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PLEASE! Update Mac FW-1884 drivers to 64 bit

L

lyford

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Gear owned
FW-1884 Porta One DA-30
I know I am not alone on this but with the recent upgrade to Logic requiring 64 bit Mountain Lion, my Tascam gear is either holding back my ability to stay current or else will be left behind. My MOTU interfaces don't have this problem!

I hate the fact that great hardware is doomed because of software incompatibility... :x :x :x :x I realize that developing drivers costs money, so I would be willing to pay a reasonable fee for this upgrade!

Lyford

PS - I notice the Apple Logic page still lists the FW-1884 as supported so maybe they know something that we don't? I am not ready to risk upgrading until I know more....

http://www.apple.com/logic-pro/specs/
 
I agree with you, it is very sad when a new application is supported by the device, and operation system only which is not. really hope for a speedy update, and is willing to pay a reasonable money.
Sorry for my bad english
 
Like others I have recently upgraded to Mountain Lion and bitterly disappointed that my FW-1884 has been reduced to a oversized paperweight. I understand that this model has been discontinued however, It's one of the only pieces of gear I own that I can say works as well as it did when I bought it.

Surely there is some way Tascam can write a driver to fix this issue. Like others I'd gladly pay a reasonable upgrade fee to have the unit compatible and woking again.

If the problem is not resolved soon, and I'm forced to purchase a new console, I can't say I'd consider another Tascam if we're now saying that the lifespan of gear is determined by the compatibility of a driver.

Kind Regards

StevenG
 
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I have a PC. When we needed a SONAR driver for Windows 7 64-bit, it took almost a year of respectful user lobbying before Tascam relented and supplied one. However, Tascam then stated they would do no more. Very shortly after, the Tascam website showed the FW-1884 was no longer supported.

What we learned in that process was two important things: 1) Frontier Design, not Tascam, wrote the driver and 2) it had been available all along; Tascam simply would not release it. When they revisited the subject after nearly a year of our lobbying, they admitted they didn't know why it had been lost in the system. Fairly soon after, a beta version was made available, followed by the announcement of no more support as I mentioned above.

So, bottom line, if you want satisfaction for a Mac OS and are willing to pay, perhaps it is Frontier Design you should approach, not Tascam.

Good luck. The FW-1884 is an outstanding unit that should be nowhere near obsolete just for lack of a driver, which may even already exist.
.
 
I was about to buy one. So glad that when i worte "tascam fw-1884" on google, the first suggestion i got was "mountain lion". And that lead me here.
On the other side, so sorry that I won't be able to use such a great peace of hardware because the only 64bit drivers available are for Windows.
 
There are many of these available at attractive prices, and people buy them without understanding the lack of support. This is unfortunate.

Tascam has already sold the unit, so apparently it does not matter to them any longer. However, many of us have stated we are willing to pay for continued support, as the hardware is still excellent and should not have to be obsolete.
 
On the MOTUNation forum, there were several users of Frontier Design remote controls going throguh the same thing. Through Frontier, they found the writer of the original drivers, and with Frontier's blessing he wrote 64-bit Mac drivers a and made them available for purchase at his own website.

In that case, the forum demonstrated that there was sufficient demand to make the work worth his time when sold at 50 dollar a copy, so he did it. Now they're happily using their Faderports and Tranzports.

Maybe you guys could do the same thing.
 
Please Update Mac FW-1884 drivers to 64 bit so I can get on with my life and keep recording using the 1884 ! It's a great unit just update the drivers so it will work with apple os x 10.9 ! Please, Please, Please :)
 
Ditto. It's been long enough. Please get us updated for 64 bit Mavericks CoreAudio drivers.
 
Again, I say, you can moan at Tascam forever and they're probably not going to make new drivers... Those drivers were likely written by Frontier.

Last group of people on the MOTUNation forum got together, contacted the guy who wrote the drivers for another Frontier legacy unit (who they found by contacting Frontier), and showed him that there were enough users who would pay 50 bucks each that it would be worth his time to write updated drivers. He did, they bought it, everybody happy.

