Stephen Fortner Posted September 7, 2019 Share Posted September 7, 2019 Hello all, Not so long ago, I installed a Thunderbolt 2 card in my beloved FireWire silver-face Apollo. It can be tricky. FWIW, I thought I'd leave a tip that the trick is for it to receive a firmware and OS update via FireWire FIRST. Then you do another install via the Thunderbolt port. So it's a good idea if your FireWire-equipped computer is still around. Mine wasn't, but an FW800-to-T2 adapter did the trick. Anyone interested in a step-by-step on how I did it? There are a lot of original Apollos still in service but not nearly as many computers with FW, so I imagine a few folks have gone through this. SF Quote Stephen Fortner Principal, Fortner Media Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevonB Posted September 8, 2019 Share Posted September 8, 2019 That's awesome that you have the ability to upgrade an interface to Thunderbolt. I'm stuck with the MOTU 828 MK3 FireWire only interface, not even the Hybrid unit that came out shortly after I got the FW only unit.However, if you at least have a desktop, you can install a Texas Instruments-based PCIe FireWire 400 adapter card. I've had mine since 2014, and works great! As long as you have an open PCIe slot, you should be able to add one.Now if you're on a laptop, that's a different story. I do want to let me know about an experience I had a few months back that I was not aware of in regards to FireWire 400 6 pin interfaces though. While 'technically' it's hot pluggable, a FireWire 400 6 pin to 6 pin cable I had sitting in my drawer fried my interface during hot swapping. During a normal troubleshooting session, I managed to fry both ports on the 828Mk3. Fortunately, MOTU offers a program to fix your old MK3 still for I believe $100 + shipping. Now I'm not 100% sure thinking about it that it was the hot swap that did it, and if I had it powered down, did the cable swap, and powered it back on that it would have been fine. However, it has made me think twice about using unknown cables in my drawer for FireWire. Because the 6 pin variety does carry voltage (~30v on pin 1) it's within the realm of possibilities that the hot plug killed it. I'll never know for sure (old cable immediately went in the trash and no way willing to risk my interface again ) but I didn't think about a cable frying my main interface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Fortner Posted September 9, 2019 Author Share Posted September 9, 2019 Hi DevonB, My situation was that I was upgrading from a 2008-era "cheese grater" Mac Pro to a late 2012 iMac with what were maximum specs for the time. So, no FW on the iMac. Because I'm a know-it-all (LOL) I installed the UA Thunderbolt card in the Apollo, plugged it into the new iMac, and thought I'd be good to go downloading software updates. Nope! Computer wouldn't see the UAD Meter or Console apps no matter what I did. Because this is the first Apollo, it took some time digging into the UA knowledge base to put two and two together, but I finally figured it out. Quote Stephen Fortner Principal, Fortner Media Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevonB Posted September 11, 2019 Share Posted September 11, 2019 Aha, I hate those install situations where if you don't follow everything juuuuuust right, things won't work. Most installs are forgiving, but there are those that are decidedly not! Glad to hear you at least got it sorted! Devon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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