Presonus Firestudio Project Vista headaches!

[murryc]

Hey there peeps,

I am in desparate need of some advice in correctly installing my Firestudio Project. As I am located in the UK, I do not know of any technical support telephone service available.

The main issue is that I am unable to sync the FSP properly with my laptop PC. Every now and then it will connect and then drop out after a few minutes.

My laptop specs are as follows:
HP DV9702ea
AMD Turion 2 GHz
nVidia GeForce 7050 and NVIDIA nForce 630M chipset
2GB memory
120GB serial ATA (5400rpm) notebook hard drive
Windows Vista

As my laptops firewire card is a RICOH chipset, I have purchased a Firewire express card with Texas Instruments chipset (TI XIO2200).

How can I connect the hardware device so that it is stable with my laptop?

The other issue that I have experienced whilst being connected is with the ASIO drivers. I have installed the updated FSP drivers v.3.0.108 and still was unable to get this up and running with Cubase LE4. I constantly received pop-ups telling me that the FSP drivers could not be found.

After reading countless forums, I downloaded the ASIO4ALL drivers (version 2.8) but was unable to locate the VST inputs for ASIO4ALL from the FSP!

I desparately need some solution to my problems. I fear I may be forced to return the FSP and go for another audio interface which would be a frustrating shame.

Please help!
m.

[Electriclight]

Personally I've given up on Vista but here's the best tweak guide for audio that I've found:

SweetCare Service & Support | Sweetwater.com

The dropouts sound like a power saving issue. Be sure to disable any power saving schemes in Vista. The 5400 RPM hard drive is slow for audio recording and may give you some problems. Also some devices need to be enabled in Vista:
Microsoft Windows Vista FAQ

If possible, get the FSP drivers to work. ASIO4ALL is not true ASIO but really a work around.

Good Luck -Dave

[murryc]

hey Dave, thanks for your help. Gonna give it a shot and hopefully numb some issues. Also looking into upgrading the hard-drives rpm - if i'm only going to be recording 8 tracks max at once, should i still opt for the upgrade??
thanks again.
m.

[Electriclight]

Originally Posted by murryc

- if i'm only going to be recording 8 tracks max at once, should i still opt for the upgrade??

Only! Yeah, I think 8 tracks rates an upgrade. Perhaps an external drive would be the way to go.

[murryc]

lol, okay okay, one more thing..
just been browsing around for quotes to replace my 120GB 5400 rpm hard drive to 7200rpm - is what you're saying is that i should keep my existing hard drive and get an external 120GB @ 7200 rpm hard drive?

if that's the better option then i may just keep the hard drive i have and buy an external one? might be cheaper that way..

[Electriclight]

The typical setup is to use one hard drive for your software and the other, (presumably the faster of the two) for audio data. Please don't take just my word on this... but IMHO using two drives would be better than just replacing your existing hard drive.

[brandondrury]

I HIGHLY recommend keeping your operating system running on one hard drive and storing your audio files on an external drive.

As for the Firestudio Project, this SCREAMS chipset issues. Can you confirm that the Firestudio Project is not working with either Firewire card? If you haven't already done so, you will want to locate the specific page at Presonus that lists all chipset issues.

While I hear about once or twice each month about Vista success stories, the overwhelming consensus stills says that Vista sucks. If it were me, my time is worth too much to deal with such an inadequate product and I'll go back to XP in a second with maybe a dual boot system of some kind.

In regard to the driver, my Presonus Firestudio (not the project) had specific instructions about the sequence in which you installed the drivers and then plugged the unit in. It's possible that you may be required to do the same.

Brandon

[murryc]

OMG it's working! Those tweaks from Sweetwater PC Optimization Guide seemed to have really cleaned up my laptops audio recording performance!
SweetCare Service & Support | Sweetwater.com

Thanks Electriclight, what a find!

I also figured that to get the FSP synced every time, I have to plug the FSP into the FW express card (already plugged into the laptop) first with the FSP turned on, BEFORE I turn the laptop on.

Worked a dream so far - did a test record with 2 mics with no ASIO troubles & no pops or clicks

Will see how recording 8 tracks at once will pan out..

Still looking into getting an external hard drive anyway - was wondering, USB2 or Firewire? I'm leaning towards USB2 as I don't wanna jeopardise my current settings with 2 Firewire's being used at once...
What do you think?

[Electriclight]

I'm glad to hear you're up and running. I don't know much about Firewire but your reasoning may be right on about possible conflicts. I know I have fought alot with USB conflicts. So USB2 may be the way to go for you unless you have other USB stuff running.

[brandondrury]

I'd stay off the Firewire bus with the hard drive. I vote for USB 2.0.

Brandon