Do all FireWire 400 audio interfaces work on a FireWire 800 bus?

I have assumed that one can continue to use FW400 on the new MacBookPros with an adapter cable. But responding to a post where I noted that I was unable to daisychain an RME FW 400 to a FW800 harddisk, a forum member tells me that many FW400 audio-interfaces don't work on FW800 buses, and thus even an adapter cable would'nt work.
Is this true?
If so, the whole music/audio community on Mac will have to switch to PC, no other solution.

Although there might be a few specific devices that might have trouble, most firewire 400 devices will work with an adapter to 800. And unlike what a bunch of people on this forum complain about, having a 400 device chained with an 800 WILL NOT slow the 800 down. A few minutes doing some simple research on how firewire works would stop people from spreading incorrect information.

Similar Messages

Problem running a FW 400 audio interface at same time as FW 800 drives

I recently installed snow leopard (10.6.2) on a macbook pro 2.4 core duo. I have a couple firewire 800 drives connected. I ran into problems when I hooked up my audio interface to the firewire 400 port. I have the same problem with 2 different audio interfaces - Presonus Firebox and M-Audio Firewire Solo. Basically they refuse to work unless i unplug the firewire 800 drives. I found this information on M-Audio's website:
"Computers that have both a FireWire 400 and a FireWire 800 port may be sharing the same FireWire bus internally. When using both, the 400 and the 800 port at the same time, you may experience problems like audio drop outs or loss of connection to the M-Audio FireWire interface. There's a variety of possible reasons for this including but not limited to bandwidth limitations, clocking issues (400/800) and bus master problems with the devices connected to both ports. M-Audio recommends using the M-Audio FireWire audio interface on the computers original FireWire port while adding a separate FireWire interface card (with a Texas Instruments chipset) to the system (PCI, PCIe, ExpressCard, or PCMCIA). Connect any third party FireWire 800 devices to the added FireWire interface card. If your computer does not have expansion slots for a separate FireWire interface card there are 2 possible alternatives: If your external hard drive has FW400 connectivity, you can daisy chain the hard drive to the 2nd FireWire port* (if available) on your M-Audio Device. If your external hard drive has USB 2.0 connectivity, you can connect the hard drive to a USB 2.0 port on the computer"
This is exactly my problem. The audio interfaces work fine when hooked up to FW 400 port as long as no FW 800 devices are connected. It appears that my only solution is to buy a secondary FW interface card. However, I would like to know if there is a fix on the Apple side of this.
(note: I did not have this issue on my G5 running OS 10.4x, which is what I was on before I switched to this new laptop setup - the laptop is a 2007)
Anyone else have this issue, or know about a fix for it from Apple?

Thanks for that info, but that is not the problem. Obviously the first thing I did was check the FW cables and connections and shut down my computer and rebooted. And like I said, the FW 800 drives work fine when no FW 400 device is connected, and the FW 400 audio interface works fine when no FW 800 devices are connected.
The problem is that when the FW 800 drives are connected AND the FW 400 audio interface is also connected on the same bus (as this is a laptop there is only one bus with both 400 and 800 ports). The drives still seem to work fine, but the audio interface does not work. It's connection lights flash and will not hold a connection or process sound (there is either no sound, or clicks and dropouts). The flashing lights indicated a failed clock sync. M-Audio is aware of this issue as is apparent from my quote on the original post, but the only work around seems to add a secondary FW bus via an adapter card.
This problems seems to be a MAC issue with FW 400 and 800 and the internal clock sync.

What audio interface works best with Audition cs6

what audio interface works best with Audition cs6

It depends on how much you want to spend and how many channels you want to record/playback at once. So any decent (normally) external audio interface should do provided it also has robust ASIO drivers for your operating system. Don't go for a gamer's interface though as they are not optimised for audio recording.

This is an embarassment! What audio interface works reliably with 10.5.2?

