Tascam Portacapture X8 not passing Audio on Linux

[GMaq]

How is the SD Card handled in your Presonus? Does it show up as a mass storage device?

Off topic, but how do you like the Presonus. I've always been curious how good the preamps are. Mackie was always bragging up their ONYX pres. I picked up an ONYX 1-2 open box sale to run on a headless MPD system feeding a remote controlled amp for the outdoor sound system. Interface itself sounds fine, but I was underwhelmed by the ONYX pre. The pres on my Behringer are better.

Hi, thanks for all the help and the links, will dig deeper after the holidays, trying to take a screen break (well a screen time reduction)..

I've had 3 Presonus devices, an 1818VSL which passed Audio just fine on Linux but I missed out on some pretty nice Mixing and DSP stuff built in to the device and it had no direct monitoring under Linux so I sold it to a musician friend with a Windows-based Studio and bought a Presonus AR-16 which is my main board in our Studio, it works flawlessly with Linux and since it is a full Mixer it doubles as a rehearsal PA as well as allowing direct hardware monitoring. For my home dev box PC and small gigs I bought a Presonus AR8 and it also works perfectly well under Linux. In all cases the Pre's have been very quiet, or at least quiet enough to never draw any attention to themselves which is quiet enough for me...lol.

For the record the Presonii Mixers SD Card function I don't use as they only capture a Stereo mix so I've never used them as Card Readers on a computer. I would agree that Mackie is not the beacon of quality that they used to be and Behringer has upped their game pretty impressively. Presonus devices are good value for the the money IMHO and probably somewhere in the middle quality wise..

[wyattd]

Hi GMaq

Ive just joined this forum hoping to contact you regards your Portcapture X8 posts and not passing of audio.

As Ive just joined the forum rules do not allow me to PM you directly as a newbie on here.

Ive just purchased a PCX8 and seems to be experiencing exactly the same issue you had encountered end of 2022.
Im using an iMac 2020 with OSC 14.3.1 Sonoma as the computer and my PCX8 has FW v 1.32 Build 187 (latest) on a HW build of 1.00 Build 0100. Purchased Jan this year.

Just wondered if you ever got to the bottom of the issue and successfully got audio out from the PCX8 to the computer. Im on the verge of returning mine to the dealer but if Im missing something I may get charged if they test it as OK. Been searching the web for answers and your post seems to be the closest to my setup and symptoms here.

If you have time I would appreciate a response.

Thanks in anticipation.

Cheers
David

[GMaq]

Hi GMaq

Ive just joined this forum hoping to contact you regards your Portcapture X8 posts and not passing of audio.

As Ive just joined the forum rules do not allow me to PM you directly as a newbie on here.

Ive just purchased a PCX8 and seems to be experiencing exactly the same issue you had encountered end of 2022.
Im using an iMac 2020 with OSC 14.3.1 Sonoma as the computer and my PCX8 has FW v 1.32 Build 187 (latest) on a HW build of 1.00 Build 0100. Purchased Jan this year.

Just wondered if you ever got to the bottom of the issue and successfully got audio out from the PCX8 to the computer. Im on the verge of returning mine to the dealer but if Im missing something I may get charged if they test it as OK. Been searching the web for answers and your post seems to be the closest to my setup and symptoms here.

If you have time I would appreciate a response.

Thanks in anticipation.

Cheers
David

Hi, just noticed this..

I had gotten away from trying to use the PCX8 on the computer at all and last month after several newer kernel releases since I had attempted I had high hopes that perhaps it had been merged into newer kernels and was now working but as of Kernel 6.6 no dice I'm afraid, it behaves as always, everything shows up as an ALSA device but no Audio passes..

So you're telling me it also doesn't work on a Mac? That is very surprising that Tascam has not done something about that..

[Crystalyne]

Hey all!

Just wanted to post an update to this thread for anyone wondering - I've ran my own tests today having just got the Portacapture X8 for testing.

This is valid as of firmware version:

Code: Select all

2.01

- I haven't tested any older firmware versions. Tested on a system running Fedora Workstation 41 running kernel:

Code: Select all

Linux 6.13.5-200.fc41.x86_64

Good news - the device does work in Linux!

Worth noting that the device may throw an error "USB FS mismatch" which, according to the manual actually means that the sample rate set on the device and the sample rate of the connected computer is not the same. For my testing I just removed the SD card, which will cause the unit to automatically match the bit depth / sample rate to the connected computer.

By default, the device will present itself as a USB microphone, which will use the stereo mix output to the left and right channel. However, using pavucontrol it's possible to switch the device into "Pro Audio" mode which will present all 8 channels to the machine which makes it possible to record each track individually in a compatible program (or any program, provided you connect the outputs manually via JACK or Pipewire). For my testing, I used Ardour which pretty much "just worked" once the project was set up.

You can also send audio to the Portacapture X8 via the USB input, which needs to be configured on the device itself, which does work just fine - although be warned that in my tests the system volume control did affect the audio levels, so if you're using this be mindful to set the system volume level appropriately.

Worth noting that as another user mentioned, although the device shows up in alsamixer there are no controls available, meaning you can't remotely control the gain of each channel. Still works just fine adjusting gain on the device.

Hope this helps anyone reading in 2025 and beyond!

[GMaq]

Hey all!

Just wanted to post an update to this thread for anyone wondering - I've ran my own tests today having just got the Portacapture X8 for testing.

This is valid as of firmware version:

Code: Select all

2.01

- I haven't tested any older firmware versions. Tested on a system running Fedora Workstation 41 running kernel:

Code: Select all

Linux 6.13.5-200.fc41.x86_64

Good news - the device does work in Linux!

Worth noting that the device may throw an error "USB FS mismatch" which, according to the manual actually means that the sample rate set on the device and the sample rate of the connected computer is not the same. For my testing I just removed the SD card, which will cause the unit to automatically match the bit depth / sample rate to the connected computer.

By default, the device will present itself as a USB microphone, which will use the stereo mix output to the left and right channel. However, using pavucontrol it's possible to switch the device into "Pro Audio" mode which will present all 8 channels to the machine which makes it possible to record each track individually in a compatible program (or any program, provided you connect the outputs manually via JACK or Pipewire). For my testing, I used Ardour which pretty much "just worked" once the project was set up.

You can also send audio to the Portacapture X8 via the USB input, which needs to be configured on the device itself, which does work just fine - although be warned that in my tests the system volume control did affect the audio levels, so if you're using this be mindful to set the system volume level appropriately.

Worth noting that as another user mentioned, although the device shows up in alsamixer there are no controls available, meaning you can't remotely control the gain of each channel. Still works just fine adjusting gain on the device.

Hope this helps anyone reading in 2025 and beyond!

Wow, this is a day brightener! Mine was kind of becoming a paperweight, if it's suddenly a viable 8 channel USB interface whoo hoo! I'll need to wait for Kernel 6.13 I guess..