M-Audio Profire 2626 vs Yamaha RX-V2500 SPDIF and M-Audio Pulsar II microphones

I recently had several bad experiences trying to update my home recording studio, first with a MOTU 828mk3 interface, then with a Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 interface . Not deterred by the previous incompatibilities I encountered, I decided to try another model.

On monday may 13, I picked up a used M-Audio Profire 2626 interface . It was in like-new condition, still in box, with some cables still unopened.

After I hooked it up, I immediately noticed that there was no sound playing through the SPDIF digital output of the M-Audio through my Yamaha RX-V2500 receiver .This was the exact same incompatibility I had encountered with the MOTU 828mk3 . I did some google searches and found that I was not alone with this problem. Other M-Audio customers had already reported the problem as early as 2008 . There was a suspicion that this was related to the SPDIF copy protection flag, but a separate unit would be required to strip this flag. The issue was never resolved by M-Audio.
I contacted M-Audio support about the issue on may 14 and may 15 and was told to expect a callback within a week about a possible fix.

One of the nice features of the 2626 is that it can operate in standalone mode, without being hooked up to a computer at all. I figured I could use it as an 8-channel analog preamp, in combination with another interface, as I needed more channels than the 2626 could provide on its own at 24 bits / 96 kHz.

I tested all the microphone inputs on my 2626 unit to make sure they worked. And I also tested all my microphones with them. Much to my surprise, I got a very a nasty high-pitched hiss in my recordings when I used a pair of M-Audio Pulsar II microphones in combination with the 2626 . None of my 7 other microphones had any hiss issue with the 2626 and sounded clean.

I double-checked the Pulsar II microphones by recording them using the preamps in my old Roland VS-2400 CD all-in-one digital audio workstation, and my ART DPS II digital preamp . They sounded clean with either one. So, the microphones were not at fault.

After I posted about the issue on gearslutz, a kind forum member pointed to me that I was not alone with this hiss problem either . Others had seen the same problem using some MXL 990 and 991 microphones on the M-Audio 2626 .The M-audio forum members suspected that it had to do with phantom power on the M-audio 2626. But one of them said their other phantom-powered mikes, AKG C3000B, did not show the hiss. I own these mikes as well, and they did not show the hiss on my 2626 either. My conclusion was that this is an issue with the preamps built-in to the 2626 that only shows with certain microphones, for some reason. This is an issue that many others have seen with multiple microphones, but not at all. It is once again, an issue for which M-Audio does not have a fix. What makes it really unforgivable is the fact this this issue exists between M-Audio's own Pulsar II microphones and Profire 2626 preamp . I contacted M-Audio support about this second issue on May 16. I asked them to test their microphones with their interface. They told me that both their interface and microphones were discontinued, and they did not have them in house to test with since the recent acquisition of M-Audio. Basically, I was shit out of luck on this one.

This second issue made the 2626 unsuitable for me even as a standalone preamp.

I contacted the craigslist seller who very kindly took the Profire 2626 back today, on friday may 17. He was actually glad to have it back, as he had just upgraded his new Apollo unit's firmware which caused some trouble for him. He was lucky enough not to run into either of the incompatibilities I found with the 2626.

Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 vs ART DPS II SPDIF digital preamp

After my recent bad experience with a MOTU 828mk3 interface, I bought a Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 interface .

The first thing I tested when I got it was its SPDIF digital output against my Yamaha RX-V2500 receiver's digital input . Fortunately, that worked just fine, all the way to 192 kHz using an optical cable.

I then hooked up my ART DPS II digital preamp to the Saffire's digital input via SPDIF .
Everything worked beautifully at 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz . But when I tried at 88.2 and 96 kHz, the audio transferred from the ART to the Focusrite was garbage. I tried both optical and coax SPDIF cables. I tried different clocking configurations - making either the Focusrite a clock slave to the ART via SPDIF, or making the ART a clock slave to the Focusrite via a BNC word clock cable. Neither helped with the transfer of audio at 96 kHz.

I knew the ART unit was not at fault, because I can transfer data from it to my Roland VS-2400CD DAW over SPDIF at 96 kHz just fine.

I contacted Focusrite about this issue. They got back to me promptly, but were not an aware of existing problem. They suggested I exchange my Saffire 56 unit for another one to rule out a defective one. I did not get a chance to do that as my local Guitar Center did not have another one in stock for me to try.