For years Mac's have been the computer of choice for professional musicians and I was an early adherent dating back to the 80's and the first Apple MacIntoshes using MOTU Digital Performer V 1. I wandered away to PC land to do some C+ programming and recently returned with a brand new MacBook Pro only to find that the audio interfaces I have tried do not work with 10.5.2. I have tried a Firewire Interface from Tascam and a USB interface from M-Audio. Both created problems ranging from system crashes to simply not working. Is there an interface that works reliably with Leopard, 10.5.2? I can't try them all? The hardware manufacturers are scurrying to make their stuff work. Why is it so hard and why don't we hear more from Apple on this issue? Musician's have been a large part of the Mac universe. How about some support?

Ok, Bucesam, you're freaking me out. I do periodic recording with my PowerBook using a Firebox. I've used my MacBook Pro several times since I got it, too. I just upgraded the MacBook to 10.5.2. Are you telling me the next time I need it for remote recording it won't work? I can't take time to check now, but will, probably right before I need it. Dang. Like a complete idiot, I blithely overwrote the 10.4.11 backup after all seemed right with 10.5.2. If anything, I would have expected even better core audio implementation in 10.5.
Enough of my ignorant hand wringing. Can someone who knows what they're talking about (not me) speak to this before brucesam and I commit sepuku?

FW 400 audio interface + FW 800 drive simultaneously?

Hi,
I have:
Presonus Firestudio Mobile FW 400 audio/MIDI interface
iMac Intel 24-inch Mid 2007, OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard
2.4 GHz Intel Core Duo, 3 Go 667 MHz DDR2 RAM
I'm looking to get an external drive to host (and record to and edit) my Presonus Studio One music files.
The obvious option appears to be a FW 800 drive, like a G-DRIVE (or OWC or Glyph, but I'm not sure you can get OWC and Glyph easily in Europe).
My question:
Is it possible to use the Firestudio and external drive at the same time, performancewise?
The iMac has one FW 400 port and one FW 800, so the devices would NOT be daisy-chained, but it seems that the two ports are on the same bus internally?
Would this possibly cause a hiccupy performance?
If so, would an adapter such as Sonnet Yin-Yang solve the problem?
Thanks a lot for any input.
Message was edited by: hammett92

Thanks for answering,
actually the Firestudio does have an external power cord, as I recall the notice says the device will pick the "stronger" power source automatically, between FW-powered mode and external.
And the G-DRIVE and other mentioned drives have external power supply.
I'm ruling out USB as it is unanimously said to be too slow when the drive plays back N tracks and writes new track(s) at the same time. I don't have USB 3.
I've read of people having problems with a FW x 2 config, one of them said setting the clock source in Audio MIDI setup to "Mac" solved it.
Could you please explain briefly how do I use Ethernet? Is that what's called a NAS drive?
As I understand from what you said, it's the only alternative to switching to a non-FW audio interface, but that would be USB, i.e. too slow?
If that is correct, I fail to see how I can use my setup to create multitrack songs, other than using the main internal drive to house the music files, which is not recommended.
Or going the Ethernet way, which I practically never heard of related to home recording. Or do I have to assume that's what all FW audio interface users do?
I'm sorry, I know next to nothing about hardware and stuff so I may not fully understand how the whole setup is supposed to work. Please bear with me! :|

Which audio interfaces work well with CoreAudio?

A number of older USB and Firewire audio interfaces do not appear to work properly with Tiger's CoreAudio, which promises major advantages in very low latency recording. Without a proper CoreAudio driver, audio can be reduced to mostly noise with just a trace of audio remaining.
This information is difficult to find until you actually try to use a device and find that it doesn't work. Several devices I tried out last summer right after Tiger was released did not work, though they promised fixes, but I don't want to have to pay more restocking fees for devices that don't work
Could someone post a list (or a link to a list) of devices that DO work? Thanks!

Hi there,
don't buy M-Audio interfaces! I had USB and FireWire audio interfaces from them, their hardware is ok, but the software (drivers) suck! I had extremely bad latency problems. I even started a thread about it a while ago. Now I use an EDIROL FA-66 FireWire audio interface. It's a little more expensive than the M-Audio, but it works and it does NOT need any drivers because it's fully Core Audio compatible! Works good for me. I've heard similar good opinions on the Presonus FW interfaces. Hope that helps!
Björn

How many external drives per Firewire 800 bus?

