KVR :: Computer Setup and System Configuration » Firewire Question [View Original Topic]
There are 41 posts in this topic.

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jtiis - Mon Apr 09, 2012 7:27 am

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Hi all,

Got a new computer and am using a Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 (firewire) with it. I've been told the computer is good to go with this interface but pretty much all the time when I first startup I'll get a distorted, fuzzy signal. If in Cubase (which is pretty much all the time), I see when DeviCe Setup first pops up (in the VST area) Firewire shows as disconnected, but then will automatically connect... Still, this seems to make no difference as I can't shake the distorted signal.

I find I have to close Cubase, shutdown and restart... then, most of the time all is well. I am hooking up and turning on the Focusrite before the computer startsup also.

Anyone have a similar problem or know what might be the source?
TIA.

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timobrien - Mon Apr 09, 2012 10:15 am

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First try another cable. Yes even new ones can be bad.

Second, open your device manager and open the IEE-1394 (firewire) widget.

If it doesn't say Texas Instruments anywhere you need a different firewire card.
Audio interfaces, as a general rule, prefer TI chips.

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jtiis - Mon Apr 09, 2012 10:34 am

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Thanks for the cable suggestion. I'll give it a try.

As for the TI bit, Ik now this is generally the case, but no TI card to change - this is my new ADK lappy. Pre-sales they confirmed it adn the Focusrite would play nice so, until proven otherwise I'm taking ADKs word for it. They tend to know their stuff.

Again, thanks.

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jcschild - Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:03 am

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have you called support yet?

Scott
ADK

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jtiis - Mon Apr 09, 2012 1:42 pm

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Hi Scott,

No trying to let you guys do your thing. Thought I'd seek out general info on Firewire issues first... maybe I was starting things up in the wrong order or such. Checking the cord sounds like a reasonable first step. But barring such a solution I'm sure I'll be dialing your number... Thanks

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ford442 - Mon Apr 09, 2012 1:52 pm

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firewire can be finicky.. try a cable for sure - i had a bad SATA cable just an hour ago giving me spinning question-marks until i pulled out a new one a tried it.. now all four hds are playing nice..

one thing i have tried in the past is to use the mini-firewire jack if it has one and you have the cable - this will run it with no power connection - you must plug it into the wall though..

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jtiis - Mon Apr 09, 2012 7:23 pm

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The laptop only has a miniwire - so, that's what I'm doing now. Got home and found I only have the 1 firewire mini cord - so, I may give ADK a call in the a.m. - if they have not fix then I'll order one. Thanks.

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lfm - Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:03 am

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Sales - they just as often recommend stuff they want to get rid of.

Overall, USB is greatly improved and worked on for every new generation of computers.

Firewire is pretty much forgotten and has not improved anything.

I struggled with testing firewire when buying a new computer 2 years ago(i7 2.6). Three month of testing different firewire interfaces, cables, drivers and I don't know what else.

4 different interface cards, 3 TI, one VIA, three PCI Express and one PCI, three brands of cables.

Summary of these tests:
1. Too much wasted cpu
I could not get lower than 7% cpu overall(20% one core of 8 ), just keeping audio up. No software running.

I could very well use that cpu for something better, like running more tracks and plugins.

2. Connectors are really poor - really sensitive to tiny bends and it all stops working. It's really old technology as I see it.

USB and network connectors you can abuse quite a bit without any problems.
I had a tiny bend when table was against the wall - and that was enough for firewire to stop working.

3. Nothing is improved on this interface over the years. Yes, there are 400 and 800 Mhz buses.

But one interesting thing was that a SP on XP really shut down FW to 100 Mhz. And there is a fix to set it back to 400, but this was strongly not recommended by Microsoft and only if you had problems with 100Mhz limit.

That kind of says it all - it's shaky. I got plenty BSOD running 400 mode.

I would really swap to USB stuff instead. In the end you will get this firewire running I'm sure, but it's really a dead end, and the next computer you get might put you back to square one again.

