Alesis Mulitimix Firewire, not installing properly

[UnkleMartin28]

I've been seeing allot of posts on the net concerning these mixers by alesis. I own one and they can be great, if you can get past the horrendous driver issues which can be easily sorted out. Many people install it for the first time and it works great untill they update their drivers and then it doesn't load all the channels in/out. After numerous failed attempts and some useless calls to alesis support, I found my own workaround that will enable a clean fresh install and drivers from any date will work for it. The support site and install instructions from alesis suck.



OK To get MM firewire installed and working follow these steps *Call alesis support, wait till they pick up, Scream and beat reciever off desk, hang up.......

***put your driver pack download on a usb stick/cd/external drive- anywhere but on your pc*****

1. Uninstall mulitimix from add/remove programs. There will be 2 instances of Multimix in there. One is multimix control panel, the other is the Alesis driver pack. Make sure you get them both!!

2. open sytem settings, go to hardware, remove Alesis Multimix

3 Here is where it changes. OPEN SEARCH MENU, type in Alesis>>> (3A)Delete everything from them (there will be .dll files and system 32 files, nuke them all!! (3B) perform search for multimix and proceed to delete everything related as you did above.

4. Power down the Multimix

5. Power down PC

6.Start up- you now have an alesis free system, get your gig stic/ usb drive/cd that you placed your drivers on, or get them from alesis again and Follow their clean install instructions, or just continue

7 install MM drivers, let it go through its initial cycle

8 Power on Multimix, light a candle, get on your knees and pray to God, Allah, Buddha or whatever supreme being you may believe in to help you and your pc should now cycle through the 4, YES count them FOUR cycles, <mm> and you should be good to go


If this doesn't work, or you crash down the road, remember to use search and find everything related to alesis/MM and delete/nuke them.

I hope this helps all of you

I am running old drivers, I think the new ones suck, though I did get them to work, I uninstalled and went back to my comfort zone with the old ones, thankfully i had them backed up, just took forever to dig through all my drives. Anyone in need of older versions, email or pm and Ill send them.

Peace and good luck!!

[Team Transylvania]

Hey dude, does that mixer double as a audio interface? ive wondered if that works with Cubase or Sonar and if it records sep tracks. let me know.

[UnkleMartin28]

Hey Team,
It will work with both those programs. You have 8 xlr and 4 stereo channels on the multimix 16, and it ships with cubase. I've owned one since they day they came out and have no complaints other than the crappy instructions from alesis. The s/n ration is wonderful, clarity is excellent. Having the FW connection enables to use this for multi-tracking, more than one unit can be chained together (though alesis says you can't?? They just changed that 2 weeks ago,lol contradicting themselves.) It has 2 fw ports, so the daisychaining will work as long as you sync the clocks like you would with midi. I use samplitude pro 8 and works flawlessly with it. For the bang for your buck (400-500), you can't beat it. This is comparable to the mackie onyx, which I'm sure has an edge over the MM, but at double the price to get the same amount of inputs, onboard effects and to have it double as a recording interface with 16 channels and an analog mixer, go for it....

[Team Transylvania]

are you running any other kind of Audio Interface? or is that it? you can do 8 @ a time?

[UnkleMartin28]

Yes you can get 8 in at once, 16 with the stereo inputs. This is my only interface i have been using.
Also lets you resend sig through board for re-amping, though I'm not too keen on using the fw channels out to the board from pc. I found it more stable to use the line out from the pc's onboard audio for monitoring what you've already recorded.

currently using on laptop while desktop is down

compaq v2565us laptop
2.2 ghz amd ath 64
2 gig ram
win xp home
SP2, .net 1.1, win 3.1 installer
Samplitude Pro 8.0

instrument/vox>outboard effects>Multimix Firewire 16> firewire PCI card>Samplitude

[Team Transylvania]

ok cool.
I am about ready to purchase an interface so i can do 8 @ a time. i was thinking abut the Presonus Firepod for $400.

Whats the model # of the Alesis youre talking about?

[UnkleMartin28]

Alesis Mulitimx 16 Firewire

I was checking out the specs on the presonus, and what this will come down to is what type of environment it will be used in and how you like to record.

If you have outputs for each channel on your live band mixing board, it would be easy to use the multi mix and mix on the fly if you want, which would be more difficult with the presonus. However if you dont have the individual outs, the presonus wins. The multimix doen;t have individual outs except to the pc.

As far as sound quality, they are on a par. Ive heard them both with the same tracks, and theres no difference, at least to me.

Be aware, alesis support sucks, though their warranty dept is a snap to deal with from what I've heard on the forums.

I personally went with the multimix over the presonus and other units like it to have the mixing board.