I am the proud owner of a new Mac Pro, which comes with only one FW 800 bus. I have 4 1T G-Tech FW drives (2 for video media) that I've daisy-chained, and I know their performance is suffering because of it. I'd like to remedy that.
Question 1: Is it optimal to have only one of these drives running on each bus? Can I get away with two per bus without serious loss of efficiency? Can I assume that 2 per will run better than 4 per?
Question 2: For the price that OWC is selling the Sonnet Tango 800 PCI-E card (about $110), is there another card I should be considering, or is the Tango 800 considered good?
Thanks.
Giraut

giraut wrote:
videocrafter,
not to presume on your time more than i already have -- what a helpful reply you gave. thanks! -- but i just want to make absolutely sure of one thing:
i buy the esata pci-e card you mention from OWC and install it myself (probably pretty easy) and then just plug my G-Tech drives into it, and I'm good to go? No separate esata controller card? I just realized that only two of my four G-Tech drives have the esata connection, so I could plug those two in, leave the other two with my FW 800 connection and save up for a couple more G-Tech drives with the esata connection. And this will make my life better.
Correct?
many, many thanks.
giraut
Hi giraut, your welcome
That is correct, you will not need any additional controller card. You will have to install the driver for the Tempo E4P (make sure you follow the installation instructions) and you'll want to make sure you download the latest driver from Sonnet's website:
http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=338#position_content
and unless you have some application monitoring for new upgrades, I would check at least once a month if not more often for any new future drivers. They are suppose to be coming out with one here soon to support 64 Bit. Even though FCP does not yet support 64 bit if you choose to run other applications in 64 bit you don't want your eSATA controller to cause any problems.
You'll also need One external shielded eSATA data cables with "I-Shape" connectors for each device you connect to the card. So in your case, you'll need 2 right away. Here is the type of cable you need, it just happens to be made by Sonnet, but you can find cheaper ones (just remember, you get what you pay for).
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/TCBSATA11/
There is one bit of insight I would like to give you when swapping any of your internal drives around once you have this card installed. It probably tells you in the owners manual, and I just stopped reading once I got it up and running. However I found out the hard way. The first time that I swapped out one of the "Internal" drives (I swapped out the drive in bay 3 I think it was, makes no difference which bay I'm sure) but I simply shut down my system, unplugged the computer and swapped out the drive. When I started back up, I things didn't' seem right, it wasn't seeing my external drives properly and I got a panic attack (both the computer and me!). Of course my first thought was "YOU'VE GOT TO BE FREAKING KIDDING ME!" So after I took a deep breath, before turning the computer back on, I disconnected my external enclosure, then restarted and everything was find. I then completely shut down, turned on my enclosure and restarted. All was good. I tested my theory again and swapped out another internal drive and all went like clockwork. Here are the exact steps I took. They worked for me, and maybe they will work for someone else, so I'll list them here:
Swapping Internal Drive
1. Eject each external drive from the enclosure and power down the enclosure.
2. Eject and power down the FireWire drive.
3. Power down the computer and swap out drives.
4. With the external enclosures powered off, power up the computer as normal.
5. Accomplish another shut-down.
6. Make sure all of the drives are installed into the enclosure, turn on the power.
7. Power up the computer and keep your fingers crossed.
Personally I've never daisy-chained Firewire drives (although I find it fascinating that Patrick had 19 of them daisy-chained) if I did I would probably only use them for archiving since I capture and edit everything in ProRes 422, but that's another thread. I currently only have one device that I use via firewire 800 which is my external Blu-ray burner. An interesting note here. I initially had my Blu-ray burner connected to my former piece of junk eSata controller card (with the Silicon Image SiI3124 chip and drivers that haven't been updated since before Leopard came out) but for whatever reason, the Tempo E4P wasn't seeing it (Now I'm not sure why, and frankly I didn't take the time to troubleshoot it, so it may be nothing) I just went ahead and connected the burner up as Firewire 800, and connected my 3rd external eSata device (a OWC Mercury Elite Pro USB/Firewire/eSata drive) to port 2 of my Tempo E4P, with my 5 drive bay FirmTek/5PM eSata enclosure connected to port 1 of the E4P (leaving 2 open ports on the E4P).
So, If I were you, for now I would go ahead and daisy-chain those other 2 Firewire drives, unless I needed to use them to capture and edit in anything other than DV, or for archiving only. Otherwise, I would get another 5 bay enclosure and take those 2 SATA drives out of those 2 existing firewire enclosures (Im assuming they are SATA drives inside their enclosure, I would surely think so) and put them in the external eSata enclosure.
One last ti-bit of information that may or may not be useful. When you get an external 5 bay enclosure with the port Multiplier, pay a little extra for a brand that you can trust. Personally, since I already have one, I would stick with the SeriTek SATA5PM (their built like a tank!), or go with a Sonnet, OWC has a new price on their Fusion D500P that's pretty appealing. I would definitely be cautious if wanting to purchase anything for a specific company with the word "Cool" in their name, the only thing that is cool, and it's only cool for them is they get your money and you get .... well you know!
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/SATA5PM/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/FUSD5P00TBR/
Just in case anyone is wondering, I get no compensation in any fashion for any of the items that I have specifically linked to in this post. These items are simply ones that I have carefully done my homework on, and if it can save someone else a little time by helping them with their homework, then that makes me feel good. I'm all for helping others save time, it's the most precious resource we have.
Message was edited by: videocrafter

