Are you still using Firewire?

[Greg FitzPatrick]

I have had the same rig for several years. Off the shelf i5 PC, Windows 7, Focusrite Safire LE, always the latest Live.

No big problems until the whopper crash three weeks ago. Terrible, tragic.

So I built a new rig. Very up-to-date. i7 4790 cpu, Asus Ranger motherboard. Didn't even bother to check if that MOB had a 1394 port. It didn't.

My Focusrite Saffire LE is firewire-only so either I ditch it and get a new sound card or I buy a PCIe 1394 interface. I went for the latter, but it wasn't an easy find. Firewire stuff doesn't grow on trees nowadays. Anyway, I found a no-label interface for 30 euros and it worked and my Saffire lit up, but only then do I discover that Focusrite doesn't have a windows 8 driver (and never will have) for my ancient legacy sound card.

Before I had gotten the 1394 PCIe interface I had installed Asio4All V2, which is a perplexing driver if you don't spend the time to really understand how it works. I hadn't.

I take a chance and download the Windows 7 driver for my Saffire LE and it seems to work in my 8.1 PC, though not the software control panel ( which I thought terribly confusing anyway) and not with multiple device inputs. So then I finally read the Asio4All instructions and use the Asio4All driver correctly with my Saffire LE and my Audio Technics usb mike (which I forgot to mention I had) and so far everything works in Live 9.

I've tweaked my ASIO buffer size and all that and at the moment I have very acceptable latencies for my Focusrite and my AT2020 mike.

The ASIO4ALL driver is a little quirky I will have to say. You do have to turn things on and off sometimes and do restarts and so on, but once you're in a Live project and got it running it seems to be consistent. Michael Tippach deserves a lot of credit for creating it.

So, that's my story. I hope anyone in a similar predicament can learn by it.

[mcdreamer]

I have a Digidesign 003 rack which has been sitting dormant for a few years. Last time I tried to use it I had to try two different 1394 cards to find a chipset which was compatible. Additionally, finding drivers which actually work (for Windows at least) was almost impossible. As I recall the only version that worked was a beta version that was never finalised. I should sell it but realise that's probably going to be quite difficult!

These days I'm just using the onboard soundcard on my MacBook Pro which suffices for what I need (I'm 100% "in the box").

[Angstrom]

I'm still using firewire, because I'm still using a Fireface. When I built my current desktop the motherboard had a firewire header, but that didnt route to the back panel! Doh. At that time I bought a relatively cheap PCI firewire card. It isnt texas instruments chipset is all I can remember. What I know is Win 7 just installed it. Its always worked fine ever since.

[beats me]

Firewire has become the betamax/laser disc of serial buses.

[kb420]

I was using Firewire with my Motif Es through the Mlan card. Unfortunately my Motif ES was stolen. I now use a MOTU Audio Express as my soundcard. It is equipped with a Firewire connection, but I'm using the usb port.

[Fritz609]

The digi 003 rack is still running as smooth as a baby's ass. i7 16gb 4tb total HD's. Thought about going to a focusrite scarlett but figured it wasnt necessary. Wonder when its time to replace an interface. If you got it working, dont give up on it.

[H20nly]

I bought a new interface for my Mac that uses Thunderbolt, but before that I was using FireWire with a Thunderbolt adapter... On my Windows laptop I use a FireWire card and my old interface. Personally, I think it should still come standard on new equipment.

[lapieuvre]

Why don't you go back to windows 7?

[cmreal04]

Yeah still using it. My AI has a thunderbolt port, but I have FireWire cables around so...

[H20nly]

Why don't you go back to windows 7?

That suggestion at first seems a little extreme... but if you look a little deeper... There are options for compatibility mode. You might be able to install the drivers and software and set compatibility mode for Windows XP (or 7). Your interface would probably like that.

[fishmonkey]

Why don't you go back to windows 7?

That suggestion at first seems a little extreme... but if you look a little deeper... There are options for compatibility mode. You might be able to install the drivers and software and set compatibility mode for Windows XP (or 7). Your interface would probably like that.

if you dig into the guts of Windows there is gigabytes of shit dedicated to the task of trying to maintain backwards compatibility to the Middle Ages.

that's one of the good, or terrible, features of Windows (depending on your viewpoint)...

[Tarekith]

I was using FireWire with an ultralite and fireface, but decided to go USB this time around as it seemed like FireWire was getting less support.

[eyeknow]

If you have a desktop and have a TI firewire card, then it's still a viable option. I've had FW for years and years w/o issue. But, I run a desktop and have a TI chipset FW card

Other than that the general consensus is USB. Thunderbolt hasn't really taken off and to the best of my knowledge they are crazy expensive.

Really surprised they never came out with a USB3 card. You'd think with the extra bandwidth that it would be peachy for such a thing as audio transfer

[fishmonkey]

Really surprised they never came out with a USB3 card. You'd think with the extra bandwidth that it would be peachy for such a thing as audio transfer

here ya go, nearly 400 input/output channels:

http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_madiface_xt.php

[eyeknow]

2700USD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, I meant like NI, focusrite, you know, AFFORDABLE usb3 devices

Maybe usb3 doesn't improve latency.