Because of this issue, I ended up returning my Focusrite Saffire Liquid 56 to Guitar Center for a refund.

Even after this return, I have remained in touch with Focusrite . Their UK team said they are in the process of obtaining an ART unit to reproduce the problem. If they are able to do so and fix it, I will purchase it again, provided I haven't found something else that works in the meantime.

Somehow, everything else I have tried has had problems so far, unfortunately.

MOTU 828mk3 hybrid audio interface SPDIF vs Yamaha RX-V2500 receiver and Roland VS-2400CD DAW

Last friday, I purchased a new MOTU 828mk3 hybrid interface at Guitar center. The intent was to move from my venerable self-contained Roland VS-2400CD recorder to a computer-based setup.

Unfortunately, I ran into a very strange problem : the digital output of the 828mk3 did not work at all with my Yamaha RX-V2500 receiver. There was no sound whatsoever !

I confirmed in the MOTU audio console software that the interface was sending data. MOTU tech support had me hookup its own digital output to the digital input, and I could see a waveform.

The problem happened with the receiver regardless of the sampling rate.

I also tried hooking up the digital output of the 828mk3 to the VS-2400CD digital input. I had a little more luck this way. The Roland was able to lock in to the signal when the interface was at 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz. But no such luck at 96 kHz. The Roland can do this successfully against my ART DPS II digital preamp at all sampling rates including 96 kHz..

I contacted MOTU support. They said they had were not aware of this or any other current issue with the 828mk3. They suggested I swap my unit for a different one to rule out a manufacturing defect. My local Guitar Center did not have another one in stock, however.

While I really liked the MOTU 828mk3, I could not get past the incompatibility of its digital output with the rest of my equipment. I ended up returning it to the store for another interface, a Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56, which does not have this problem. More on this.

Goldberg Variation N°18

I just re-recorded this piece on my K280.

Invention N°1 in C major by J.S. Bach

I just re-recorded this piece again on my new piano. Hopefully the interpretation is better than my previous recording also.

Goldberg Variation N°9 recording

Here is a clip of Goldberg Variation N°9 by J.S. Bach , which I just played and recorded today, on my Schimmel K280 .

Prelude in C major recording

Here is a recording of the Prelude #1 in C major, BWV 846 from Well Tempered Clavier, book 1. Recorded on February 13, 2013 on my new concert grand.

The stupefying stupidity and incompetence of Comcast business class Teleworker Internet service - fixed at 4.5 days

This is the sad continuation of my failed attempts to get my Comcast service restored.
You can read the first part here .


I am only able to update this blog through my T-mobile cell phone Internet connection.
It is 9pm . The brand new cable modem that Comcast installed only 3 hours earlier justlost service.

I went outside the house to call Comcast from my cell phone. Miraculously, it worked unlike on sunday.

I was asked for my Comcast account number again. I still don't have it. Comcast representatives have refused to give it to me. They claim it's a 16-digit account number in the upper right of my Comcast statement. But on my statement, the account number is a 9-digit number, in the upper left corner, in a box that is labeled "Account Number", under the Comcast logo. I don't mind publishing it here since all those numbers are apparently completely useless to Comcast.

Apparently, the only other way that Comcast has to look up customer information is by phone number. Somehow, the phone information on my account was wrong. Maybe the tech who originally installed the service mistyped it. I got it corrected in Comcast's records yesterday.

When I called tonight, the representative for Comcast business asked me if I had power cycled the modem. I responded that I had not. He asked me to do it. I explained that I was sitting outside my house, and if I went inside the house, the call on my cell phone would drop, and thus I was not able to do that. The rep requested that I leave my cell phone outside and go inside to power cycle the modem. I responded that I was unwilling to leave it unattended.

The rep told me that the first appointment for a tech to come back was the morning of thursday, July 26. I explained that I had already been out of service for a very long time. By the time of that next appointment, it would be 6 days since the problem had first started, and 4 full days without any service, less a few hours today. Surely, this downtime was not worthy of a business class service.