List of soundcards/audio interfaces working under Mac OS 10.6 + Logic 9 ?

hey everybody,
I have a Digidesign Digi 002 and the Core Audio drivers for Snow Leopard are not avalaible yet.
I am looking to get another soundcard/interface until the Digi 002 drivers are available.
What cards/interfaces are compatible with Snow Leopard + Logic 9 ?
Is there a list of all compatible cards/interfaces ?
Thanks for your help

I guess you're up & running by now with your 002rack.
I have a similar system to you. I've just upgraded to LP9 (updated to 9.0.2) & OSX 10.6.1
I then had to upgrade to PT8 - then update to PT8.3cs and finally I'm up and running with both logic & pro tools.
The only problem I now have is due to organising my loop browser. Re indexing has proved hit and miss.
After I pull in a folder from an external drive, I notice that previous folders added to my browser have gone.
Also I can't find the 're-index' option within the loop browser search option (right click brings down a list but the re-index option isn't there)
Interested to see what you find.
Ash

Imported Video is all black but audio still works

Hello,
I have a Nikon V1. Whenever I shoot video using the 1080/60i setting and upload those video clips into Final Cut Pro X, they have no video, they just appear black.The audio works but there is a weird background noise that shouldnt be there. The main issue is that I can't use the video because it is all black.
Please Help. Thanks,
Geoff

This is everything that the Movie Inspector displays in QuickTime Player.
Source: Macintosh HD/Users/gdtrocker/Desktop/DSC_0792.MOV
Format: AVC Coding, 1920 × 1080, Millions AAC, Stereo, 48.000 kHz
FPS: 59.94
Data Size: 737.4 MB
Data Rate: 24.11 Mbit/s
Current Size: 1,280 × 720 pixels