I went for internal RME cards, but if needing external I would get USB based.

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jcschild - Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:21 am

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watch it there buddy. that may happen at other stores but not ours.
add to that if you have a desktop there is no way you cant get a TI firewire chipset and have it NOT work right unless you dont know what you are doing..

we installed the Saffire Pro 24 here (along with numerous software) and tested it and its known to work..

Joel, did we send you a 6 to 4 pin cable?

and yes its very common to have a bad cable.

Scott
ADK

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jtiis - Tue Apr 10, 2012 6:49 am

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Yeah, ADK is very different than other sellers...read Scott's posts here and on other forums...he's helping all kinds of folk with computers they're building which would in fact keep some potential business away from his shop. Their approach with me was to ask me what I want to do and explain the pros and cons of cheaper and more expensive options. Zero sales pressure, just Qs and As...that's what I liked about them...and that your talking to a real person every time...that's different too!

As for the Saffire Pro, I already had it...they just confirmed it would work with what they were building for me.

Scott, no accompanying cable that I saw. Should there have been one? again, it wasn't your AI. if so, I'll recheck the box.

Joel

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jtiis - Tue Apr 10, 2012 6:58 am

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Oh, lfm...thanks for your feedback. In fact imay go USB down the road as it has improved and is stable/easy to use...on a Lappy one of its downsides is it steals a precious USB which must be used for I-locks, Pace locks and a keyboard if it's USB too. That FW has its own is a little good right now.

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lfm - Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:11 am

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I'm not watching it, I'll dive even deeper

But I'm not trying to be hostile, just curious.

What else do you have against my reasoning?

Why recommend firewire anything above USB as of today?
Many brands have overcome the former problems with usb, like high latency etc.

On what ground do you recommend firewire for somebody just buying new computer and interface?

I tested TC Electronics Impact Twin and Focusrite Saffire Pro 40(summer 2010).
Yes, I got them working. Little different depending on host used, Sonar and Reaper. Reaper worked the best with both. But none of them could make me run as low as 128 samples latency, this on a new i7 860 2.6G cpu.

And I felt a little bit what you claim "have it NOT work right unless you dont know what you are doing" that you need to be a technician to tweak everything to get it working.

Switching Windows drivers to legacy driver, altering bios settings for cores and stuff like that. Cables are really stiff, and you need to be sure not to cause tension. Plugging in and pulling out microphone cables and moving the unit is enough to cause severe tension making it fail.

And chipset need to TI and being in contact with Focusrite you actually have to be careful which motherboards you choose for your computer. I was in contact to see if you could turn off the number of inputs/outputs not used to save cpu - which was not possible. I mean it runs 4500 contextswitches/second - that is heavy load for a process.

I just strongly feel it's bad advice recommending firewire today - unless you really know customer knows what they are doing technically.

For somebody just wanting to make music without a hazzle I think USB is a better choice. Cables are very flexible and seldom cause problems when moving them around a bit.

Firewire is really built for the burst kind of technology like discs and cameras and stuff, not realtime audio.

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jtiis - Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:54 am

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Lfm, I do appreciate your advice but ADK did not advise I go with a FireWire setup. I am using Focusrite's FW setup of my own choosing...I don't guess Scott has a lot of control over whether Clevo puts in a FW port or a 4th USB... ADK has FW and non-FW laptops available...I wanted the 8600 and that happens to come with FW...ADK went the extra mile to test it with my softs before shipping... Perhaps Scott likes USB more than FW too, I don't know, but his "watch it there" wasnt about FW, it was about saying they just unload whatever they have...in this case they were selling exactly what I asked for...and their site already touches on the pros and cons of FW and non-TI chip concerns ...in fact, that's how I knew to ask them if my AI would work out...no complaints here.".good support by me...

