Arch Linux

garybryan

Member

Registered: 2010-04-09

Posts: 6

Echo AudioFire 4

Hey people,

I just got an Echo AudioFire 4 Firewire audio interface. I made a great effort to pick an interface that would be Linux compatible, and the FFADO project claims that this interface has "Full Support":
http://www.ffado.org/?q=devicesupport/list

I've installed ffado (from the archaudio repo), but I can't get Jack to start up. I get a list of warnings, starting with:

02110786783: Warning (ieee1394service.cpp)[ 328] initialize: Could not set SPLIT_TIMEOUT to min requested (1000000)
02110786868: Warning (ieee1394service.cpp)[ 332] initialize: Set SPLIT_TIMEOUT to min requested (1000000) did not succeed

Then I found this page in the FFADO FAQ: My AudioFire is not recognised, which suggests that the firmware may need to be updated:
http://subversion.ffado.org/wiki/FireworksFirmwareTool

I tried using the Fireworks firmware tool to query the device:

[root@rowley:~]# ffado-fireworks-downloader -m 0x001807198000LL list                          
-----------------------------------------------
ECHO FireWorks platform firmware downloader
Part of the FFADO project -- www.ffado.org
Version: 2.0.0
(C) 2008, Pieter Palmers
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
-----------------------------------------------

YOU HAVE SPECIFIED THE CORRECT MAGIC NUMBER.
HENCE YOU ACCEPT THE RISKS INVOLVED.
Node id        GUID                  Vendor - Model
0              0x0900000000000000    'Echo Digital Audio' - 'AudioFire4'
1              0x00d0035600b23fdc    'Linux Firewire' - ''
no message buffer overruns

[root@rowley:~]# ffado-fireworks-downloader -m 0x001807198000LL -g 0x0900000000000000 display 
-----------------------------------------------
ECHO FireWorks platform firmware downloader
Part of the FFADO project -- www.ffado.org
Version: 2.0.0
(C) 2008, Pieter Palmers
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
-----------------------------------------------

YOU HAVE SPECIFIED THE CORRECT MAGIC NUMBER.
HENCE YOU ACCEPT THE RISKS INVOLVED.
02110786783: Warning (ieee1394service.cpp)[ 328] initialize: Could not set SPLIT_TIMEOUT to min requested (1000000)
02110786868: Warning (ieee1394service.cpp)[ 332] initialize: Set SPLIT_TIMEOUT to min requested (1000000) did not succeed
Device with node id 0 is not an ECHO FireWorks device.
no message buffer overruns

Same "not an ECHO FireWorks device" if I try to update the firmware. So it can see the interface and it can tell that it's an ECHO AudioFire 4, but it won't let me see any info or upload the firmware.

Anyone got any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
Gary

garybryan

Member

Registered: 2010-04-09

Posts: 6

Re: Echo AudioFire 4

Right, I've made some progress with this. FFADO doesn't yet fully support the Linux kernel's new FireWire implementation properly (the info on their website regarding this is rather ambiguous but the short answer is that it just doesn't work) so I built a custom kernel with the old FireWire implementation. Ah, Linux and its simplicity. After this I was able to successfully upgrade the unit's firmware and get FFADO to talk to it, and I've even coaxed Jack into starting up correctly.

Next problem: Jack presents six inputs and six outputs for the card, as it should. They're named dev0_Unknown, dev0_Unknown1, ..., dev0_Unknown4; the inputs and outputs have the same names, as opposed to the out1, out2, in1, in2 that you get with USB and PCI devices. The inputs work perfectly fine: I can record sound in Ardour with them. However the outputs just won't work. Ardour gives the following errors when trying to connect the master, click, etc. track outputs to the system outputs:

[ERROR]: cannot setup master outputs
[ERROR]: AudioEngine: cannot connect ardour:auditioner/out 1 (ardour:auditioner/out 1) to system:dev0_Unknown (system:dev0_Unknown)
[ERROR]: AudioEngine: cannot connect ardour:auditioner/out 2 (ardour:auditioner/out 2) to system:dev0_Unknown0 (system:dev0_Unknown0)

(and similar for the click and master outputs). And Jack reports the following:

Destination port in attempted (dis)connection of ardour:auditioner/out 1 and system:dev0_Unknown is not an input port
Destination port in attempted (dis)connection of ardour:auditioner/out 2 and system:dev0_Unknown0 is not an input port

No more detail than that I'm afraid.

I'm guessing there aren't many pro-audio types about on this forum so I'll try asking around in a few other places like UbuntuStudio since this seems to be a FFADO/Jack issue as opposed to an Arch issue.

Last edited by garybryan (2010-04-19 17:45:47)

goldtop

Member

Registered: 2010-05-10

Posts: 1

Re: Echo AudioFire 4

gary
Thanks for the info. I've just started with Ubuntu and would like to get my af4 working so I can switch my daw over completly.

Still a noob when it comes to configuring the system and kernal, have not done anything with Linux since I tried the Red Hat 2 distro briefly (I think sound was the main issue then also).

Please keep updating the thread!