The representative also asked me for a phone number where I could be reached in order to get a callback for an earlier appointment. I explained that there was none. My cell phone reception is very spotty inside the house and generally either drops calls, or they go straight to voice mail. I explained that I was sitting outside the house in order to be able to talk to him, but I could not stay outside all night to wait for the callback. I asked for my cell phone number to be deleted from my Comcast account profile. I was told that this could not be done. I asked what would happen if I didn't even own a cell phone, as I'm indeed considering dropping T-Mobile due to the poor voice call cell phone signal. I told the representative that I would be home until noon on wednesday the 25th, and if  Comcast dispatched a technician and rang the doorbell before that time, I would answer it. That was a generous 15 hour time window on top of the 4 days of down service. The representative told me this could not be done and they had to call me first. The rep offered to give me a 9 digit case number, but as I was sitting outside the house with nothing to write, I could not save it. I asked if it could be texted to my cellphone  - as I do still get texts reliably since they are not real-time like voice calls. This could not be done either.

After I ended the call, I went back inside the home. I power cycled the modem. It still did not sync back to Comcast. The Internet light is still blinking, and blinking, and blinking. My confidence in Comcast in fixing this problem is not high, at this point.

The primary alternative to Comcast would be AT&T dry loop DSL . Due to the fact that I live on the hill and the distance to the AT&T central office, the maximum DSL speed that can be offered is 3 Mbps down and 512 kbps up. This speed would not be sufficient to work from home. Neither is the T-Mobile cell phone 4G Internet connection.. So, I'm pretty much stuck with Comcast, unless I want to go off grid altogether

To be continued.

Edit : 7/25 11am . Miracle ! Dan from Comcast showed up and replaced my modem again.
He said the signal from the street was too high, which caused the modems to work too hard and die. According to him, some other customer on the hill with a lot of TVs probably called about weak signal, and Comcast likely boosted the signal downstream. He said he lowered the signal at the utility pole in the street. I hope the modem doesn't die again and the service stays up this time.

The stupefying incompetence of Comcast - 4 days to fix down Internet service 4 days and still down.

About two years ago, when I moved to my new home in San Jose, I had Comcast internet service installed in September of 2010. The service is not consumer-service but rather business-class, also known as Comcast teleworker. I ordered this service for several reasons.

The first reason is that it does not require me to pay for any cable TV package, as I prefer to use satellite for my TV instead.


The second reason was that I was getting a corporate discount for Comcast Teleworker through my employer at the time, Cisco Systems


To Comcast's credit, the service worked very well since the day it was installed. I had never needed to call them since.


Unfortunately, that streak stopped on friday evening of July, 20, 2012 . The service was very slow since that evening. It was up and down on saturday the 21st. On sunday the 22nd, it was completely down, with the cable modem not syncing at all.


My home phone connection normally runs over the Internet, but of course that was down so I couldn't use it to call Comcast. I had to use my cell phone. However, I live on a hill with very spotty reception from all cell phone carriers. My own cell phone, a T-Mobile G2, hangs up in the middle of every call if I hand-hold it inside the house, usually within minutes, it not seconds. It usually works OK outside the house, just not inside. Sadly, Sunday the 22nd was one of those days when calls from my cell phone dropped even outside the house, and I was not able to successfully call Comcast from it.

Fortunately, I had friends over at my home, one of whom had a phone that worked more reliably than mine. It was a Samsung Galaxy G2, also with service from T-Mobile. Somehow, it was able to complete a call inside my house without dropping the connection.

Using my friend's cell phone, I dialed 1-800-Comcast , and after navigating the phone tree to get to the Internet department for business connections, and a 10 minute hold, finally got to a live human being.

The representative looked me up by my name, address, and phone number, and could not find any records that I had Comcast teleworker service.

I then asked to be transferred to a supervisor. She also insisted that I give her a Comcast account number.

Luckily - or so I thought - I am fanatical with my record keeping, and had a scanned PDF of the installation notice from the day it was installed in 2010, complete with the Comcast account number handwritten by the installer. Unfortunately, that was not good enough for Comcast, as I was told that was not a valid Comcast account number.

I was told that I needed the account number, which would be on my monthly bill. Of course, I receive my monthly bill electronically. You can guess where this is going. Because my Comcast service was down, I was unable to access my bill on my desktop computer which is normally hooked up to the Internet via ethernet using Comcast service.

I was not going to let this little detail stop me, however. I had the account username and password stored on my desktop computer. I then used my cell phone's internet connection to login to the Comcast payment center, and access my last Comcast monthly statement. Despite the very weak signal on the hill, my cell phone can still access the Internet just fine - it just can't make voice calls reliably without cutting off.

