First Serious Glitches With DL32R and MF

[JohnMHoyt]

I did say I dock my iPad to a DL1608 Sorry if I wasn't too clear on that fact. And there should be some way of physically connecting an iPad to the DL32, just sayin'  But maybe you were just having a little fun, maybe? 

DOH!  I totally missed the 1608 part.... I'm sorry... Was not paying attention.   

[dpdan]

personally, I would NEVER run Set List Maker while running Master Fader.
I would bet money if "Set List Maker" was not running,.... your recording would have never stopped.

Set List Maker is a wonderful app, but too intense for the iPad to share resources. Of course the iPad really does not have much to do with recording it's digital audio to a USB drive once it is started,...

but
who
knows. 
Actually I do know someone who does know, and his name is Ben Olswang.

[Keyboard Magic]

I did say I dock my iPad to a DL1608 Sorry if I wasn't too clear on that fact. And there should be some way of physically connecting an iPad to the DL32, just sayin'  But maybe you were just having a little fun, maybe? 

DOH!  I totally missed the 1608 part.... I'm sorry... Was not paying attention.   

That's okay! "Don't worry, be happy!" as they say. 

[JMc]

Time to add a sad and exceedingly frustrating post script to this post....  So, at our gig last night, I made sure to cold boot the iPad.  I went to set up recording, and initially could not get it to record, once again.  I created another new name for the song, pressed record and voila!  The red light lit, and stayed lit for the entire set.  After the set, I stopped recording and switched to playback the intermission songs.  Stopped those as we went back on stage, hit "record" again, and was again rewarded with the little red light.  Went back to the channel strip view and still saw it lit.  A-OK!  Repeated for the next set and finally, at the end of the show, stopped the recording and played the intermission music again, pleased that I had a recording of the entire show safely tucked away on my hard drive.  This morning, I disconnect the drive from the DL32R, plug it into my computer, and alas, the song name assigned last night is nowhere to be seen on the mostly empty drive.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  I even checked inside all the other folders to see if somehow the recording was initiated inside an existing folder.  Nope.  Nada.  Zip.  Gone.  To say I am disappointed is a massive understatement.  I SAW it recording.  It WAS recording.  Yet, the folder containing the files is NOT THERE. 

I had chalked up my earlier recording problems with resource allocation on the iPad because too many apps were running in the background that I was unaware of.  The ONLY two apps I had running last night was Master Fader and Set List Maker, because I'm also active on stage and felt like it would be nice to be able to refer to the set list on the iPad rather than having to print it on paper.  So even though it WAS recording, something went south somewhere.  I'll do our next gig with ONLY Master Fader running and if that solves the problem, then we know that Set List Maker was somehow culpable....

[JMc]

Actually I do know someone who does know, and his name is Ben Olswang.

Since you know him, would you ask him?

[dpdan]

I did, and am hopeful that he will help you with this.

[JMc]

I did, and am hopeful that he will help you with this.

Thank you.  Appreciate it. 

[dpdan]

let's hope it gets figured out 

I got your PM's just now,

[beno]

Hey JMc, sorry you are having issues.
First off you can rule our anything to do with the iPad. The recording mechanism in the DL32R has nothing to do with a fast or slow, stable or flaky iPad.
I would absolutely suspect the hard drive first. Have you tried a different drive? Please do that and see if the behavior is the same or different. Please try a different size and different manufacturer. I know it's a pain but hard drives can be bad even when they seem good and two drives that appear to have the same specs from the same manufacturer can in fact be different.

It's hard to recommend a particular hard drive given the vast variety of drives available. Even models from known manufacturers change the internal workings without any notification. We do have some basic drive requirements listed in the Master Fader 3.0 manual page 191 and the DL32R Hardware manual page 20.

USB – HDD Recording / Playback Drive Requirements:
Connection: USB 2.0 High Speed (as a host)
Connector: USB-A
Audio: 1-24 channel, 48 kHz, 16/24-bit (multichannel .wav)
Supported Devices: USB 2.0 / 3.0 Class Compliant HDD
HDD Format: FAT32
Bus Power: 5V, 1A max

Please refer to those pages for more details. We've tested with many drives of these types without issues but of course we cannot test them all nor guarantee that every single drive will work with the DL32R.

