Digidesign’s Customer Support centers receive many calls every day. In order to ensure that all our customers receive the absolute best support, we urge you to read and take advantage of the exciting new information sources we describe in this document. Our popular new Fax On Demand service is proving to be a valuable resource for many of our customers, as is our new presence on-line. Finally, we urge you to become familiar with the contents of the new User’s Guide you received with this package.
2.) How to Reach Digidesign Customer Support:
US & Canada: phone (415) 842-6699, fax (415) 856-4275
This is a free service that sends product information and compatibility documents directly to your fax. Simply call (415) 598-4315 and specify which document you need. Documents are ordered by index number. You can request an index the first time you call. Hard Drive compatibility documents can be requested by specifying index #120 (Mac compatible drives) or #121 (PC compatible drives). This service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Digidesign On-line
Digidesign has both product information and technical support on-line via CompuServe and America Online. These are also excellent places to pose questions to, and exchange information with other Digidesign customers.
• CompuServe
Digidesign is located in the “MIDI D Vendor” forum. You can get to the forum by typing typing the GO-word “DIGIDESIGN.” Tech support staff are available to answer questions, and all current inits and public domain software (DAE, DigiSystem INIT, DATa, DigiTest, etc.) as well as compatibility information (drives, CPU's, etc.).
• America Online
We also have a forum offering similar services on AOL. This area contains a message area, product information, and a software library. To reach this forum, use the Keyword “Digidesign.”
• Internet
While Digidesign does not yet have a direct presence on the Internet, there are several E-mail groups sharing information about digital audio workstations. The following are instructions to subscribe to these groups:
DAW-DDESIGN
To subscribe, send an e mail message to “majordomo@lists.uoregon.edu”
with the following in the message body: “subscribe ddesign”
daw-mac
To subscribe to daw-mac, send e mail to “majordomo@best.com” with “subscribe daw-mac” in the body of the message. If you prefer the digest version make the message “subscribe daw-mac-digest”
World Wide Web site
The DAW-Mac Home Page hosted by Paul Braunbehrens has interesting information, and can be reached by typing this URL (Universal Resource Locator) in your favorite Web browser:
http://www.bakalite.com/Daw-Mac.html
Our Customer Support representatives receive many calls daily. Following are useful tips, important information and answers to the most commonly asked questions from our users.
3.) Hardware Installation Tips
• Hard Disk Drive Compatibility
We recommend that you use only Digidesign tested and approved drives with our digital recording systems. We cannot guarantee compatibility with any drive that is not on our approved list. Resolving a problem, should one arise, can be very difficult when there is little or no information about the drive documented here at Digidesign. You can obtain Digidesign’s latest hard drive compatibility list 24 hours a day from the Fax on Demand service or the CompuServe and America Online forums (see above).
• SCSI Termination
The Macintosh SCSI bus must be properly terminated. Only the last device on the chain should be terminated using whatever termination type the drive manufacturer recommends. The drive should use either an external terminator plug or have its internal terminators enabled. (Termination and “term power” are two different things. Please consult your drive documentation for more information.) Do not enable both internal termination AND install an external terminator plug on the same drive! This can cause SCSI errors.
4.) Miscellaneous Tips
• Errors -34, -36, -194, or -199 occurring during software installation, most likely indicate a hard drive problem. Reformatting the drive solves this problem in most cases.
• System Error -39 when launching an application usually means that the application is corrupted. It could also be caused by a corrupted Desktop file. Rebuild the Desktop (hold down the Option + Command keys while rebooting the Mac), or reinstall the application from the original floppy disk.
• DAE Error -9204 when launching Session could indicate a corrupted DigiSetup file (this is the hardware preference file stored in the System Folder). Throw the DigiSetup file away and restart Mac.
• INIT conflicts can cause many problems (program error, crash, freeze, bus error, etc.) during installation, or while running programs. If you experience these errors, pull all extensions out and restart your Mac. Add them back one at a time (restarting after each change) to see where the conflict reappears. (You can boot the Mac with extensions off by holding the Shift key while booting.) Another approach would be to install a fresh system on an external drive on the Mac bus and boot from that drive. Try installing and running the software on the external drive.
• Whenever you change hardware or software, you should throw away the DigiSetup file (it’s in the System Folder). This hardware preference file will be recreated when you change settings in a program’s Hardware Setup window.