I could taste victory. For sure, Comcast would soon be able to check my modem remotely, verify that there was an issue with the connection, and promptly dispatch a technician to my home to remedy the problem.

I read the account number off my billing statement. As well as every other number on the page. But to no avail. The Comcast supervisor said that none were in the correct format !  She then advised me to contact my supervisor to get the Comcast account number. I didn't understand what she meant at first. Then I remembered that I had gotten the service with a corporate discount while working at Cisco. I had not worked there for a year. Even while I did, I was paying my cable Internet bill on my own credit card, not Cisco. Even if I had still worked at Cisco, the request to contact my supervisor on a sunday afternoon in order to get my Comcast account number was ridiculous. Only the employee benefit department might know anything about it, and they certainly don't work on sunday afternoons. Again, this was a dead end.

I would not be denied. I checked my email using my phone, and searched for the last Comcast billing email. There was a reference number for the last payment. I asked the Comcast supervisor to lookup the account number from that reference. Surely, since Comcast is charging me, they could tell me what they are charging me for. But again, no such luck. This number was of no use to Comcast.

After 53 minutes, I had to give up trying to convince Comcast that I had Internet service. I admitted defeat, and put down my friend's cell phone.


It is now early morning on July 23, about 2am. The sync light on the cable is still blinking. The only way I am able to post this blog post is by tethering my cell phone and using it as a mobile hotspot. My office laptop is able to connect to it through wifi. My main home computer, which is my desktop, still cannot connect to the Internet, since it doesn't have a wifi interface. I just logged in to my bank, and it shows that Comcast charged my credit card today. Apparently, Comcast is charging me without providing any service at all. I think this is fraud. I am not sure if should write to the FCC, FTC, or both.

I still have no idea how, when or even if Comcast is going to be able to fix it, since they seem to have no record of my existence.

Update 1 - 7/24 3pm:

I got a call from Sandy in the "Executive Office" on monday, July 23. She was able to schedule an technician to come to my home for July 24 between noon and 2pm. There were express instructions not to call before the appointment, since I don't have working phone service at home.

On the 24th, the technician didn't show up. After I left my house, my cell phone showed it had received 2 voice mails on my cell phone from an automated Comcast dialer. The message required me to press a key to confirm that I was home. Of course, I was not able to do that due to spotty cell phone service at my home. This caused the appointment to be automatically cancelled by Comcast.

Now that I am at work and have cell phone signal, I tried calling Comcast again, but I cannot get through to Sandy. It has now been almost 4 days since problems with my Comcast service started., and 2 full days since the last time the cable modem sync'ed. I am still no closer to getting the service back up.

Update 2 : 7/24 6pm

 A Comcast tech called me around 4pm. He said that contrary to the information I got when I called Comcast after the missed appointment, the appointment had not been cancelled. The tech was just late, and showed at my house at 2:41pm. But I was already back at the office then. They offered to come back the same day. I drove back home. The tech arrived around 5:30pm.
He tested the line and replaced my cable modem with a new RCA model. The new one synced just fine. A speed test showed 30 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps upstream.

Update 3 : 7/24 9pm

The new modem lost sync, and hasn't synced back.
This is deserving of a brand new blog post. Read all about it here.

My new Schimmel K280T full size concert grand piano

I just bought a new full concert-size grand piano. It is a Schimmel K280T. This is the first recording I made with it, on the first day of getting the piano. Not my best performance, but not the worst either, and I was happy to get the piano.

Test recording

A recording I made about 6 weeks ago. Mainly intended as a test for my Canon T3i video DSLR.

Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UDH3 built-in ATI HD4290 video vs Asus nVidia GTX 560 Ti

About a year ago, I acquired a Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H motherboard. It has a built-in video card with one DVI-D digital port, and one VGA analog port. I never used the video card and always had it disabled. I was using a separate discrete video card from nVidia, previously a 9800 GT, and now an nVidia GTX 60 Ti from Asus .

I am now running a triple-monitor setup, with a pair of HP LP3065 30" 2560x1600, and a Gateway FHD2401 24" 1920x1200, fitted with a custom mount to run in pivot (vertical) mode. Since the GTX 560 only has 2 DVI-D ports, I decided to enable the internal ATI motherboard video card to get a 3rd port. Unfortunately, I ran into several issues.

