Status of Zoom R16

Status of Zoom R16

[Evan Ta]

Hi,

as subj says: can you tell me how the Zoom R16 is doing? The hardware looks
nice, but the latest info I can find is a seemingly unresolved failure to
work with Alsa as of feb 2010.

Thanks,
Evan

Re: Status of Zoom R16

[Daniel Mack]

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 9:04 AM, Evan Ta <evan.ta.88@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> as subj says: can you tell me how the Zoom R16 is doing? The hardware looks
> nice, but the latest info I can find is a seemingly unresolved failure to
> work with Alsa as of feb 2010.

Yes, it's currently unsupported. The device doesn't comply to the USB
audio spec, and nobody with such hardware has yet taken the time to
implement a driver.

You can try contact their support and ask whether they are willing to
release the protocol spec under a free licence, that could speed up
the process. Otherwise, someone will need to trace the communication
and reverse-engineer it.


Daniel

Re: Status of Zoom R16

[Evan]

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 9:21 AM, Daniel Mack <zonque@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 9:04 AM, Evan Ta <evan.ta.88@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > as subj says: can you tell me how the Zoom R16 is doing? The hardware
> looks
> > nice, but the latest info I can find is a seemingly unresolved failure to
> > work with Alsa as of feb 2010.
>
> Yes, it's currently unsupported. The device doesn't comply to the USB
> audio spec, and nobody with such hardware has yet taken the time to
> implement a driver.
>
> You can try contact their support and ask whether they are willing to
> release the protocol spec under a free licence, that could speed up
> the process. Otherwise, someone will need to trace the communication
> and reverse-engineer it.
>
>
> Daniel
>

I wrote them an email explaining the problem.

Should they (however improbable) decline to post the proper specs, can you
suggest a similar multi channel mixer / recorder that works with Alsa?


Thanks
Evan

Re: Status of Zoom R16

[Evan]

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 9:21 AM, Daniel Mack <zonque@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 9:04 AM, Evan Ta <evan.ta.88@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > as subj says: can you tell me how the Zoom R16 is doing? The hardware
> looks
> > nice, but the latest info I can find is a seemingly unresolved failure to
> > work with Alsa as of feb 2010.
>
> Yes, it's currently unsupported. The device doesn't comply to the USB
> audio spec, and nobody with such hardware has yet taken the time to
> implement a driver.


How hard is this? If I buy it and help with testing, is this something that
can be done without too much hassle?

Evan

Re: Status of Zoom R16

[Daniel Mack]

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 4:05 PM, Evan <evan.ta.88@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 9:21 AM, Daniel Mack <zonque@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 9:04 AM, Evan Ta <evan.ta.88@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > as subj says: can you tell me how the Zoom R16 is doing? The hardware
>> looks
>> > nice, but the latest info I can find is a seemingly unresolved failure to
>> > work with Alsa as of feb 2010.
>>
>> Yes, it's currently unsupported. The device doesn't comply to the USB
>> audio spec, and nobody with such hardware has yet taken the time to
>> implement a driver.
>
>
> How hard is this? If I buy it and help with testing, is this something that
> can be done without too much hassle?

Ideally, you would have an USB hardware analyzer to sniff the traffic.
Software tracers are an alternative, but I never used any, so I can't
tell how well they work, especially for isochronous transfers.

Once you know how the device is set up and how the stream is
organized, it should just be a matter of time and your programming
skills to make it work. And there are several drivers for proprietary
USB hardware in the kernel that you can take as an example. Needless
to say that such effort would be much appreciated by many users :)


Daniel

Re: Status of Zoom R16

[Evan]

[writing a driver for the Zoom R16]

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 4:14 PM, Daniel Mack <zonque@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Ideally, you would have an USB hardware analyzer to sniff the traffic.
> Software tracers are an alternative, but I never used any, so I can't
> tell how well they work, especially for isochronous transfers.
>
> Once you know how the device is set up and how the stream is
> organized, it should just be a matter of time and your programming
> skills to make it work. And there are several drivers for proprietary
> USB hardware in the kernel that you can take as an example. Needless
> to say that such effort would be much appreciated by many users :)


If it's up to my skills and my free time, I'm afraid the project is
doomed... :(

Thank you for your help. I'm having a hard time deciding what to buy and how
to best set up things.

Evan

Re: Status of Zoom R16

[Natanael Olaiz]

El 08/30/2011 04:14 PM, Daniel Mack escribió:
> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 4:05 PM, Evan <evan.ta.88@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 9:21 AM, Daniel Mack <zonque@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 9:04 AM, Evan Ta <evan.ta.88@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> as subj says: can you tell me how the Zoom R16 is doing? The hardware looks nice, but the latest info I can find is a seemingly unresolved  failure to work with Alsa as of feb 2010.
>>> Yes, it's currently unsupported. The device doesn't comply to the USB
>>> audio spec, and nobody with such hardware has yet taken the time to
>>> implement a driver.
>>
>> How hard is this? If I buy it and help with testing, is this something that
>> can be done without too much hassle?
> Ideally, you would have an USB hardware analyzer to sniff the traffic.
> Software tracers are an alternative, but I never used any, so I can't
> tell how well they work, especially for isochronous transfers.
>
> Once you know how the device is set up and how the stream is
> organized, it should just be a matter of time and your programming
> skills to make it work. And there are several drivers for proprietary
> USB hardware in the kernel that you can take as an example. Needless
> to say that such effort would be much appreciated by many users :)

Sorry to reply such an old mail, but I want to ask: any news? I didn't
found any.

I have one R16, and I want to help to make it works as far as I can. I'm
specially interested in make it works as a MIDI controller.

Can you give me some tips about how to procede? I would go for the
software sniffer.

I'll be also glad if you can give any example of similar driver code
that I can use as a base to modify and do some tests with the device
communication.


Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Natanael.



>
>
> Daniel
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