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jcschild - Tue Apr 10, 2012 8:53 am

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oh really? that pretty much tells me what you know (or dont know)
maybe you better tell that to lets see
RME, Motu, Lynx, Prism (sorta), Stienberg, M-Audio (some), Avid (Mbox Pro as well as previous Digi Gear), Yamaha.

as all these work well at low latency and high i/o.

Echo, Mackie (oynx) (prism should actually go here) are not far behind..
and yes there are many who have crap drivers and cant do low latency.

for every crap firewire interface there is 10 crap USB ones.

USB known to work well

RME, Lynx, Motu, M-Audio ultra 8R, Presonus AudioBox VSL series, and now supposedly Steinberg (have not tested it again so cant comment).

all the rest are CRAP.

so your foolish USB is better than firewire is just that, foolish and shows your lack of knowledge in this area.

now had you said "you have a better chance of USB working on a laptop than firewire"
i would have said heck yeah you are right. but its still slim pickings as to if it will or not.. laptops are a real PITA.

as mentioned he ALREADY owned the focusrite unit we just tested/installed with one of ours here.
has i sold him an interface it would have been one of the mentioned above..

FYI video is far more demanding than audio bandwidth wise, its just video does not have or need adjustable buffering like audio does..
yes got experiance in that area as well..

Scott
ADK

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timobrien - Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:38 am

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Wow... among all the other wrong info, that's the wrong-est.

USB is burst mode while firewire is continuous peer-to-peer.

USB craps out over 16 simultaneous chanels while fw400 goes well over 100, fw800 does over twice that.
fw1600 and 3200 specs are approved but not even major studios needed the bandwidth to stream that many simultaneous channels. Who needs to hook up 300 or more simultaneous mics?
Thunderbolt (now on macs, coming to PCs) is a superset of firewire thats 10x faster and backwards compatible.

// My last daw was a Gateway XP laptop with built-in TI firewire with a Glyph fw400 drive to Motu828mkII.
ZERO problems and I could get down to single-digit latency.

// My current daw is an iMac going to two Glyph fw800 then to the same Motu828mkII. ZERO problems.

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lfm - Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:28 pm

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Of course they work - it wouldn't be on the market if it didn't.

But I could not get down to 128 samples which I think is acceptable. 160 samples with WDM and 192 with ASIO was the best I got.

And I find the cpu consumption and the sensibility for cable tension unacceptable.

Look closely at the long contact surface of the fingers in connectors that makes it very sensible to bend and tension. Really poor technology.

Firewire did not start up as a realtime audio interface!!!

But being the first high bandwidth external interface it were everything that USB could not handle in the early years.



Quite right, but those are quite a lot of good ones.



There is a saying - when lacking arguments you start getting personal.

I designed computer hardware in the 70's and 80's, and been doing programming for almost 30 years. I know a few things.



I think you are right about that. Too common that users think a laptop cpu is what a stationary cpu is.



I got the impression you recommended the whole lot with computer and interface - and was curious why you chose to recommend firewire, that's all.

OP explained in his comment above that he wasn't - so you are not to blaim - you probably just answered if it would work.

He showed all the trust in you guys - and I just pointed to the fact how sales usually works.
- we got plenty in stock of these, recommend this as often as you can
- we have better profit margin on this brand, recommend this as often as you can

I apologize if you felt offended.



But as you know, video is pretty much processed in the GPU, and it's not realtime in the same sense.

It consist of frames - as I wrote burst kind of technology.

Put 30 fps through, and you're pretty much done. 33 ms each frame.

For audio 128 samples 48khz, you need to process every 2.7ms. More then 10 times as often as a video frame.

You have to tweak a computer much more to be reliable on realtime audio it seems. Even turn off a lot of hardware acceleration for graphics and stuff. Recommendations include turning off visual styles in Windows etc.

If I had shadows on menu-popups on - it would crackle a little bit when Í opened a menu.

If having WLAN adapter going, you have to turn it off, or audio would crackle.