MBP FireWire 800 bus has corrupted 3 drives

Hello,
I have been working with a friend on a recording of their band. We recorded a 24 track Pro Tools 9 session of their latest show. Everything has been working flawlessly until last night.
I received a frantic call from my buddy yesterday telling me that his buss powered FW drive all of a sudden unmounted and now is unrecognizable by the system. When he plugs it in to the 800 port it powers up and is recognized by the system but says that it needs to be formatted. We checked it in disk utility but it says the drive is corrupted and cannot be repaired.
In an effort to recover the un-backed-up audio data he bought Pro Soft's disk recovery software. It was able to see the data on the drive so he started the recovery process. about 5 hours or so into the process the destination disk unmounted and is now unrecognizable by the system. Same error, the disk needs to be initialized and disk utility is unable to repair the problem.
Unfortunately he also hooked up his backup drive to the system and it became corrupted it as well after a few hours. (Not my suggestion).
Long story longer... We now have 3 drives that are full of data but cannot be recognized by any system. He tried mounting them on his girlfriends old Power-book but gets the same error. We also took the drives that have USB and hooked them up via USB but still have the same error.
I think he is going to have to send in the computer to apple care but I thought I would ask if anyone has any suggestions.
He has a newer MBP Core 2 Duo running 10.6.4
THANK YOU!

You may have overloaded the port, following the instructions below it should reset:
+1. Shut down the computer.+
+2. Disconnect all devices and all other cables, except the keyboard and mouse cable(s).+
+3. Disconnect the computer from the power outlet and wait for 3 to 5 minutes.+
+4. Plug the computer back in and turn it on.+
+5. Reconnect the device(s) (one at a time if there is more than one) and test. Test with each port if you have more than one.+
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317?viewlocale=en_US

Is there a way to link up my firewire 400 Audio I/O into USB3 or Thunderbolt?

Hi all,
I'm currently struggling trying to link my Firewire 400 Audio Interface to my new imac.
There seems to have no easy way to link it up to either USB2/3 or Thunderbolt.?
Cheers

It would require both a > Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter - Apple Store (U.S.) and a Amazon.com: elago FireWire 400 to 800 Adapter for Mac: Electronics
I don't have an Audio Interface to test, but sucessfully use the above connection with a couple of old Maxtor FireWire 400 HD Enclousures.
Also see > thunderbolt to firewire400 adapter? - Apple Store (U.S.)

M-Audio 1814 and FireWire 800

I am working on a MBP and Logic 8, using the Vienna Symphonic Library on external hard drives, one 250 GB LaCie, the second a 500 GB Maxtor. When I use the external hard drives with FireWire 800 first the Audio Interface starts clicking, using Logic 8 the system crashes seriously. If I use the FireWire Hub on the back of my Cinema Display, the 1814 is not recognized.
For the use of the VI-Library I need fast hard drives, the CPU seems not to be the problem. Why I cannot use FireWire 400 (Audio Interface) and Firewire 800 hard drives?

Thank you Chris, I just wonder why Bee Jay can use the HD FW800 with the M-Audio Firewire interface without problems.
I use the ext HD for backup too, but sometimes I need to find something in my backups and I have to turn off the audio interface and copy the files on my internal HD ... then turn off the drive again and turn on the M-Audio ... it's very annoying.
In some forum I read that the problem can be the firewire chipset, but my iMac has the Lucent and the MacBook Pro has the TI (reccomended by M-Audio) ... same problem on both machines.
I did some test:
1) If I use the FW800 external HD and the FW400 with iMovie and my Video Camcorder I have no problem at all. I tried to use the HD at maximum (during a time machine backup I was copying other files and saving the HDV files in the same external HD) and everything works perfectly without loosing a single frame.
2) If I connect the HDV camcorder to the M-Audio interface I cannot even start the capture ... I have to turn off the external FW800 HD.
It looks that the problem is definitely in the M-Audio Firewire driver but unfortunatley the M-Audio e-mail support is only for US customers ... and I'm Italian.
Is there any US customer that has this problem and can insist with the M-Audio support?
Maybe they can solve it in the next release ...
Thank you in advance.

