Multimix 16 firewire driver mac

There's little unusual in the master section except that the familiar RCA phono two-track inputs and outputs work in tandem with the stereo Firewire input in such a way that the analogue tape return and stereo DAW mix are summed for monitoring purposes. I can't immediately see why you might want to hear both at once, but doing it this way saves the cost of a switch. Other than the two-track RCA phonos, all the audio inputs and outputs in the master section are on quarter-inch jacks. Only one of the two Firewire ports on the rear panel of the Multimix Firewire 16 is required for connection to your computer.

However, a second is provided to allow you to connect to other computer peripherals as required. Mike Cameron At the top of the master section is the effects processor control panel, where a two-digit LED display shows the effects numbers from zero to A 'turn and press' knob selects the effects, which have their categories and numerical ranges printed just above the display. There are 40 reverb presets and, in most cases, these will be the most commonly used effects. The second aux send feeds the effects normally, but if the send is being used for an external effect, then the second set of Aux Return inputs take the place of the internal effects.

Separate level controls are provided for adjusting how much of each of the two Aux Returns is fed into the main stereo mix, and a monitor control knob adjusts both the monitor output level and the headphones level. All this adds up to a simple mixer that can also double as an audio interface, providing up to 18 simultaneous computer audio feeds. Given the low cost, this is remarkable in itself.

If the mic preamps are competent and the mixer circuitry reasonably quiet, then I don't see how it can fail to be a winner, especially if you need to record several musicians at once. So let's see how it works out in the studio!

Alesis Multimix 16 Firewire can actually work in Mac OS X !

Checked as an analogue mixer, the Multimix Firewire 16 turned in the kind of performance I'd expect from a well-designed entry-level mixer, insomuch as it was free from hum and hiss, other than when using the mic preamps at high gain settings. It isn't esoteric, but it's not in any way bad either.

My feeling is that the mic preamps are a touch noisier than those you'd expect on a premium mixer, but not unacceptably so. The EQ sounds fine, as long as you don't use the mid-band for boosting unless you really want a harsh, invasive sound — better to use it to cut such sounds. There's a good choice of effects, even though some of these sound to my ears a little less sophisticated than I'd expect from an entry-level Alesis hardware reverb such as the Picoverb.

The inability to make any effect adjustment specifically delay time was also frustrating on the delay presets, though there was enough reverb variety to fit most applications. If you have a good software reverb which probably costs more than this mixer! My initial experiences running the Firewire side of the mixer under Mac OS v After evicting the old one and installing the new one, everything worked happily.

After restarting the computer, I could get down to buffer sizes of or even 64 samples without any sign of glitching. Problem solved! Given its low UK price, the Multimix Firewire 16 offers extraordinary value for money, and is ideally suited to the musician on a budget who wants to record an entire band at once, while keeping all the tracks separate for later mixing. Thanks a million times, this worked a treat How does this make you feel?

Barty Wincanton March 16, Now works a treat. Stephen Clarke March 29, Just in case you all find it interesting, I have followed the SIP-disabling process described in this thread, to get my io26 working on El Capitan again. While I am no expert on the inner workings of OS X, It strikes me that El Capitan simply freezes the kernel information at the point that SIP is enabled, so that no further changes can be made. It might work for you too? Can anyone else verify. Bishop September 09, Hi Guys, so is this hack working on El Capitan? Joshua Gunty September 09, To do that you have to boot and hold R button to enter Recovery Mode.

If it asks your for password, give system password. If it says you don't have permission, try typing "sudo csrutil disable" then entering your system password. Once you successfully execute that disable command, type "reboot" then enter to reboot your system. Sp4zc0r3 November 19, I downgraded back to Yosemite just so I could keep using it, but I'm needing to update to Sierra David Youngs December 05, Would be great to know before shelling out for a firewire convertor cable: Joshua Gunty December 05, Sp4zc0r3 December 05, I have a way to try it out before upgrading, I'll let you guys know within a couple weeks finals and all Also, I use a Firewire to thunderbolt adapter right now, works just fine.

Also, I use a Firewire to thunderbolt adapter right now, works just fine How does this make you feel?