Oour eyes are less sensible to variation in framerate than our ears are to dropouts.

So bursting video through is pretty easy task.

It seems to me that realtime audio is much harder task to perform well.

My view is that firewire is still here because it was the first high bandwidth interface for external devices like videocameras and harddisks.

USB is developing quickly and is the future - and it's highly intergrated on motherboards from start on all computers. And there are enough good ones on the market today as well.

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BertKoor - Wed Apr 11, 2012 12:19 am

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Where did you get that PC from? I guess if it was built by ADK you could get quite lower...
All done by ADK. They guarantee a specific setup works as it says on the tin. If you buy a gaming PC or throw some "random" components together, there's no guarantee at all. This is true for both FireWire and USB interfaces. If you want to get the very most out of it then a custom-written BIOS is needed. If your demands are lower then you probably can get it working reasonably well.
Shop around, get a more flexible cable!
This shows how wrong you are and how little you know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewire
FireWire sets up a continuous data stream, while USB sends individual packages. Which one do you think is more efficient for real-time transfer of audio streams?
Actually it did:
When I heard the news of the first USB audio interface I laughed. Do you want audio streams to share the same bus that is used for low-speed devices such as keyboard and mouse?
Partially wrong as well. USB 1.1 is sufficient for a simple 2-track full-duplex setup. USB2 was released in 2000, the same year IEEE1394a came out.
You should then know there's always things you don't know. For example: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=346205
The application receives the audio in packages of whatever you have set your ASIO buffer size. It's the responsibility of the FireWire interface (you know, that part that has to be made by Texas Instruments) to put the individual bits into bytes and make it accessible to the driver which then presents a tidy buffer to the application.
This is true for any "power user" that wants to use the PC for actually getting things done. Make it more efficient by not letting it do things not really needed.
That shows somewhere a priority is set wrong. I'd first have a look at the DPC Latency of the graphics card.
This is a known issue. Wifi adapters usually have extremely "selfish" drivers.
It's actually the reverse. Do the maths, calculate the needed bandwidth. Compare sizes of 1 minute of audio and 1 minute of video.

Do you know how the common 44.1kHz sampling rate of audio came about? It was because it fitted representation on analog video tape.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCM_adaptor

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lfm - Wed Apr 11, 2012 12:28 am

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What I meant by "burst" was simply that video is framebased - opposed to realtime audio. Everything in a computer can be seen as burst kind of transfer, but that is not what I meant.

A harddrive is not sensitive to exact which instant it's getting each sectors information.

Our eyes are not as sensitive to variation in framrate as our ears are to dropouts.

But I also had plenty feedback on different forums that firewire is better implemented in Apple computers. Not so cpu intense.

On PC I find the cost of using firewire is to high and reliability is to low. I want to make music - not tweak computer all day long.

You have to be aware of which motherboard you have(according to Focusrite folks).

Which chipset and cables you use are equally important.
Which drivers for Windows and how well are audio interface drivers?

And tweak bios setting as well.

That's the simplified version of my arguments.

Why choose an interface and worry about all these things - when there are better options.

I will go internal cards if stationary computer - but if needing the flexibility and move interface USB is the obvious choice today - as I see it.

If you got a big professional studio and everything mounted in a fixed way in racks it's another story really. All cables are equally mounted and fixed to the units - and patch bays are used for pluggin in or pulling out microphones for sessions.

With a smaller firewire interface and you plug you cables in and out the interface will move around a little bit - that enough to make the tension for cable loose full contact.

I would never go there again - firewire is asking for trouble for the smaller studio.

Internal cards with ADAT/AES/EBU (RME or Lynx)or similar is what I would go for if needing really large amounts of inputs and outputs.

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lfm - Wed Apr 11, 2012 12:46 am

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Big defense for what ADK does here.

Why did this thread come about, one wonders, if they really fixed everything to the degree that you say?

