Trouble with Alesis Multimix12 Firewire interface

I got this unit from a good friend about four years ago from a good friend (it is a Multimix 12, not 8 as I erroneously stated in another thread) and used it as my interface in the Garageband days. It worked flawlessly with my old Mac Mini, close to zero latency.

Then in 2010 I went to Pro Tools and became chained to an Mbox Mini, which I patched through the mixer (disabled the interface component of the Alesis). The Mbox (USB1) was a latency nightmare, though somewhat controllable through a lot of jiggery-pokery.

Last year I got into Logic and decided to make it my long-term workhorse. At this point, I've closed out all my PT projects and decided it would nice to go back to the Firewire interface in the Alesis and put the Mbox in mothballs. I knew the Alesis driver was probably outdated, so I downloaded the driver update for Snow Leopard (v. 10.6), my current system.

But I'm now using an iMac, which runs Firewire 800, and the Alesis is 400. So I got a good-quality 800>400 Firewire cable and first installed the driver, then hooked up the Alesis to the second Firewire 800 port in my HD. (The iMac has only one FW port and I figured the HD needs to be plugged into it.)

But the computer couldn't find the Alesis — when I opened the control panel app, it says "No devices found. Connect device(s)." It wasn't appearing in my audio prefs or in the "Other" prefs category, where interfaces generally show up. So I downloaded the more recent driver for Lion (v. 10.7) to see if that would make a difference. Uninstalled the previous one and installed the new one; same thing happened.

So either I'm doing something stupid, or there's something going on I don't have a clue about. Anyone got any ideas? Is it possible the new software has left the old hardware behind? I know Firewire 400 devices will run on an 800 computer, so I'm baffled.

I don't know much about Mac's but my singer friend had a similar issue lately and he had to go to MacBook system preferences and point the system to recognize the new device. Could it be something like that?

so I downloaded the driver update for Snow Leopard (v. 10.6), my current system.

I know nothing of Mac trouble shooting but have you by any chance checked the Alesis forums (I presume they have them) for any discussion of your problem?

(Wow...Alesis...I had 3 Microverbs, 2 cue amps (still have one), the Micro Gate, Limiter and Enchancer until about 10 years ago. Great stuff when they came to market along with the SR16).

I'm no help other than bump.....good luck.

I don't know much about Mac's but my singer friend had a similar issue lately and he had to go to MacBook system preferences and point the system to recognize the new device. Could it be something like that?

No, the Alesis is not showing up in either of the pref panes it should be in. The computer's not finding any trace of it.

I did have a fleeting thought: When I downloaded the first driver, I ran Uninstall to get rid of the original one from several years ago, and the Uninstaller said there was nothing to uninstall. Wonder if the new software doesn't recognize the old driver and it's still lurking somewhere, gumming up the works?

No, the Alesis is not showing up in either of the pref panes it should be in. The computer's not finding any trace of it.

I did have a fleeting thought: When I downloaded the first driver, I ran Uninstall to get rid of the original one from several years ago, and the Uninstaller said there was nothing to uninstall. Wonder if the new software doesn't recognize the old driver and it's still lurking somewhere, gumming up the works?

That would do it because it needs the handshake from the driver.

I have had a similar issue with my multimix.

Two things pop out straight away....
1) the driver uninstall has never worked for me. Luckily OS X is cool enough to let you just delete the driver. In Applications or Applications > Utilities find the Alesis driver and drag it to the bin. Then empty the bin. Do this with the board unplugged. Then reinstall and try again.
2) the FW400/Fw800 comptrability may be the issue. Check with Alesis to confirm.

Good luck. It took me hours to get mine working but it was worth it.