1. I connected both the large HP LP3065 monitors to the much faster nVidia GTX 560 Ti video card. These monitors are setup horizontally on my left. I wanted the boot display to be the leftmost HP monitor. In the Gigabyte BIOS, under "Advanced BIOS features" / "Init display first", I selected "PEG" in order to select the nVidia card as my boot video card. It booted fine to the correct display, but unfortunately, when the OS loaded, it turned out that the internal ATI video card had been disabled !
   
   This happened despite the fact that I had "Advanced BIOS features"/ "IGX Configuration" / "Internal Graphics Mode" set to "UMA" . I tried the other values, "SidePort" and "UMA + SidePort". No go. The only way to have the internal video card enabled was to select that card as the boot display. This didn't sit well with me, since I had a pivot monitor attached to it, and thus all the BIOS bootup messages would appear vertically ! This is clearly a Gigabyte BIOS bug. The only way I was able to solve it was to physically switch the monitor connections between the two video cards. I connected the leftmost HP LP3065 to the internal ATI card on the motherboard, and then the second HP LP3065 and Gateway FHD2401 to the nVidia GTX 560 . Then I was able to have the boot display on the leftmost HP LP3065, and run all 3 monitors with both GPUs.
   
2. After solving the first problem, when Windows 7 loaded, it recognized both GPUs and 3 monitors perfectly. But I started getting strange messages that "Windows has detected your computer's performance is slow". This was not actually the case. But the messages were incessant, every 30 seconds or so. Windows was inviting me to disable Aero and switch to Basic. Even when I switched the Windows setting to "optimize for quality", the messages continued. I did about an hour's worth of google searches, and nothing I found helped. I concluded that this was a software conflict between Windows 7 x64, the nVidia 296.10 drivers, and the ATI Catalyst 12.3 drivers.
   
   The only way I was able to solve this was to disable the motherboard's ATI GPU. I had an old 8600GT video card lying around, and put in the second PCI-E x16 slot . I used it only to drive the smaller Gateway FHD2401 display. Now that both video cards are nVidia, everything works fine, without any pesky bogus performance messages.

USB composite device vs Gigabyte motherboards keyboard power-up

The two desktop in my home office feature recent Gigabyte motherboards, specifically models GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.1 and GA-890GPA-UD3H rev 2.1 .


One notable "feature" of these boards is that they only have a single PS/2 port for keyboard or mouse, but not both. This is a stupid design. If you use PS/2, you normally want to use it for both keyboard and mouse.

The omission of the second PS/2 port has forced me to purchase adapters to convert the PS/2 mouse signal to USB, more specifically the PS/2 mouse signal from my Iogear GCS84B KVM switch.

Simple passive adapters did not work. There was no mouse signal on the computer. I had to purchase smart active adapters. I literally tried 10 different models at Fry's Electronics and Micro Center before I found that was compatible with the mouse signal from the KVM switch, a noname one when I got the GA-890GPA-UD3H motherboard a year ago, and a Belkin model when I got the GA-990FXA-UD3 motherboard more recently.

These smart adapters actually take a pair of PS/2 signals for both keyboard and mouse, and turn it into a single USB signal. The computer sees it as a USB composite device.

I figured I would try to use it as designed, and connect both the keyboard and mouse to the adapter.

I immediately noticed a problem : I could no longer power the machine through the keyboard.

The BIOS on the motherboard normally allows you to power the system through the keyboard or mouse. You can select any key, or a password, or mouse motion or click. I choose a simple 1-character password option.

The feature just does not work when using the PS/2 to USB adapter . I tried all the possible options with mouse and keyboard. I set all the wake-up options to "Enabled" in the power management menu. But nothing worked, except pressing the power button on the front. This is OK for one of my systems that is close to my chair, but not OK for the other one.

This is a bit puzzling, because the BIOS otherwise supports the keyboard on this adapter just fine for purposes of entering into the BIOS setup menu.

I switched the keyboard connections back to the PS/2 port on both motherboards, leaving only the PS/2 mouse on the adapter, and powering up the machine through the keyboard worked fine again.

The lesson here is that 15-year old USB technology still has not caught up to good old PS/2. It could be argued that this is a problem with the motherboard implementation of USB power-on. But there are likely many other motherboards with the same problem.

