Topic: Microtrack 24/96 Firmware 1.4.1b9 released

[WiFiJeff]

About the only thing I can say about that is that if it supported 4GB files, someone would still complain about it not doing seemless splits where if it did seemless splits there wouldn't be much (I think) of an outcry about it not doing 4GB files since it's wouldn't really be 'neccessary'.

J.T.

Absolutely right.  4GB works for me if I'm running 24/44.1 but if I want to go 24/96 it's only two hours, which won't work for me in a stealth situation.  I am now using a Sony D1, which does do seamless autosplits at 2GB.  The D1 has 4GB internal memory and takes memory stick pro, but will not seamlessly switch from internal to memory stick, and I am really looking forward to the 8GB memory sticks due out any time now.  So farit's the only pocketable 24/96 machine with autosplit (well, none of MY pockets will hold a 722).

The D1 does make great tapes at 24/44.1, better than the R1 I used for a year and a half. 

Jeff

[BC]

This isn't really beta 9 related but has anyone tried a PNY Optima 1GB 60x CF with the MicroTrack. A friend of mine had one and let me try it and the MT wouldn't recognize it.  It kept saying it was unformatted (even after having the MT re-format it).  My other cards work fine and the PNY seem ok under Windows. I've tried pretty much every card I've come in contact with and this is the first one I've had that did this.

J.T.

Are you running the new firmware? I had a problem with not recognizing a Kingston 4GB when running 1.2.3, then when I upgraded to 1.4.1b the card was recognized ok. If I switched back to the old firmware the MT would again not see the card correctly.


http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=65514.0;all

[jtessier]

This isn't really beta 9 related but has anyone tried a PNY Optima 1GB 60x CF with the MicroTrack. A friend of mine had one and let me try it and the MT wouldn't recognize it.  It kept saying it was unformatted (even after having the MT re-format it).  My other cards work fine and the PNY seem ok under Windows. I've tried pretty much every card I've come in contact with and this is the first one I've had that did this.

J.T.

Are you running the new firmware? I had a problem with not recognizing a Kingston 4GB when running 1.2.3, then when I upgraded to 1.4.1b the card was recognized ok. If I switched back to the old firmware the MT would again not see the card correctly.


http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=65514.0;all

Yeah I'm running the latest beta (1.4.1b9). No biggie was just testing to test. Thanks anyhow.

J.T.

[JoeKiller]

Where is the bug submission form for M-Audio?  This is actually in the 1.4.1b2 software but I bet this problem is still there.  Basically this is what happens:

If you choose the 1/8" source input and then manually set the bits to 24 and frequency to 96 khz and then switch to SPDIF the microtrack does not auto detect the SPDIF frequency.  Instead it uses what your previously selected frequency was.  I noticed this problem at All Good as all my recordings from SPDIF had a 96khz freq even though I was running 44.1.  Thus I had chipmunk syndrome.  I then noticed that when I was messing around and switched it to 44.1, I was good to go, but I forgot and ran 24/48 at 10KLF which truncated some of my stuff from 48 to 44.1.  Once I went and switched the frequency in the 1/8" mode to 48khz I was fine again. 

So another day, another bug.  At least this one has a work around. 

[jtessier]

Where is the bug submission form for M-Audio?  This is actually in the 1.4.1b2 software but I bet this problem is still there.  Basically this is what happens:

If you choose the 1/8" source input and then manually set the bits to 24 and frequency to 96 khz and then switch to SPDIF the microtrack does not auto detect the SPDIF frequency.  Instead it uses what your previously selected frequency was.  I noticed this problem at All Good as all my recordings from SPDIF had a 96khz freq even though I was running 44.1.  Thus I had chipmunk syndrome.  I then noticed that when I was messing around and switched it to 44.1, I was good to go, but I forgot and ran 24/48 at 10KLF which truncated some of my stuff from 48 to 44.1.  Once I went and switched the frequency in the 1/8" mode to 48khz I was fine again. 

So another day, another bug.  At least this one has a work around. 

