You do know this is for the most part a User Forum, right? PreSonus does not monitor every post here.

Mwright,

I do know. And I appreciate your point....but I also have seen actual employees here, on this "users forum", as well as from "those testing beta drivers".

Forums are an open venue to discuss issues, etc. This is an issue.

With the introduction of the iSeries AB boxes, and now the Studio 192, it seems the company has "fixed" the issues with new products, not supporting current customers already invested in their "business philosophy".

I know its hard to deal with, but I don't think the new products are an indicator. The I series interfaces are more closely designed to the ABUSB. They don't have the xmax pres. They are more of an entry level product. The 192 is more of a design replacement for the 2626 than it is a replacement for the VSL line.

I realize this doesn't change your current situation, but I felt it was worth mentioning.

are we to assume the AB VSL are a "legacy" product, with shelved support?

No we are not. As an 1818VSL owner myself I am, of course, also concerned but if the VSL series was a legacy product it would be listed as such.

the occasional word from a Presonus employee, or beta tester, saying drivers, fixes, etc. are in the pipeline

So then, as you've already been informed that drivers are still being developed there is no reason to assume that support has been shelved. Yes, some other companies have released updated drivers for some of their products. However, the VSL series is unique and complex and requires much more serious code crunching.

Be more specific. Be VERY specific.

Sorry, not possible. New drivers ARE continuing to be developed. They will be released when they are ready.

Not true? Prove me wrong, and not with empty promises

I cannot give you proof nor can I make promises. I've offered you the facts as I know them. Development IS still underway for this product line.

It has been almost a year since last driver update and with all these problems surely you can understand the enormous frustration some of us are experiencing.

"When they are ready" is just not a good enough answer.

Your answers aren't helping us at all.
Perhaps you're not the one to blame for this but as a moderator you should
try have a bit more empathy?

sharonzaz wroteIt has been almost a year since last driver update and with all these problems surely you can understand the enormous frustration some of us are experiencing.

"When they are ready" is just not a good enough answer.

Your answers aren't helping us at all.
Perhaps you're not the one to blame for this but as a moderator you should
try have a bit more empathy?

I haven't said anything yet on this topic, but I have to give a +1 to sharonzaz at this point.

I haven't opened a support ticket yet, and I haven't started a forum topic specific to my main problem (loading S1 blows away my iLok; I've wasted many days and tried many things to make the two play together and continue to fail), and I do have the common noise problem regardless of ASIO buffer size. Why not? If there is nothing but the "Sounds of Silence" from PreSonus on the VSL driver issues, why should I expect poor little me to get attention and action when no one else is?

I have invested a lot of time and money into PreSonus software and hardware and I am FRUSTRATED. I am starting to look elsewhere, and if I go, I'm never coming back.

Why am I frustrated?

BECAUSE I'M NOT MAKING MUSIC. I AM F$&%$@G AROUND WITH MY GEAR INSTEAD.

PreSonus OWES their customers better. I can only view a company based on my personal relationship with them, not on their ads and trade show PR pieces. I don't care about their new products. I care about the ones I've already got, AND CAN'T MAKE WORK!

If they don't take care of their existing base, adios PreSonus the company. You will not "live long and prosper."

I must add my voice to the frustrated on this matter. Yosemite is not that new anymore and is a very good OS so there was good reason to move to it promptly. My VSL1818 is sitting on the shelf waiting to be usable again, and I do location recording often so it is needed frequently. Even Avid have finally updated their EuCon Artist Mix software to be Yosemite compatible and I am now enjoying using that unit again.

For what it's worth, I find Presonus' lack of transparency about when fixes for the well known and frequently raised issues with the Mac VSL1818 drivers completely unacceptable.

I need kit that is reliable, I want to be able to record takes without worrying whether a glitch is going to render them unusable. I want to be able to use the device live to submix drums and put some reverb on...

At this point I'm trying to decide whether to wait for a software release that will potential transform my VSL1818 into the device it should be (which by the way, is a great feature set!), or whether to cut and run.

If Presonus could commit to a published release schedule, that would make it easier for me to make that call. BTW, I see the Tascam US-16x08 is shipping now, seems a pretty good match feature-wise if you can live without ADAT...!

I'm a software developer by day; I understand replicating issues, finding fixes, and dealing with complex and evolving host software environments is non-trivial. I understand the company doesn't want to set expectations it can't deliver on. But a 'You'll get a fix when we're good and ready, but we won't tell you when it's coming attitude' (which is what I see here) is not good. And there seems to be quite a bit of (unhelpful) 'attitude' on these forums too...