Probably because there is something to what I say - firewire is very sensible technology to malfunction.

Tweaking around like hell for almost three months with firewire stuff I tested everything I felt was probable cause of problems.

4 different interface cards(from $20-$150), 3 TI, 1 VIA, 3 PCI Express, 1 PCI. 3 brands of cables that are rediculous in price.

I was really going for making my new daw as good as possible - but was not able to get close to what I wanted with firewire.

I'm just sharing my experience doing this - trying to save others from having to go through the same thing.

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BertKoor - Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:16 am

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To some extent I agree with you. Especially: That's a very true statement.

If you had done some basic homework you could have known FireWire is potentially the Road to Hell. But luckily if you are prepared to pay for it, you can get safely across.

FireWire is far from perfect, but neither is USB. Consumer PCs (and especially laptops) are not built for real-time audio processing. It's a niche market.
Because simple things like faulty cables do occur. Things do go wrong in the real world.
That's exactly what ADK does, but in a completely different way
Have you read this page?
http://www.adkproaudio.com/compete.cfm
Scroll down to the chapter "Issues with the majority of new laptops". They get them working fine by getting the right components and the right BIOS code. Not just BIOS settings but the actual program code needs to be adapted. That's what makes their computers better / suitable for FireWire, you cannot buy it in the shop around the corner.

Anyway, let's put the USB-FireWire flamewar to rest right here, and let's hope the issue of the OP is a simple matter of replacing the cable. I'm sure ADK can take care of these things.

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lfm - Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:28 am

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It's always interesting to try your arguments - and I don't mind a difference of opinion either. That is what forums are for.

In my case I guess I heard much pleading for firewire and was curious when about to set up my new daw - and found that my old RME card did not get any x64 drivers and had to look at alternatives.

I got a new internal RME card and is merry as a lark. No wasted cpu on the audiopart and no issues whatsoever.

Good talking to you.

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jcschild - Wed Apr 11, 2012 5:23 am

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just for the record this thread went sideways with your "thats what sales do" BS comment

whilst i agree this is the norm at many stores, it absoultely is not here.

1) I dont pay commmision (for this very reason)

2) we dont "Sell" here we guide there is a massive difference. more often than not we will talk you OUT of spending more money..

3) my employess and i actually give a crap about our clients (i have some great employees) we build long term relationships not get rich quick sales..

4) i dont do large buy ins to get discounts and then try to push that item.

5) we actually support what we sell so it dang well better work..

so yes your snide comment did offend me and i have alligator skin.

and as to Firewire i have NO problems running at 64 or lower buffer on laptop or desktop with the RIGHT interface and right hardware. if you did well... never mind..
Scott
ADK


Bert thank you!
man that page you linked is really old.. i completely forgot about it.. thats like from 5 yrs ago.. i need to update that LOL..

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BertKoor - Wed Apr 11, 2012 8:15 am

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For your piece of mind, there's no way I know of to get to that page other than a deep link through Google or a forum post. It's a nice article nevertheless, although obviously it needs an update. If you can find the time for a rewrite and a way to access it through the site menu structure, that would be much appreciated. Also saves you explaining again and again why ADK succeeds where home-built machines fail

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Ether Trogg - Wed Apr 11, 2012 7:45 pm

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Hey jcschild,

Just for the record:
I'd purchased an entire desktop studio build through ADK - I've been incredibly satisfied! It took me 2 weeks or so to decide on the components and the person I spoke with gave great advice and helped me pick what would work best for my workflow & needs.

I too have a Saffire Pro 24 DSP and have recently had the crackling issues (although it seems like after installing Maschine, even after updating Saffire drivers). I'll have to try the advice listed, such as with a new cable.