No way 2 get FW800 bandwidth for my HDs while using a FW400 audio interface

I make music with my MBP. I use LaCie d2 hard disks, and a M-Audio FW410 audio interface.
I recently sold my MBP 2.0 to upgrade to the newer MBP 2.33, because I need FW800 bandwidth to get the maximum audio track count out of my system using Logic Pro and ProTools M-Powered.
I've made this work before on a G5 dual2.0 - by using only the front panel FW400 port, I was able to get the rear FW800 port to work at full bandwidth.
Not so with the new MBP.. I knew that plugging anything into the MBP's FW400 port would take the whole bus down to 400, so I purchased a SIIG FW 2-port ExpressCard/34 to create a separate FireWire bus, hoping that I could then use my FW410 interface with it @ 400Mb/sec, while keeping the LaCie drives alone on the FW800 port to get 800Mb/sec.
Unfortunately, as soon as the SIIG card is inserted, even though it does create a separate FW bus, it still takes the MBP's built-in FW bus down to 400Mb/sec!
This is poor design IMHO, because it means there is no way to use the full 800Mb/sec bandwidth of the FW800 port if you're trying to use any FW400 interface at the same time.. And of course other than RME's FireFace800, nearly all audio interfaces work at 400Mb/sec. And since I also use ProTools M-Powered, it's not even an option.
Why does the old G5 have properly separate FW controllers, but the new MBP does not?
My only option now to get a SATA ExpressCard/34 and new SATA enclosures for all my drives.. Needless to say I'm not happy and wish Apple would publish more detailed info about such things!
MBP 2.33 Intel Core 2 Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2Gb Ram, LaCie d2 HDs, M-Audio FW410, SIIG Exp34 2-port FW card

That is very interesting.
I understand your dillema and have to agree with you that Apple should publish this information.
It does rather compramise the addition of the fw800 port and one would naturally assume that the two busses were seperate.
The lack of info from Apple is reflected in the fact that those who read this forum are significantly more knowledgeable than those who work for Apple.
Well done for posting this.
If anyone can confirm it with a second opinion we can then rest assured in our greater knowledge.
Apple - - - once again get with it and drop the secrecy.

Hard-drive and audio interface set-up - Advice please

Hello,
Please offer me some advice if you can. I have the new 13" macbook pro 2.26Ghz with Logic Studio. I am going to get a hard-drive that has both usb and firewire 800 interfaces and need to decide whether to get a usb or firewire audio interface. The crux of my problem is in what configuration to use the devices, which will determine which audio interface I choose. E.g.
1. Firewire 800 hard-drive to record tracks onto and back-up + usb audio interface; or
2. Firewire 800 hard-drive as above + firewire 400 audio interface daisy-chained; or
3. Record onto the internal hard-drive and use a usb audio interface; or
4. Record onto the internal hard-drive and use a firewire 400 interface.
FYI, the audio interfaces I'm looking at are the E-Mu 0404 USB or Focusrite Saffire LE, both of which have had excellent reviews.
Questions to consider, please, are: Which configuration will offer the best performance and least latency? Is it worth recording onto external hard-drive (7,200) or will the internal drive (5,200) be faster/as fast? Will daisy-chaining cause a significant drop in performance? Do you have any alternative configuration suggestions? Plus any other comments you can think of.
Thank you in advance
Jamie

The good thing about #2, if the drive enclosure also has a USB 2.0 interface you have the option of using/trying that configuration as well. I know a few that get away with using USB drives for recording.
Make sure the audio drive is formatted Mac OS Extended, with Journaling OFF.
Don't trust the drive formatting as it's delivered.
pancenter-

Recording with audio interface FCA 202 Behringer

Recording from mixing board through audio interface and was wondering how to record new track and listen to the other tracks at same time to play to? I know I want to use headphones but where do I plug headphones into? tried coming off of computer and did not work. Could come off of audio interface but that would probley give me just my sound going to the computer. Not quite sure of the signal pattern I need to set up?... Do I patch another cable out of the interface to the board and listen with headphones off the board. Not sure if the audio interface works in 2 diffrent directions at once thru the firewire cable..

You choose the output in Garageband > Preferences > Audio Midi. Just choose built in output and monitor from your mac.
If you return audio from the interface back to the mixer you could monitor from the mixer. Also monitoring playback along with a dry input will insure zero latency.

Do all FireWire 400 audio interfaces work on a FireWire 800 bus?

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