If you really are working on these issues (and they're not just sat at the bottom of a long and changing backlog), then you _should_ be able to commit to a date. And I really think you need to look at how how are interacting with customers, and raise your game. If you're engineering resources are genuinely overloaded and not able to turn this stuff around, maybe it's time to open source it?

I'd be interest to hear what company management think about this...

Yours frustratedly,

James

I agree with James....if the AB VLS line is such a complicated unit, put me resources into it!

I try every couple months to rehookup my 1818 only to be disappointed yet again. Sucks that because I bet on presonus hardware because I loved their software I now can't afford to purchase something that works.

I am in totally agree and can identify with your frustrations, I myself am so frustrated with Presonus's lack of support on this issue, I have several recording projects that have been put on hold for so long that I have probably lost them by now.........My work has been completely stalled for 6 or more months now, I log on weekly to check for updates only to be disappointed over and over again........

In fact I was considering buying a presonus digital mixing board and I have lost complete faith in this company.....I am looking into buying either Mackie or Focusrite. at this point. I feel like throwing away my 1818 VSL + Digimax system that I paid good money for because it is completely useless........My gear just takes up rack space right now and I doubt I can sell it for anywhere near what I paid for it even though it is brand new and lord knows it has hardly any use on it.

It seems as though they are more concerned with developing new products than they are supporting the products they already have

If I had known I was going to have this kind of issue with this Presonus setup I would have gone another direction that is for sure.

Very Disappointed

I can only say to hold on just a little longer...

we are and have been for a while. I am guessing Presonus has a long way to go
before faith will be restored even if they manage to sort out the bugs.

to have users a almost a year without a solution? is that acceptable?
the new drivers would need to be able to produce gold coins, my friend.

as a working musician, the only reason this unit is still in my house is cos another ''spare'' digital mixer would
cost me more than i can spend right now.
I wanted to use this is my studio instead of an aging Multiface, and so i could upgrade my Mac pro into latest OS (dont have drivers for the RME PCI slot.
what i should have done is get the updated Host card, PCIE and then i could carry on to Yosemite.
when i can ill get the Motu or similar and dump this blue brick onto some other dude.

youve lost my vote.

mwright137 wroteI can only say to hold on just a little longer...

Ya I guess after what 3+ years we have been holding on. I feel totally betrayed by Presonus on the VSL devices. I purchased both the VSL1818 and the 44. The 1818 has been pretty much usable aside from the occasional pops/clicks and when it just stops working in the middle of a session and I have to power it off and on. Did I mention when it just suddenly outputs a high pitch screen at full meters out of the blue.

The 44 I sold after two years because it NEVER worked right no matter what computer it was connected to. It would drop output out of blue. It recorded fine but then I would try to play back and have not output at all. Had to power it off and on to get playback back. That doesn't work too well when you are using it in a live performance situation. So I sold it at a big loss and go a Tascam 4 preamp model that never fails me.

So where are we. Waiting for more drivers? A year+ between every driver update. What a joke. I am a software developer for a major services company as well as do mobile apps. If my response to my customers was like this I would have been out of a job a long time ago. And yes I did open a ticket on the 44 and there final solution was not to have anything else usb plugged into any computer I use it on. Nice. Not even a mouse.

I am heading to GearFest this year and I will be stopping to TALK to them in person. Look out boys!

I am assuming that many users purchased the AB1818 box because of it's integration with Studio One 2. Studio One 2 is growing in popularity/preference because of its features, speed and integration with Melodyne and etc. It is a VERY GOOD piece of software and quite competitive in the marketplace. However, we must realize that Studio One was created by a group of engineers/programmers who worked for another company with a long history in this market. They are OBVIOUSLY NOT the same engineers/programmers who designed the 1818 hardware and software.
My personal history with MIDI and digital audio goes back to building interfaces with opto-isolators we bought at Radio Shack and mounted them on a board because there were no commercial interfaces. We had to write machine-level code to allocate and access the I/O buffers, ports, calculate the clock speed and CPU/bus throughput on the fly, calculate how to mark delta times and etc. and basically build a "sequencer" and audio recorder from scratch. Audio was 8-bit and for some hardware systems that was the maximum bus width! I have a "good basis" of understanding of how sequencers and audio sampling works and the complexities of the implementation.
Every new Mac OS update has caused issues with the 1818. Based upon my experience, this points to a fundamental issue with the hardware that Presonus must compensate for in software and can't be corrected with a firmware update. Perhaps they can't assume the risk or cost of replacing chips in the box and root cause may be more complicated than that. The fact that hardware changes with Apple hardware (USB implementation) also causes 1818 failure also points to hardware design issue(s) they are trying to compensate for in software. This may be the reason for the inexcusable delay in a new software release for Yosemite.
This doesn't bode well for the lifecycle of this hardware design. I would welcome a Presonus engineer to respond and explain the current technical issues with the product and the challenges they are facing. The lack of transparency and responses from the company, the forum admins and the engineers reflect poorly upon the company brand and contributes to considerable corporate risk to their hardware focus.