Unfortunately, my issues started right after the Saffires warranty ended (bought in december 2010). Also have an issue with a 1/4" stuck in the Combo XLR port on the front, which sometimes seems to add noise to playback in Abelton unless I disable the input. Now that I think of it, ADK gave a great warranty, I'll look up my recipt

ADK was the best experience I've ever had with purchasing audio (they make Guitar Centers service look like a kick in the groin). If you're ever looking for a PC that want to be sure works, works well, and is put together well (the inside is very well assembled), I would highly recommend. <end 2 cents>

Oh yeah, and they tested everything for me, then repacked it, so when I got my order, I literally took it out of the box, plugged it in and was producing right after booting up!

~EDIT~
jcschild, out of curiosity, would I need to provide my receipt to have your service area help out regarding the Saffire issue? I still have the ADK Quick support on my desktop but I'm having trouble finding my paperwork right now.
Thanks again, you guys are awesome!

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jcschild - Thu Apr 12, 2012 6:28 am

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thank you for that..
just email or give call support, we will get you taken care of?

Scott
ADK

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Ether Trogg - Thu Apr 12, 2012 10:04 am

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Thanks Scott, I definitely will!

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Ether Trogg - Thu Apr 12, 2012 6:03 pm

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Just thought I'd mention for the record (and to the OP),
ADK resolved the issues I was having in about 5 minutes - they connected via RD, and made a driver change on my TI Firewire.
Since the change, I've had a HUGE reduction in CPU usage. Sections on a 24 track project with really heavy processing previously would run at 25%-50%+ (or higher via spikes) are now down to 8-14%.

Scott, I really appreciate everything that ADK has done, ESPECIALLY customer service - I think it was fitting that Dave answered the phone (since he was the one that originally helped me finally decide on certain components & interface) - he went above and beyond any other level of service I've received from a company.

Cheers!
~ET~

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Intel i7 980x @3.37GHz, 64-Bit Win7, 12GB Ram[/i]

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lfm - Fri Apr 13, 2012 4:10 am

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If you agree - why call it "BS comment"?

My comment were general - not ADK it particular. I just felt sorry for the fellow OP and he were a bit naive what sales really is about.

And he obviously went here - instead of to your support?
Why, you tell me?

I really thought that was he's first place to go, and came here because he did not get help.

Glad to see there are serious companies out there - even if I wouldn't buy anything from people that cannot take criticism without getting personal.

So you finally got the legacy drivers in there, yes, they save 1/3 of cpu was my experience in my too cumbersome try. Turning off core parking and dynamic overclocking saved another 1/3 cpu.

But still felt firewire was not for me and did not bother anymore with it. To much wasted cpu still. To use firewire you obviously have to be careful selecting the right mb as well, and my Dell Vostro didn't like it very much.

So happy ending for all parties involved

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jtiis - Fri Apr 13, 2012 7:46 am

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lfm,

On the whole your first post dealt with the issue I'd raised and tried to be helpful, but now you've gone from making my thread a place to try and vainly defend a faulty theory of FW's weaknesses to try and save face by belittling the OP... what gives?

First of all, Scott was justified in calling your sales comment BS because your comment involved him. I had talked about ADK by name and about my pre-sales experience. Your comment was, "Sales - they just as often recommend stuff they want to get rid of."they" then refers to all sales yes, but having been named it also suggests that's what ADK may well have done. That's why his response came and had the color it did.

But here at the end, really? - You come back to defend your position and do so by putting me down? You say:

"I just felt sorry for the fellow OP and he were a bit naive what sales really is about. And he obviously went here - instead of to your support?
Why, you tell me?"

Naive? Really? What exactly in my posts before yours communicated naiveté about sales? Don't tell me you think someone saying they've asked questions about the compatibility of components is naive -- that's just being smart... or that saying "you're taking their word for it" means you don't know anything. ADK is a very respected company that prides themselves on testing gear and saying 'this will work, that won't"... taking them at their word is not a naive position.

Next you say, "And he obviously went here - instead of to your support?
Why, you tell me?"

