Hi Harry, Hi Ralf, Thank you for the fast answers. Harry, in fact you did not quite answer question 1 : do I have to use hdsploader ? Put it another way, would the card be recognized if the firmware is not ok? This firmware question is not clear for me : I fear to corrupt the card's windows firmware if I run hdsploader. Maybe that's completely wrong...

I agree that using amixer seems to be a horrible way to work, but I could not manage to get anything out of hdspmixer... There is no way to change the routes it loads by default ! clicking on the playback labels doesn't allow to check or uncheck existing boxes.

This is why I wonder if there isn't anything wrong with my setup, namely : would the use of hdsploader change hdspmixer's behaviour ?

Regarding the AIO: if only two ADAT ports show up in Jack that has nothing to do with the mixer. Why that problem still exists after more than three years is another matter, I for sure don't understand why that should be so.

On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 3:34 PM, francois bluewin < francois.juigner(a)bluewin.ch&gt; wrote: (1) hdsploader has nothing to do with "firmware" although people often use that term. What is loaded is actually configuration data for the Xilinx chip, mostly to set up the matrix mixer (2) the device driver will load the "firmware" itself automatically. The only time hdsploader is useful these days is when for some odd reason you need/want to force a reload without rebooting. hdspmixer is modelled on RME's own TotalMix and you should visit their website to read up on how it works (newer versions of TotalMix are a bit different, however). It isn't a particularly intuitive design, but once you understand it things will be much more clear. remembering that clarity can be hard, depending on your age and aptitude. no. and by the way, using amixer is not horrible. I have this little script which i used to use to configure my Digiface. It is really useful and much faster than firing up hdspmixer and loading some preset. #!/bin/bash AMIXER="amixer -q" CARD="-c 1" if [ x$1 = xon ] ; then gain=32768 verb="route" else gain=0 verb="mute" fi shift; #input_source : 0-25 (physical channels), # 26-51 (software playback) #output_source : 0-25 (physical channels), # 26-27 (line out) case $1 in play) for chn in $(seq 26 51);do $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 $chn,$(($chn-26)),$gain done ;; thru) for input in $(seq 0 25);do for output in $(seq 0 25); do if [ $input != $output ]; then $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 $input,$output,$gain fi done done ;; thru12) $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 0,0,$gain $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 1,1,$gain ;; mon) for chn in $(seq 26 51);do if [ $(($chn % 2)) -eq 0 ] ; then $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 $chn,26,$gain else $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 $chn,27,$gain fi done ;; all) for input in $(seq 0 51); do for output in $(seq 0 27); do echo -n "." if [ $gain = 0 -o $input != $output ]; then $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 $input,$output,$gain fi done echo done ;; off) for input in $(seq 0 51); do for output in $(seq 0 27); do echo -n "." if [ $gain = 0 -o $input != $output ]; then $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 $input,$output,$gain fi done echo done ;; esac