The problems are not just Yosemite OS problems. There are Windows problems, earlier OS X problems, clicks, pops
numerous driver stability issues, bugs and so many other things all around and with some previous drivers/OS too.

I remember my first 1818 (had 3 by now) was working great on an identical MBP (water damage ruined) but running ML.
I do not recall any issues then. Cannot recall driver version, but would have been the earliest or one above.

My second 1818 was just a bundle of alien noises along side the common pops clicks etc.

This latest 1818 so far so good, running driver 1.2.x and had some recordings done live, with/without VSL and
both came out without any major issues running Yosemite, Logic X.
I am noticing slight latency issues, but that can be related to the projects I have imported from my Mac Pro and Logic 9.

I am very sceptical and hesitant to use this with clients' projects, live or studio.
Not until I feel it is working flawlessly.

I found the appropriate solution. My 1818 NEVER performed without issues. The studio is Mac-based and every new OS change has caused issues with this unit and have posted previously regarding this issue in other threads. I had to get client product out the door while waiting on Presonus so I purchased Apogee Quartets. The number of inputs/pres was somewhat limiting but using another interface through the ADAT inputs allowed me to keep working. Because they are USB, multiple units could be "aggregated" to look like a single device to the OS.

After upgrading the studio with Thunderbolt-enabled Macs, I contacted my sales rep from a national vendor who I buy my hardware from and he suggested either one of the new UA units or the Apogee Ensemble with Thunderbolt. After using Quartets with no issues, I decided to buy an Ensemble and upgrade to Thunderbolt and give it a try. Great decision!

There is no "perceivable" latency while recording so all the advantages of VSL or integration with Studio One is pretty much a moot point.

My vendor whom I've worked with for 30+ years won't sell Presonus hardware any more because of the VSL problems and other hardware support issues. There are many posts on various threads from what seem to be credible folks that can confirm these issues. I have NO idea why Presonus keeps trying to keep supporting the VSL line. They could have "cut their losses long ago" replaced the hardware and been "on down the road". They chose instead to proceed down their current path and keep supporting the facade. My Dad always said, "Trying to teach a pig to sing will always result in a mad pig and some pretty horrible music." That is exactly what the 1818VSL experience has been.

If you have a Mac that supports Thunderbolt, purchase a Thunderbolt interface. The speed and advantages are more than amazing.

The new 192 is USB 3.0 but don't let the "speed" declarations fool you. USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt are VERY different technologies and the technical advantages of Thunderbolt far exceed anything using USB (if you are a Mac user).

No more Presonus hardware for us.

We did upgrade to the new Studio One 3 software and are happy with it.

Thanks!
TG

Hi,

I too have lost faith in Presonus. I am also in the same situation as previous posters who after investing in Presonus equipment cannot afford to change over to another manufacturer.

I have an 1818VSL which has worked not to bad, and a 24.4.2 AI, and though I am happy with the mixer, and the 1818VSL (both as an interface and Virtual Mixer), the problems with the S1 V3 activations have driven me back to ProTools (damn you Presonus).

The lack of consideration with regards to support for products, and the lack of fixes for bugs such as the activation of S1 V3 requiring the same NIC card state as when activated is NOT ACCEPTABLE for a professional level product.

Was an hour late starting a show as I had to drive back to the venue to activate the S1 software because the sound man had disabled the wireless card. STUPID STUPID STUPID!!!

Fortunately for me I have additional systems that I can use, but my next major FOH rental system WILL NOT BE PRESONUS !!!!!

Presonus better take a look at how they are dealing with customers because they are losing the professional level sound people, and are close to losing the home users group too.

Lack of information or results is like getting a door slammed in your face. I for one NEVER go back to a door that is slammed in my face. Just saying.

Lequarius