USB or FIREWIRE for audio interface?

Hi,
what will you prefer to , USB or FireWire of your audio interface?
and why?

mactreouser wrote:
Hi,
what will you prefer to , USB or FireWire of your audio interface?
and why?
Here's the "pecking order" for performance and stability :
1.- Internal PCI or PCIe card to audio interface. These units are the best overall, both in audio quality, low latency, and reliability. Some have built in processing cards, with which you can use instead of the computer's CPU, for audio processing tasks.
2.- FireWire audio interface. These are reliable, but can have issues if not set up properly, due to the FireWire drivers which need to be used to run these units. Some have onboard "low latency" mixing facilities, and some have CPU processors for processing audio.
3.- USB 2.0 audio interface. These are also reliable, however are more limited in bandwidth than the FireWire counterparts. This is due to the different nature of the USB audio protocol VS the FIreWire one. Still, it is not that bad for home recording.
4.- USB 1.0 and 1.1 audio interfaces. These are reliable, but not recommended if a lot of realtime audio recording is going to take place. In other words they are great inexpensive units for doing programming, sequencing, editing and mixing, BUT not so much for live audio use, or live audio recording. this is due to the limitations on the USB audio protocol architecture. It simply cannot handle low latency audio very well.
Cheers

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Hi Studzik,
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nomaan84 wrote:
but they are expensive and my price range is from 100 to 150 dollars
Oh I get that... we all have to work within what we can afford.. and you are not the only one who budgets like that for sure.. but here's the thing..
Note: What follows is just a personal opinion. based on my own personal experienes and those I have worked with here and elsewhere.
You are using a $1000-$2000+ Mac... an App worth $200+ plus extra for whatever 3rd party plugins you have bought.. extra bucks for a Midi controller...and yet you are only willing/able to spend $125+ on a combined Audio/Midi inteface?
It's kind of like buying a $100K Ferrari and then putting $50 tires on it..... and expecting to get the best or even just average performance from your car? It simply doesn't work that way in reality..... and trying to make such a low budget for an Audio / Midi interface.. will only lead to possible issues in the future....
There is a good reason why it tends to be the same audio/midi interfaces which are owned by people who also report issues with the current OS X version and/or Logic .. The cheaper products simply aren't so well supported or designed/developed as the more expensive ones... and so thats what happens...
Look at the current issues going on with Mavericks for example..
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I'd rather buy a used Motu (or one of the other brands out there that are known to be reliable) for a couple of hundred bucks or so.. on eBay than buy a new cheaper interface.... but of course the choice/decision is yours.

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Hi all
I'm not being lazy, i've spent hours trawling through forums and google trying to find a fix but cant so hope someone here can help.
Basically, I've been using my Macbook for Logic Studio with an audio interface (Motu 8pre). This was connected via firewire 400 to firewire 400 and worked absolutely fine no problems.
I've recently got a Mac Pro. I've installed Logic onto it, my Motu 8pre driver etc etc and noticed that the firewire socket on the Mac Pro is different. I've been on the Motu website and quite clearly they say that a firewire 400 to firewire 800 cable will work fine with modern macs (this can be seen in more detail at bottom right of this web page http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/8pre
I've bought one of these cables and plugged them into my interface and Mac Pro respectively, switched on the device as i have been doing for the past year with my Macbook, but the MacPro just wont seem to recognise it.
How can I get this interface to work with my Mac Pro?
I've tried connecting to different ports on back and front, restarting machine but it just wont work.
Am I missing something simple here?
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Ok its official I AM a muppet.
Went onto motu site again and noticed they released an update driver for snow leopard. Downloaded it and it works fine.
Fixed.
Thanks

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hi.
if you're just backing up then usb2 would be fine. basically in the real world on mac's usb1.1 is slowest, usb2 is faster, firewire 400 is faster still - good for audio and other media and firewire800 is even faster (good for video).
For some reason usb2 is faster on pc's than mac's. usb was a system developed for pc and by pc makers(?) and firewire developed as mac equivalent.
Firewire is faster than usb2 on mac's. if you're going to be working with your media from the external disk drive then go for firewire 400 or 800. Though fw400 will be plenty enough. Also important is the ext. drive speed. 7,200rpm is the standard and fast enough. Slower than that you'll find a 5,400rpm which are typically used in laptops and portable ext. hard drives.
If price isn't an issue go firewire and 7,200prm. Also, i understand that you won't be storing the photos on your imac drive. cool....just remember to back up your important photos onto separate media!
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Thanks Mark and Smokerz,
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Bumping this once in hopes of getting an answer.

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

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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.

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Cheers
Message was edited by: BlueDingo

Don't know about PPro.
For FCP, you really should have FW. The problem you'll run into, is that the Mac Book only has 1 FW bus. It doesn't matter how many ports the computer or external have, they will all run on the same FW bus. And I don't believe the MacBook has the capability of using an Express34 card (or any other FW expandability). I could be wrong, but don't think so.
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Even capturing to the internal may not work, depending on what format you're capturing.
Hang around for other possible solutions and search this forum for 'capturing to Mac Book' or some such language.
K
and yes, USB delivers content in packets vs. a continuous stream using FW. FW is the way to go. You might have success with USB, but you'll be lucky. Try to get FW 800 if you can.

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Thanks up front ...

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Hi,
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USB or FIREWIRE for audio interface?

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