Actually, I can tell you. Yes, I have tech support with ADK and yes I could have gone to them first BUT they'd already tested my computer with the Focusrite and it worked fine for them. I asked here because I wanted to know from our group what other (non-compatibility factors) might be involved. If the Saffire 24 worked for them but not for me it may well be a faulty AI that I had (so, others could chime in and say, "I had a bad AI and had the same problem are you still in warranty on that AI?") or such. I had another reason for coming here too. ADK is a great company but making audio/video computers is a bit niche... so as good as they are they're no Dell or HP... I knew I could get help from someone there but if my solution might be a cord or a faulty AI then, I hoped to learn that from KVR folk rather than by taking their time.

Being helpful is great, but only if you ar. Calling me naive (about how sales people operate) as justification of an approach into a thread is ... not so much.

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camsr - Fri Apr 13, 2012 11:19 am

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The firewire isn't the problem for low latency. The motherboard's chipset and implementation are the problem. You need a well designed motherboard for audio. Stay away from big box retailers.

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Ether Trogg - Fri Apr 13, 2012 1:11 pm

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That could be part of the problem right there - Custom / from parts build versus Dell/HP/etc,etc.

@Camsr
"You need a well designed motherboard for audio. Stay away from big box retailers."

Bingo - I totally agree.
I have a friend who DJ's and produces a lot and he seems to go through laptops like changes of clothes. he keeps going with retail pre-built systems and they always seem to end up with some severe issues with audio work.

It's far better to invest in something build SPECIFICALLY for what your needs are rather than trying to make a standard big box fit your needs. Generally speaking, PC's that fit a KVR's needs differ from those of a home office user or gamer. Thats why I went the route of a system desgined for one purpose - hardcore audio work

@ Jtiis
"I hoped to learn that from KVR folk rather than by taking their time."

I totally understand this - I was hesitant to contact support originally, not only because the issue occured so far after the purchase date, but also not wanting to waste their time. It was actually the first service call I've ever made in my life, as I normally resolve all my own PC issues. Independance is usually a virtue, but I dont regret breaking down and contacting them.

If you haven't already, give them a quick call! Even if they can't resolve the issue, they can at least point you in the right direction. If you still have the ADK Quick Support application installed, you can get help really fast.

Hope the issues work out

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jtiis - Fri Apr 13, 2012 3:13 pm

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Yep, ADK support remoted in, changed a few settings, updated a few items, did a few reboots, ran a few tests and solved the problem. That's money we'll spent (as opposed to an off the shelf hope it works wannabe with no live and accessible support)...now, happily making music... Thanks ADK!

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lfm - Sun Apr 15, 2012 9:42 am

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I have now a Dell OptiPlex(2.8G, XP 32bit) that I used for audio for 6 years. Not a single issue. RME Hammerfall 9636 internal card.

I have the Dell Vostro now, and not a single issue since I went internal card either. RME HDSP 9632 and addon 4 inputs.

So if using reliable technology for audio you can get the work done with no hassle whatsoever - even with stock computers.

RME Zero Cpu technology running audio. All cpu left for running applications and plugins.

That is kind of the essense of what my remarks were about in this thread.

I'm sure firewire works - but you need custom built stuff where every single part is carefully selected for this job.

And I wonder if one should have big studio where everything is rackbased as well, and all cables and stuff are fixed and tied, all microphones are handled through patchbays so you never plug in or pull out anything directly from audio interface and move it etc.

But it need not be that complicated.

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camsr - Sun Apr 15, 2012 11:39 am

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It's true. The northbridge/southbridge is usually the problem. Aftermarket MOBOs have settings to disable stuff, while big boxes do not. The biggest culprit in high latency is power states. Your mobo must be ready to work, or there is latency in activating something. Some retail computers won't let you adjust this.

And for the record, TI firewire isn't always the problem. I have an LSI chip on an ASUS mobo for firewire, to an Edirol FA-66 which uses a BridgeCo microchip, and all is well. The correct implementation is required, and too many manufacturers cut corners.