Yamaha KX61 MIDI keyboard vs Windows 7 sleep mode

The Yamaha KX61 is a very nice USB-powered MIDI controller. I have owned a pair of them for about 3 years.

While trying to reorganize the dozens of USB cables in my home office, I found out the following problem : if the KX61 is hooked up directly to my PC's GA-990FXA-UD3 motherboard via USB, the PC is unable to stay asleep. More precisely, the PC will go to sleep, then wake right back up 2 seconds later. I found out that the KX61 was the problem through trial and errors by unplugging USB cables one at a time.

The Windows powercfg -lastwake did not show any reason for waking up.

The fix was to connect KX61 through a USB hub instead of directly to the motherboard. In this case, the computer was able to remain asleep. I'm not sure if this is a software or hardware problem. Probably a combination of both.

Roland VS-2400CD vs Lantronix Spider Duo IP KVM

The Roland VS-2400CD has been in this blog a lot.

While it is an excellent digital audio recorder, its keyboard, mouse and video interfaces are only PS/2 and VGA . Those interfaces are now considered "legacy". Most current computers use USB interfaces for keyboard and mouse, and some sort of digital interface for video, either DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort. This makes it a lot harder for the VS-2400CD to coexist with other equipment, especially on a KVM switch, if one wants to share the keyboard, mouse and monitor.

For many years, I have been using the following combination of devices to solve this problem :

1. To switch the keyboard and mouse between my various computers and the VS-2400CD, I use an Iogear GCS84B KVM switch. This is a PS/2 and VGA KVM switch. I don't use the VGA connection on the switch. I change device through hotkeys or the pushbuttons.
2. To convert the VGA video output from the VS-2400CD to DVI, a  video signal converter
3. To switch the video between my various computers and the VS-2400CD, a Gefen EXT-DVI-441N DVI switch

There are several problems with the above solution :

1. It requires two different operations to switch the keyboard/mouse and the display. One hotkey on the keyboard, plus one press on the DVI switch. The ergonomics are lacking. A proper KVM switch should switch them all at the same time.
2. The 3 computers I connected to the Iogear KVM switch no longer feature dual PS/2 connectors for mouse and keyboard. 2 of them only have one PS/2 connector. The third is a laptop and has no PS/2 connector. This means I had to buy 3 PS/2 to USB converters. I tried 10 different models before I found some that worked for all cases ! 2 of them are noname, one of them is Belkin. This gets pricey and was very time consuming.
3. The Iogear KVM emulates a regular mouse. This means I cannot access all the features of my Kensington Expert Mouse trackball on my computers, in particular all 4 buttons.
   Edit : I found this very nice free software, called X-Mouse Button control which does the job nicely, much better than the original Kensington software.
4. The signal converter only converts the VGA analog signal to 640x480 DVI single-link. Two of my monitors, a pair of 30" HP LP3065, do not accept this resolution. This model will only work at 1280x800 over single-link DVI, or 2560x1600 dual-link DVI. It also has no VGA analog input . This means I cannot display the signal from the VS-2400CD on these 2 monitors at all.
5. My third monitor, a Gateway FHD2401 does accept 640x480 over DVI single-link. However, due to space issues on my desk, I am now running it in portrait mode, vertically. The VS-2400CD firmware does not have a portrait mode of operation. And the Gateway monitor does not have a way of displaying the video signal at a 90 degrees angle. Thus, when I use my VS-2400CD, I now have to pivot the monitor back to landscape mode. However, there is not enough space, and if I do this, it protrudes in front of one of the other monitors

The first 3 problems are inconveniences that I have been willing to live with, but with the addition of a second HP LP3065 monitor recently, the last 2 are now a major issue.

The 4th problem might be solved with a video scaling device. I don't know if one exists that outputs at 1280x800 or 2560x1600 . If it does, it's probably very expensive.
Edit: I found an inexpensive scaler that worked, the AT-HDView from Atlona. It was only $99 at Fry's.

The 5th problem is much more difficult to solve. I don't know of any device that will turn the video around at a 90 degrees angle. I am not sure if any monitor exists that has this function built-in.