Or you can just keep banging your head against this here wall.
 
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So here is my question than.. How can we get in contact with whoever wrote or developed the drivers for the fw1884?.. Is it that easy to call frontier and tell them we will pay 100s of dollars for an update, just please tell us who developed your tascam drivers??... I never thought of this angle but I'd be willing to take a shot if I knew it was possible!... Any ideas?... Shoot I'd be willing to call myself if someone possibly coached me what to ask
 
That's what they did at the MOTUNation forum to get 64-bit drivers written for their Frontier control surfaces.
 
But how did "They" do it?... Is there a department within Frontier that handles these types of requests. Since you are referencing this MOTUnation forum, is there a link you can provide to this exact forum? Maybe I can ask these guys what did they do that brought them success. Honestly, this idea seems very probable to succeed. If there are enough people willing to pay a small fee for the upgrade I'm sure Frontier should give the same blessing to provide us with the updates?!
 
Yes, it would be Frontier to approach, as explained above. In the case of the Windows 7 64-bit driver, we had an advantage that a Tascam employee was an occasional forum participant, and he got things rolling with Tascam, who contacted Frontier. So I have no tip on how to contact Frontier this time. Why not call Frontier and just ask? Offer to collect names of those here who would pay to have updated drivers for Mac.

ps Please include Windows 8 in the question, too. We know the FW-1884 can be made to work in Windows 8, but apparently it is hardly seamless to do so and it should be. I have Windows 8.1 on a laptop, and the only thing holding me back from upgrading my desktop to 8 from 7 is the FW-1884.
 
@Gravity Jim do you have a link to that discussion at MOTUnation by any chance? That could at least give @songryder25 some direction as to who to contact over there.
 
OMG!!! now I know why my cherished FW 1884 doesn't work anymore...

-=cries=-

i guess i have to rollback OSX to um... what is the newest version that works?

i am running OSX Lion 10.7.5 which is as new as my old mac pro will allow itself to be upgraded...

i looked in the About system profiler thingy and it says it is not using 64 bit kernel which is strange...

why is my firewire light lighting up for a second and then dimming out and the device isn't working?

for the brief moment the firewire light is on i get audio...

is this the old capacitor thing that i'm having a problem with or 64bit OSX?

thanks!
 
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i can't tell you guys how much I loved my FW-1884 and how heartbroken I am that it has become a giant paperweight now...

is this really the end of it?

is there anything as cool and reasonably priced you guys can recommend as a replacement?

argh....
 
The solution may not be so complicated. I've researched this and contacted a couple of programmers. Basically you need the raw driver code to be recompiled into a 64bit driver. This in "theory" is not very difficult. There should be no hardware limitations... I think Tascam has decided to push their DM series as a hybrid mixer/DAW controller with the "optional" card that is required.

This leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I have been a long time Tascam buyer, in fact my first mixer and recorder were Tascam... and I still have them. They work fine. So why shouldn't the FW-1884. I contacted Tascam 3 times to obtain the code and permission to write a new driver, to no avail... they have not responded.

In my opinion, a discontinued piece of hardware with a driver that is not supported is abondonware. I would wonder if an existing driver could be reversed engineered to determine the code and then recompile it into a 64 bit driver. As far as I can use an analogy... if you bought a mixer or a recorder and the company discontinued, and a part broke, could you legally build a new part as a replacement? I believe that answer is YES. That's how it is in other industry, such as car manufacturers.

At issue is a whole lot of users that want to use the product they bought and which they did not know would not have further support. The company chose to phase out the product with no further support or explanation as to why it would not support it. They wrote a 64 bit driver for PC but refused to do same for MAC. That tells me that the hardware CAN function in 64 bit and that all that is needed is someone to write the 64 bit driver. If a knob broke on that mixer you should be able to replace it. So why can we not get a new driver?
 
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