I appreciate the info! Cheers D. Cheers D How does this make you feel? David Youngs January 14, I'm pleased to return to this forum after a month or so away.. A massive, massive thank you to Joshua and co for your help here - I really appreciate it. If it helps - I followed the following processes in this order: This didnt work and spat out an error- but a bit of googling around for that error made me realise that I had to be in Recovery Mode to run that command and also not use "" quotes!! I used this link to help me: My spec: Macbook Pro Early Proc 2. Havent load tested it yet but I have both Cubase 7.

Cubase Device Setup reports a latency using Alesis Control Panel 'normal' setting of around 8mS which is sensationally low. I hope this is a useful addition to the thread for Sierra users - it would appear to work just fine, and I'm looking forward to making music again instead of nerding on a Saturday evening. Skeme February 01, Just wanted to thank you so much! I'm running a 15" MacBook Pro on Sierra This process worked for me. Took a while to figure it out, but it does work. My Alesis Firewire Multimix 12 recognized and is working.

David Youngs February 02, Sp4zc0r3 February 03, Thanks man, I'm going to try it out for my MultiMix 8 Firewire. I bought a USB version and was not happy with the enlarged size or unnecessary extra features The extra mid control on two channels looked neat, but I really don't need it. I'll try to reproduce your steps, but it's a little hard for me to get my head around it at the moment. Worst case scenario, I use the new USB one and whine a lot when carrying it around: David Youngs February 04, No worries - hope you can get it working OK.

As you say, shame to not be able to use a desk that you know and like due to lack of drivers The posts I found most useful when I went through this were Joshua Gunty's and Sacha Dobschal's in the excellent thread above. All I really wanted to do was try and list in a step-by-step manner the procedure I went through to save hopping up and down the thread, off to other links etc.

So I hope it proves successful for you too.. Sp4zc0r3 March 19, Hey man, looks like everything works just fine!

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I really appreciate your post. Now running Sierra William Clawson June 09, Still no dice. Neither the control panel nor system config shows my MultiMix 12 FW at all. Sp4zc0r3 June 09, Does your multimix have the most recent firmware? I had to update mine, but when I looked for the firmware update again, I couldn't find it. David Youngs June 09, Also - waiting a good 30 sec for the device to be recognised is seemingly necessary, the device doesnt appear instantly. I'm sorry I've nothing more concrete to offer, it sounds like you've done everything OK.

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Maybe driver as per Sp4zc0r3's post above? Best David. David How does this make you feel? Hi, may s. David Youngs February 10, Mikel Harkins Try this https: This is my kext file from my Mac running same Sierra I just wanted to put this out there in case anyone struggled with the instructions like I did. I went the barely-safer route than completely disabling SIP and only disabled it for Kernel Extensions.

I am providing this set of steps for any incoming MultiMix8 Firewire users trying to upgrade their system to Sierra. Preparation steps: Close all programs, especially cloud services, and prevent automatic updates. Download Sierra update. In case everything explodes 4. Eject all backup disks 5. David Youngs and Joshua Gunty, you guys are awesome 1. Download latest Alesis Firewire driver and install it on a compatible system Yosemite worked fine.

Verify the Alesis MultiMix8 Firewire has the most recent firmware. On the target Mac, download and run the Kext Utility app, wait for it to complete its initial task. Drag "AlesisFirewire. Launch the Terminal from the utility menu and deactivate the System Integrity Protection SIP only for Kext Kernel Extensions by entering the following command line hit enter after each full line: David Youngs March 20, Sweet - glad it worked for you Rejoice indeed! Matt Koglin April 17, Thanks for the help!

Also, it bewilders me that Alesis won't release a proper driver for us. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only reason you have to go through all of this is because they won't certify the driver with Apple? So when I installed Multimix it came up in asio automatically and works fine in that setting. I haven't tried the Multimix in WDM yet.

I haven't tweaked buffers or anything either, and the minimum latency sonar allows is 5. It may be able to go lower with adjustments in the buffer size but I haven't explored that yet. Have you tried running both at the same time? I understand that most audio applications can only talk to one ASIO driver at a time, so you can't run use multiple audio interfaces simultaneously unless you use the WDM drivers.

