g. output 1-2, into a simple stereo mix. I was concerned about the potential D->A->D looping. I'd like to know if there are better ways to do it. Thanks!

 

Here's the proposed singal pathway,

 

inputs 1-6, DAW -> (optional effectors) -> outputs 1-2 --??-> inputs 7-8 -> generic free recording software(e.g. audacity)

 

 

 

So you have software x broadcasting on outputs 1-8, say, and you want to take that mix and record it to a 2-track mix? I'm missing sommat I think.

 

[I was The Funk]

Has anyone had any luck running the 400f on Vista 64bit? It seems to only want to work in 16bit, which is a problem for all of my 24 bit projects. Which is...all of them.

[bpmusic]

This review was great and immensely helpful. Thanks a lot Anderton & HC!

[satannica]

For what it's worth, just wanted to add my thought after a Mackie user for 6 months or so.

 

The good

- Preamps are brilliant! Crisp, clear and the near perfect amount of gain.

- Insert points are a brilliant addition; why don't more soundcards have these?

- Driver software is intuitive enough. Plenty enough control.

- It works in Windows 7 64 bit perfectly.

- Great control room layout; main monitor controls, two headphone controllers

 

The bad:

- The occasional crackles which seem to appear at random. Mackie still hasn't resolved this. It's annoying if you're on a big take and there's a crackle. It seems to dissappear once the unit has warmed up. I get around it by leaving the Mackie on for about 45 minutes before recording audio.

- For gamers, the bitrate selection seems to have a mind of it's own which causes instability whilst playing something. All of a sudden the audio will be mangled, speech may not be heard and it can cause the game to crash. Noticed this in a few titles (Prototype, Fear and Bionic Commando)

- Lack of MIDI I/O. I think I would have sacrificed the digital I/O for this.

 

 

 

All in all, it's a nice unit. If I was buying again though, I think I would go for a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 instead as I have recommended these to a few mates and they're cracking little units. The pres aren't as good as the Mackie preamps, but the driver software for the Focusrite and the lack of annoying crackles are a bit of a win! The Mackie is sexier on the rack though!

[Big Alsta]

got water on my macbook pro so I got another one. The 400f software now doesn't want to start from the start up cd and says it no longer run power pc files. tried downloading all the updates from the website and they don't want to work either as I haven't got anything to open them with. Doing my head in... any advice would be great. Al

[Anderton]

 

got water on my macbook pro so I got another one. The 400f software now doesn't want to start from the start up cd and says it no longer run power pc files. tried downloading all the updates from the website and they don't want to work either as I haven't got anything to open them with. Doing my head in... any advice would be great. Al

 

 

Did you see this in the support pages...

 

Important note for Mac users! Some 400Fs in the field may contain an older version of firmware labeled 1.3.1. To check if your 400F contains this version, launch the 400F console and click on the "settings" tab, then click on the "about" button at the bottom. If your 400F has version 1.04 firmware, you may safely run the 3.2.8 console with your 400F, which will automatically update your unit to the latest 3.2.8 firmware.

 

If your 400F has version 1.3.1 firmware, you must first update your unit to version 1.04 firmware, before you can then take the 2nd step of updating it to the current 3.2.8 materials.

 

To update your unit to version 1.04:

 

Download the Onyx FlashUpdate1.04: Click Here To Download

 

Double click on the zip archive to unzip the file

Make sure your 400F is connected to your computer and powered on

Launch the standalone firmware updater application and follow the onscreen instructions.

Reset power on your 400F

Launch the console and go to the about box in the settings tab to confirm your unit is now running 1.04 firmware. You may now safely use your 400F with the 3.2.8 console and firmware.

[satannica]

Also just in. The new windows 7 driver Mackie has pushed out includes a firmware update. Take it from me - and check the Mackie Onyx forum posts - the new firmware DESTROYS the 400F. The unit cannot be used for more than 20 minutes without the FireWire synchronisation missing, leading to crackles until the audiosystem is restarted (usually by changing the buffer slider).

 

You CANNOT roll back once this is done and Mackie are offering absolutely NO response to this problem! They are not even warning users about the problem. I have had a call ticket open since February and have not had anything but automated responses.

 

It's put me off Mackie for life!