Because of all the problems, I attempted a different approach. I purchased a Lantronix Spider Duo KVM switch. This is a KVM that has 2 PS/2 ports for keyboards and mouse, and one VGA port for video. It connects to the local network via Ethernet. The device connected to the Spider Duo can be accessed via a Java application over the network from any computer.

This was a very appealing solution to me, because I would no longer have to try to convert these legacy PS/2 and VGA ports on the VS-2400CD to modern 21st century technology.

After speaking to Lantronix support and being told there was a 95% chance that it would be compatible, I ordered the $200 Spider Duo from Provantage. I received it on April 25. I hooked it up. The keyboard worked fine. The video worked. Unfortunately, the mouse signal did not work at all, either remotely or with the included local KVM cable. I spoke at length with Lantronix support and, it was determined that the Spider Duo is incompatible with the Roland VS-2400CD. My Spider Duo is now on its way back to Provantage for a refund.

At this point, I am really wondering if there is any device on the planet that can solve my problem. I may try other IP KVMs, but the prices can get very high as these are typically enterprise devices. The Spider Duo was the least expensive IP KVM I could find.

I welcome any ideas on how to solve the issues and simplify my switching situation. Please feel free to comment on the blog. Suggestions from KVM manufacturers are welcome, too !

Using the modified Roland VS-2400CD recorder : part 2

Last year, I wrote a blog post detailing how to do a hardware modification to the Roland VS-2400CD to add an eSATA port and and breathe new life into it.

I promised a follow-up post about how to take advantage of the modification to transfer projects to your PC. This post is long overdue.

Background information

The VS-2400CD uses a FAT32 file system on the hard disk. There are several major limitations to keep in mind :

1. The VS-2400CD maximum hard drive size is 120GB . Larger drives can be used, but the VS-2400CD cannot see anything above 120GB.
2. The VS-2400CD maximum partition size is 10GB. On the standard 40GB hard drive, this means there will be 4 partitions. On a drive of 120GB or more, there will be 12 partitions
3. The original PC had a limit of a 4 primary partitions per hard disk. This still persists today. For this reason, only the first 4 partitions on your VS-2400CD can be directly seen by your operating system when you attach the VS-2400CD hard drive to the PC.

Since you have taken advantage of the eSATA hardware modification, you likely now have a larger drive than the original 40GB that came with your VS-2400CD, and thus you will have to use special software see the partitions beyond the 4th on your computer.


The only program I know that does this is called VS Wave Export, and runs on Windows.

Initial computer setup under Windows 7

1. download VS Wave Export
2. since there is no installer, you will need to unzip it to a folder of your choice
3. create a shortcut on your desktop to the executable 
4. edit the shortcut properties, and enable the option to "Run this program as an administrator" . If you forget this step, VS Wave export will not see your VS-2400CD hard drive 
5. in the Control panel, search for "partition" and click "create and format hard disk partitions"
6. make sure your VS-2400CD and the disk enclosures are both turned off.
7. connect the disk enclosure that contains your VS-2400CD hard drive to the PC via USB .
8. turn on the disk enclosure
9. you may get prompted 4 times to "autoplay" the content of VS partitions . Don't do it - just stop the autoplay.
10. the disk will show up in the "Disk Management" screen . It will look something like this :
    
11. Click button 2 (Right-click) on the first VS-2400CD partition, and select "Change drive letter and paths"
12. Click "Remove" and confirm
13. Repeat steps 10 and 11 for the other three VS-2400CD partitions. This ensures that the operating system is not accessing the drive, and thus will make it available to VS Wave Export.
14. You can now close the disk manager

Using VS Wave Export to export your projects to WAV files

1. If your VS-2400CD is on, turn it off
2. connect the disk enclosure that contains your VS-2400CD hard drive to the PC via USB .
3. turn on the disk enclosure.
4. Run VS Wave Export from your desktop shortcut. You should get prompted to run it as administrator. You must accept.
5. You will now see something like this :
   
6. The above shows all 11 partitions on my VS-2400CD hard drive
7. Click the + on one or more partitions. It will show the projects on those partitions :
   
8.  click the project to export
9. select the tracks you want to export in the matrix on the right. There are up to 384 V-tracks. In most cases, just select "All". The selected tracks will be highlighted in red
10. if you want only part of the timeline, select specific start/end times.
11. click the folder to select the destination for your WAV files
12. click "export" and wait
13. That's it ! You should now have a bunch of WAV files for all your tracks.
    