Apparently quite a lot of people are successfully running multiple audio interfaces in this way, but it can be a little hit-or-miss. It simply doesn't work for everybody. The reason I ask is that I have a MOTU mk2, but I'd really like to expand my number of inputs without having to ditch my existing audio interface or fork out for another Without any facts to base this on, I don't have much confidence that you could get away with combining these. By the way, last night again Sonar lost communication with the Multimix.

This always during a pause in the recording thankfully, Sonar would no longer recognize that there was the multimix present. This happened 2 or 3 times during a 3 hour session. It turns out that a reboot of the laptop wasn't necessary. My solution was to shut down the Mixer, shut down Sonar. Turned the mixer back on, and open Sonar again and once again the connection would be good.

So now I have less confidence in this system than before, but I haven't had time to look for hidden causes so I can't fault Alesis yet. MOTU was in fact more stable. Still, the multimix recordings are fine and it works pretty well. Any chance of getting samples posted that you recorded with the Multimix? My band is on the verge of purchasing one of these, and we're just looking for a nicely mixed sample to push us over the edge.

If not, that's fine: We'll probably wind up buying it anyway. Hi dfin13 - The band isn't ready to post it for the world yet, but I'd be happy to email you a 2 megabyte mp3 snippet of a short improv. Email me if you still want it - you can see my email address in my user name.

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By the way, Last rehersal I couldn't connect to the multimix until the 4 th try! However, after that, it worked flawlessly for hours. I don't understand the tempermentalness of my setup, yet it is. Still, I'm happy about the unit despite this flaw that would be very troubling to some. I worry mostly about live shows which I would like to record where I won't be able to fuss with rebooting the mulitmix 3 or 4 times. Other negatives: The computer records the signals after the EQ section and after the fader.

I wish I could record before the EQ and fader. For example, I may want to turn down the treble on the vocal to avoid feedback, but it would be great to have a flat EQ on the recording. I may also want to mix just a little guitar and bass into the headphone mix see below particularly using closed headphones, but I can't.

MultiMix 16 FireWire

The multimix records a muted track just fine, but if you turn down the fader, you get a turned down recording. Other tricks of the trade: The cheap mics I'm using don't do justice to the low frequency stuff, and of course since everyone is in the same little room each mic picks up a lot of all the other instruments. The direct out gives isolation between channels. In the end it sounded better than the mic on the amp. Headphones for all and no PA. Vocals only go into the headphones so far. This way, you can record the song, remove and redo the vocals later if needed which is impossible with a PA since other mics pic up amplified vocals and then you can't get the vocals out of the other tracks , and even if you want to keep the original vocal track, you have no feedback problems, and no sound of the PA bouncing off the walls.

However - closed headphones really reduce the overall volume of the room. Which may be a good thing, but it also takes something away from the experience of playing. I plan to try the open type of headphone next to maintain the room sound as well. There is a lot of bleed through between tracks. Still, it's way better than trying to record the room. Now for an acoustic group this may not be necessary, but for a loud band playing in a situation where the vocals get drowned out by loud instruments, this method can help get a decent mix recorded.

If by chance I'm mistaken about any of the above, please chime in. Hey thanks for the experience report, very useful. Just picked up a Multimix firewire and so far it doesn't work. Has anyone had trouble uploading the new firmware using a Mac? My computer sees the multimix when it is plugged in but when I try to upload to it I get an error message saying "my device has a problem with uploading" I've contacted tech support and they told me to try a different cable and firewire port which I did. I can't seem to get past square one here I tried the Alesis MultiMix firewire on two different occasions and couldn't get the drivers to work either time.

Was told by their tech support, after hours or bad elevator music, that it was a Windows XP SP2 problem. Wanted the Alesis because I've used one of their "Studio24" analog boards for several years hooked up to an old Fostex D and it's always been a good product with no problems. Have just ordered an upgade to Sonar Studio 5 this morning, so I'm hoping all will be well and I'll be back up to date software wise for awhile again. I know The Phonic board is not top of the line as far as mixers.

You've got 16 outs with 2 returns for stereo from the board to the computer that are only affected by the channel gains on each channel. The firewire signals are pre-everything else on the board.