Hmmm, I thought you were on to something but I just tried it out on 1.4.1b9 and I can't get it to happen.  Care to try out b9 on your setup?  The only time the chipmunks came to visit me was when I purposly connected the S/PDIF cable to the Microtrack AFTER starting the recording, I know no-no with this thing. It seems to me that the MicroTrack defualts to 96K if it doesn't have a signal at Rec time. Could be that it got fixed in b9 and they forgot to tell anyone.

J.T.

[willndmb]

Where is the bug submission form for M-Audio?  This is actually in the 1.4.1b2 software but I bet this problem is still there.  Basically this is what happens:

If you choose the 1/8" source input and then manually set the bits to 24 and frequency to 96 khz and then switch to SPDIF the microtrack does not auto detect the SPDIF frequency.  Instead it uses what your previously selected frequency was.  I noticed this problem at All Good as all my recordings from SPDIF had a 96khz freq even though I was running 44.1.  Thus I had chipmunk syndrome.  I then noticed that when I was messing around and switched it to 44.1, I was good to go, but I forgot and ran 24/48 at 10KLF which truncated some of my stuff from 48 to 44.1.  Once I went and switched the frequency in the 1/8" mode to 48khz I was fine again. 

So another day, another bug.  At least this one has a work around. 

so if i have 1.4.0 i am ok?

[JoeKiller]

Where is the bug submission form for M-Audio?  This is actually in the 1.4.1b2 software but I bet this problem is still there.  Basically this is what happens:

If you choose the 1/8" source input and then manually set the bits to 24 and frequency to 96 khz and then switch to SPDIF the microtrack does not auto detect the SPDIF frequency.  Instead it uses what your previously selected frequency was.  I noticed this problem at All Good as all my recordings from SPDIF had a 96khz freq even though I was running 44.1.  Thus I had chipmunk syndrome.  I then noticed that when I was messing around and switched it to 44.1, I was good to go, but I forgot and ran 24/48 at 10KLF which truncated some of my stuff from 48 to 44.1.  Once I went and switched the frequency in the 1/8" mode to 48khz I was fine again. 

So another day, another bug.  At least this one has a work around. 

Hmmm, I thought you were on to something but I just tried it out on 1.4.1b9 and I can't get it to happen.  Care to try out b9 on your setup?  The only time the chipmunks came to visit me was when I purposly connected the S/PDIF cable to the Microtrack AFTER starting the recording, I know no-no with this thing. It seems to me that the MicroTrack defualts to 96K if it doesn't have a signal at Rec time. Could be that it got fixed in b9 and they forgot to tell anyone.

J.T.

I'll test it out tonight.

[FireWorks]

FAT32 has a 4 GiB file size limit (2^32 = 4GB).  Whatever they do, M-Audio would have to a have a pretty large buffer (let's say 24 bits x 96 ksps x 5 seconds to save/restart recording = 1440000 bytes = 1.37 MiB) to ever seamlessly exceed 4 GiB.  I suspect that the buffer is already pretty large, and that a good portion of the "Writing file" save time is actually just flushing that buffer. Probably just not large enough for seamless splits. Or their programmers are lazy.

A workaround for FAT32 limitations would be to use a different filesystem, but a) they're probably using a 3rd party chip/driver to handle the flash card, so it'd take a lot of hackery to do that, and b) that would force us to use M-Audio's proprietary software to read the data on the flash card, which I think everyone would loathe.

The 2 GiB limit, if they really have decided not to fix in this hardware, is, if it's at all related to hardware, more likely a limitation of whatever chip they're using to interface with the flash card. Maybe it steals that last bit as a control or parity bit. Maybe some lazy engineer couldn't find the space for the last address line. Who knows. We're probably stuck with it.  I record my stuff as MP3 anyway because my equipment/the recording environment is never going to be good enough for me to notice the difference between 24bit/96kHz and 320kbps/48kHz, so my biggest limitation is always that stupid permanent internal battery.  And the flakey dollar store batteries I've been using to externally power the deal.