Echo Audiofire2 "Error while opening sound device"

[Jazz.co]

Hi there,

I recently installed Audacity 1.2.5 on my Mac running OSX 10.5.8. I am using an Echo Audiofire2 firewire soundcard. In the Audacity settings section the driver is recognized just fine but when I open a .wav and hit play I get the "Error while opening sound device" message.

Does anybody have an idea why this could be?

Thanks!

J.

[waxcylinder]

IIRC this sometimes happens when you don't have the correct number of channels assigned in your Audacity preferences to match the channel on your soundcard.

WC

[Jazz.co]

Hi,

thanks for the tip. I tried through all the numbers of input channels, unfortunately without any luck. In any case the Audiofire2 has 1 stereo input, or two channels. Changing the recording device to the built-in microphone or built-in input doesn't do anything either...

J.

[kozikowski]

Audacity also defaults to 32-bit and that doesn't match anything. Try 44100, 16-bit, Stereo.

Koz

[Jazz.co]

Hi again,

so I tried setting the sample depth to 16bit. Again it made no difference unfortunately. I still get the same error message.

I also tried 24bit just for the sake of it. The echo Audiofire2 is set to 44.1kHz just for information. I can't see any menu where I can choose the bit depth it works at though, so I assume it works at 16bit like you suggested.

This all seems somewhat strange no?

J.

[kozikowski]

Unfortunately, no. It's not strange.

Go into Apple > System Preferences > Hardware > Sound > Input and Output. Is the device listed there and, in the case of Input, does the blue patch sound meter flash when you apply audio to the interface?

Then Go > Utilities > Audio MIDI Setup.
That one's a little more complicated, but what does that one say?

Koz

[Jazz.co]

Hi Koz,

thanks first of all for all your help!

The audiofire2 interface is recognised prefectly by OS X. It appears in both the "input" and "ouput" tabs of the System Preferences windows you suggested. In fact I should have probably said right from the start that the interface works just fine with all my other audio programs including Traktor DJ, VLC and all the standard mac media players (iTunes etc.). Unforuntatly I don't have any means of checking if an input signal is shown on the meter in the System Preferences at the moment though as I don't have the right cable with me or an adequate sound source.

Checking the "Audio MIDI Setup" under Utilties revealed the following:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/160901/EchoA ... ttings.png

Ive included the settings section of the audiofire2 console as well.

So if I am interpreting this correctly OS X recognises the interface to run at 24bit sample depth and to have 4 input channels and 6 output channels.

Chosing those settings in audacity unfortunately once again doesn't lead to any results. The same error message is still shown...

Thanks again!

J.

[kozikowski]

Is this an Intel Mac? If it is, you're on the wrong Audacity. Mac/Intel/Leopard effectively killed off Audacity 1.2.

You can get Audacity 1.3.7 from here...

http://audacity.googlecode.com/files/au ... -1.3.7.zip

That's the one I use for daily production, or, for a little more adventure, you can get Audacity 1.3.8 from the usual download site, or the nightly patch build from here...

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 37&t=11534

Yes, I know you have a fancy-pants sound card, but I would so start by setting it up for 44100, 16-bit, Stereo and work up from there.

Koz

[Jazz.co]

Hi Koz,

Fancy-pants? Really, its not that fancy... Just good converters and proper in- and outputs..

In any case, thanks for all your help! 1.3.7 made it all work! Although why does the audacity download site list 1.2.5 as the right version for Intel Macs?

http://audacityteam.org/download/mac

But once again, thank you!

J.

[waxcylinder]

Fancy-pants? Really, its not that fancy... Just good converters and proper in- and outputs..

Compared to the cheapo cr*p devices that some manufacturers put into computers (to keep costs down) - yours is fancy

Anyway glad you got it working ...

WC