Ableton Forum

Hi,

A question asked a million times I am sure. But which is better a USB 2 Audio Interface or a Firewire one for a laptop?
I am looking at a few devices: The Motu 828 Mk II, The Edirol FA something (the red unit) and I have just heard that
Behringer has just released a USB 2 interface. I can't remember the model number, however it has had very good reviews in the most recent Sound on Sound.
What is efinitely essential for me os that I can plug my guitar in, so the unit must be able to have a pre amp to boost my guitar signal.
The other thing is that I only have one firewire port so is it possible to daisy chain devices? So, a firewire audio interface and an external hard drive? Will it suck up resources? I have 4 usb ports on my laptop but they are all used up.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

PS Anyone had experience with the units I have mentioned?

Bump

firewire, no competition!

I only have one firewire port so is it possible to daisy chain devices?

Possible but not recommended, specially when you are talking about audio interfaces...

I read USB2 was still on development... so I sugest you to use Firewire. I am with M-Audio FW410, is OK, it has 2 audio inputs with preamps, and also is cheaper!

But if you have your Firewire port busy, it must be USB... or installing another Firewire Port...

You can chain firewire. I have a Firewire Audiophile with a Lacie d2 chained off the back, no problems, good setup.

arzuaga wrote:

I only have one firewire port so is it possible to daisy chain devices?

Possible but not recommended, specially when you are talking about audio interfaces...

I read USB2 was still on development... so I sugest you to use Firewire. I am with M-Audio FW410, is OK, it has 2 audio inputs with preamps, and also is cheaper!

But if you have your Firewire port busy, it must be USB... or installing another Firewire Port...

Rather than daisy chaining firewire devices, how about a firewire hub? Is performance compromised though, especially with regard to sharing resources?

The difference is supported rates and latency.

My experience of total reliable IO latency;


USB 1 26ms

FW 10ms

Cardbus 4ms

BTW, I'm looking at the new Edirol as well.



I've heard horror stories about the Behringer USB 2.

it really comes down to drivers.
i know some M-Audio firewire device owners on OSX that will tell you not to buy an M-Audio device if you are using OSX.

I personally do fine with an M-Audio Sonica Theatre USB on windows XP. I get about 6ms output latency (stable and reliable) over 4 channels (2 stereo outs, 1 main 1 cue) when using the ASIO4ALLv2 driver.

Buy its very nature, firewire is the more reliable solution. but it all comes down to drivers, and when you have a crappy driver, usb or firewire won't matter.

have a look at the bugs and problems section of the forum for more info on crappy firewire drivers.

Firewire drivers are indeed a bit squirrely in OSX. I've got an m-audio 410 myself, and it's definitely not hot-swappable... in fact, any attempt to do so will cause a kernel panic and nuke my machine. However, shutting down and booting back up isn't such a big deal (esp. since it's just a laptop), so this inconvenience is worth the performance that I get out of the card.

My advice to you is go to a store such as guitar center (or anything owned by musiciansfriend.com), and buy your card there, instead of online. Then, you can take advantage of the liberal, 30-day, no-questions-asked return policy. I think I went through about 4-5 soundcards before I finally found one that I really liked that worked with my laptop as advertised.

Plus, buying it this way gave me a chance to trade in a guitar amp and cabinet head so I could actually afford the fw410... =)

dont forget to check how many pins your firewire is.
mine is only the four pin variety, which means i still need an external power supply for whatever device im using, and also the four pin sockets are minute.... one little brush against the wire and thats it...... out comes the cable and..... silence.
in the end i opted for usb2 for my hard drive and cardbus for my sound card. the usb2 allows me to send 16 - 20 stereo tracks at a time... which considering i use it for djing is more than enough.

RePeter wrote:dont forget to check how many pins your firewire is.
mine is only the four pin variety, which means i still need an external power supply for whatever device im using, and also the four pin sockets are minute.... one little brush against the wire and thats it...... out comes the cable and..... silence.
in the end i opted for usb2 for my hard drive and cardbus for my sound card. the usb2 allows me to send 16 - 20 stereo tracks at a time... which considering i use it for djing is more than enough.

This is a very valid and important point. If portability is an issue and you don't want to use and external psu then this might influence your decisison. On the other hand, if you were ever to use a usb2 audio device with a mac, be aware mac's do not support usb2 audio, as yet...

I'll chime in here with one more point. I have the Indigo I/O PCMCIA card, which is neither USB nor Firewire, but it has a problem with both my Dell and Alienware laptops:

If I don't ground-lift the laptops' power I get a harsh buzzing sound in some amplified situations. I needed to get a three-prong to two-prong adapter (here in the U.S., at least) to get rid of the buzz. I added a small surge protector for a little extra protection.

Of course, the Indigo unit just has mini-stereo (unbalanced) input and output so that's an issue too.

Mark

my .02:

I have both the Tascam US-122 USB and the Edirol UA-25 USB.

Both are having major issues with my XP SP2 machine: random
complete hardcrashes of my system when in Live ...

.. tried multiple solutions, still working on it, no clear answer.

So - sounds to me like Firewire is the way to go with XP, which has
issues fucking doling out USB resources properly at the moment ..

service pack 2 sucks anyway. i installed it and my system wouldn't even boot up anymore. i finally managed to recover with the xp installation disc.