14. Each of the WAV file is mono and uncompressed. The files are named
    $project name" "$sampling_rate"_"$track"-"$vtrack"_"$trackname
    In my case, the track names are each of the 9 microphones I use.

The above method is what I use primarily now as I just use the VS-2400CD to record. I do all my mixing and editing on the PC, which is much faster with Reaper. I never feed any data back from the PC to the VS-2400CD. If your workflow is like mine, you may never need to do anything else.

However, there may be some times during which you will want to backup the actual VS-2400CD projects to your computer, and later restore them. One such occasion would be for example if you want to change change your VS-2400CD hard drive. I did this today - I upgraded from a loud WD 160GB hard drive to a whisper quiet 64GB Patriot SSD.

Backing up all the projects on a VS-2400CD partition to your PC

1. in the Control panel, search for "partition" and click "create and format hard disk partitions"
2. make sure your VS-2400CD and the disk enclosures are both turned off.
3. connect the disk enclosure that contains your VS-2400CD hard drive to the PC via USB .
4. turn on the disk enclosure
5. the disk will show up in the "Disk Management" screen. You will see the first four VS-2400CD partitions
6. select the partition you want to backup, click button 2 (Right-click) , and select "Change drive letter and paths"
7. select "Add"
8. select "Assign the following drive letter"
9. choose a drive letter
10. click OK
11. Autoplay might come up. Select "Open folder to view files". If it doesn't come up, go to "Computer" and just double-click the drive letter you assigned
12. Backup all the files on this drive letter using a method of your choice, for example, to another hard drive, online storage area, DVD, tape, etc.
13. in the Control panel, search for "partition" and click "create and format hard disk partitions"
14. select the partition you want to backup, click button 2 (Right-click) , and select "Change drive letter and paths".
15. click "Remove" and confirm

This method only works for backing up the first 4 partitions of the VS-2400CD . Unfortunately, you cannot mount partitions 5 to 11 on the PC this way. If you need to backup the projects on these partitions, you may have to move projects to partitions 1-4 using the VS-2400CD first . It will be slow, but not nearly as painful as using CD-R/CD-RW to backup the data.

Restoring all the projects from your PC to a VS-2400CD partition

1. using the VS-2400CD, empty one of the first four partitions on the disk. You must delete all the projects on a selected partition to make space for the restore.
2. when this is done, shut down your VS-2400CD and disk enclosure.
3. in the Control panel, search for "partition" and click "create and format hard disk partitions"
4. connect the disk enclosure that contains your VS-2400CD hard drive to the PC via USB .
5. turn on the disk enclosure
6. the disk will show up in the "Disk Management" screen. You will see the first four VS-2400CD partitions
7. select the VS-2400CD partition you want to restore to, click button 2 (Right-click) , and select "Change drive letter and paths"
8. select "Add"
9. select "Assign the following drive letter"
10. choose a drive letter
11. click OK
12. Autoplay might come up. Select "Open folder to view files". If it doesn't come up, go to "Computer" and just double-click the drive letter you assigned
13. Examine the files on the VS-2400CD partition. Make sure sure this is really the freshly emptied VS partition you want to restore to There will typically be one project directory only, with very few files inside.
14. When you are sure, delete all the files and directories on that partition. This is required to clean up the project index.
15. Restore all the files from your previous backp
16. in the Control panel, search for "partition" and click "create and format hard disk partitions"
17. select the partition you want to backup, click button 2 (Right-click) , and select "Change drive letter and paths".
18. click "Remove" and confirm

Again, this method only works for restoring to one of the first 4 partitions of the VS-2400CD .
If you have more partitions to restore, you can use the VS-2400CD first to move projects between partitions 1-4 and 5-11 . It will be slow, but not nearly as painful as using CD-R/CD-RW to backup the data.



Backing up and restoring individual projects

This procedure is more complex and I'm not going to attempt to write it down in details as I don't use it. Basically, you will need to copy/restore the content of individual song directories.

The complexity comes from the index file in the root directory of each VS-2400CD partition. You would need to manually update that index file to keep things in sync. This poses a problem if you want to restore a project to an empty parttion. You would have to first create an empty project on the VS-2400CD partition, then swap the files on the PC.

I hope this will be helpful to all those who have modified their VS-2400CD.