Also, and this is recommended for all, please format the drive with the DL32R itself. Not with a Mac or Windows PC. This is imperative for good performance.

If the issues are the same with all drives tested, next step would be to force update the mixer, just to be sure all the latest and greatest firmware is installed correctly.

Force Update Instructions

0. Be sure you iPad has the latest version of Master Fader and is set to never go to sleep (auto lock set to never)
1. Turn OFF the DL series mixer.
2. Connect the Wi-Fi Router to the mixer and turn on the router.
3. Connect the iPad to the Wi-Fi router.
4. Press and hold the force update button while powering on the mixer.
   For DL806/1608: The button is on the rear panel between the network and power connectors.
   For DL32R: The button is on the front next to the Network LED.
5. Release the force update button after 5 seconds.
6. Go to Tools>Devices in Master Fader and select the wireless DL mixer which will be listed in update mode
7. After several seconds, a popup will appear in Master Fader asking you to confirm the update. Press "Yes, update" to approve it and the update will continue. This will take up to 15 minutes.
8. After the update, the mixer restarts. Note that after the mixer says it is finished, it actually still has one small update to finish to work properly. Wait about a minute before attempting to connect the iPad.
It should now work properly wired and wireless.

If none of this helps, I would contact support directly.

techmail@mackie.com
www.mackie.com/support/
800.898.3211
425.487.4333

[JMc]

Thanks very much for the reply, Ben.  I had the pleasure of meeting you a NAMM a couple of years back.  You're a good cat. 

Please know, that the drive I have meets all the specs, was formatted with the DL32R, and recorded about a dozen shows flawlessly before my problems began.  It is a Seagate USB 3.0 Backup Plus Slim 2T with shock case.  I have deleted all the files on this drive and will reformat with the mixer AFTER I force update the DL32R per your instructions. 

I am hoping against hope that this solves the problem.  It's very good to know that it wasn't the iPad that is causing the issue, because I find it convenient to be able to refer to my set list or Master Fader, as the moment dictates while on stage, but just the same, I am going to run the iPad with ONLY Master Fader open at our gig this Friday and see how it goes.  I may also just try a completely different HDD.  I'll report back here...  Thanks again.  Cheers.

[beno]

Sounds like a good plan. Again, just because the specs are met and the drive appears to work well in other ways, there are still ways it could fail in the DL32R. So trying another drive will definitely help you rule that out.
The reason the iPad is definitely not the culprit is that the recording mechanism on the DL32R has it's own dedicated processor. It merely sends status back to the iPad.
Let us know how it goes.
Ben

[JMc]

8. After the update, the mixer restarts. Note that after the mixer says it is finished, it actually still has one small update to finish to work properly. Wait about a minute before attempting to connect the iPad.

I'm wondering if this might not be something significant, because when I did the last firmware update, I had no way of knowing this, and most likely connected the iPad immediately after the "finished" message.  Hmmmm.  I will try a different drive brand and size, however.  They're cheap enough. 

[beno]

Possibly. That last bit is indeed the recording processor firmware. It updates After the restart. One note, when you force update, don't have a Hard Drive connected and connect it only after waiting that last waiting period.

[JMc]

Well, during the last update, I would have had the drive connected, also.  Very interesting.  This is good stuff.  And Ben, I don't want you to get the wrong impression.  These little problems I've had (which we are hopefully on our way to solving together) in no way dampens my extreme enthusiasm for this mixer.  It has been a dream come true for me to be able to record every track and be able to mix down our performances to incredible 5.1 or 2.0 stereo masters.  And the power and features of the DL32R boggles my mind.  I absolutely love it. 

[WK154]

Possibly. That last bit is indeed the recording processor firmware. It updates After the restart. One note, when you force update, don't have a Hard Drive connected and connect it only after waiting that last waiting period.

BenO maybe you can enlighten us with the process Mackie has in place for updating firmware. I ask because there are many places where corruption in data can occur. Download over the Internet and then the transfer via WiFi to the DL. What checks and balances are in place and where? For instance if you use UDP what additional checks are in place?