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lfm - Mon Apr 16, 2012 5:53 am

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Spring 2010 getting my new daw I was actually talking to companies specializing in building audio machines/daws. At least to compare prices with stock computers.

But they refused to deliver anything x64 which they felt was not needed, and not tested, and so on. They actually called me a - missionary - asking for this?

For these companies there are so much at stake - so it also becomes a hurdle to climb. If something does not work for customer they will be blaimed for it - their whole reputation is at stake.

I felt the x64 machines has been on the market that long, all cpus were x64 compatible, there have been daws like Sonar since 2006 providing x64 versions, quite a few vendors had x64 version of their plugins as well.

I was ready for the plunge - but they dared not take the risk.

So it's not all for the good buying from these specialized companies - you might risk buying old and safe solutions - not the very best of today, opening new abilities for your work.

Buying a new machine you kind of want it to last 6-8 years or something like that. And buying something that already feels like old is not getting the best solution for the money.

I saw a vast improvement and ability to run as many samplers as needed in a project without hitting any ceiling. Without the need for sampler to support DFD of various kinds. All up in memory and done.

That's my reasoning anyway.

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camsr - Mon Apr 16, 2012 11:38 am

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When you look at how much gear is integrated with the PC, you see that it is all 32-bit. 64-bit gear is few and far between. The original Nord Modular is a good example. Some things will never see the 64-bit day, hence the use of 32-bit PCs for audio. And as always, the more gear, the less need for the PC at all.

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lfm - Tue Apr 17, 2012 2:04 am

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For a while being in despair I looked seriously at going back to portastudio. Really a troublefree environment for me and plenty musicmaking.

Had a couple of casette portas from Fostex and Tascam in the 80's, and then digital HDD studios a couple too in the 20's.

Spoiled with physical faders and stuff from portastudios still looking for controllers that are good.

But now having a troublefree PC one wonder if to go there - smells trouble gain kind of.

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risome - Tue Apr 17, 2012 3:12 am

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[quote="lfm"]

Sales - they just as often recommend stuff they want to get rid of.

Overall, USB is greatly improved and worked on for every new generation of computers.

Firewire is pretty much forgotten and has not improved anything.

I struggled with testing firewire when buying a new computer 2 years ago(i7 2.6). Three month of testing different firewire interfaces, cables, drivers and I don't know what else.

4 different interface cards, 3 TI, one VIA, three PCI Express and one PCI, three brands of cables.

Summary of these tests:
1. Too much wasted cpu
I could not get lower than 7% cpu overall(20% one core of 8 ), just keeping audio up. No software running.

I could very well use that cpu for something better, like running more tracks and plugins.

2. Connectors are really poor - really sensitive to tiny bends and it all stops working. It's really old technology as I see it.

USB and network connectors you can abuse quite a bit without any problems.
I had a tiny bend when table was against the wall - and that was enough for firewire to stop working.

3. Nothing is improved on this interface over the years. Yes, there are 400 and 800 Mhz buses.

But one interesting thing was that a SP on XP really shut down FW to 100 Mhz. And there is a fix to set it back to 400, but this was strongly not recommended by Microsoft and only if you had problems with 100Mhz limit.

That kind of says it all - it's shaky. I got plenty BSOD running 400 mode.

I would really swap to USB stuff instead. In the end you will get this firewire running I'm sure, but it's really a dead end, and the next computer you get might put you back to square one again.

I went for internal RME cards, but if needing external I would get USB based.[/quote


Firewire interfaces are not forgotten and high end audio interfaces are all firewire .USB will crap itself with multi channel audio .Go into any digital based professional studio bro you wont see USB audio interfaces.It isnt shaky its stable and professional. Been using them for years with low latency and no problems.I dont know where you get your facts from my friend
Cheers

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BertKoor - Tue Apr 17, 2012 5:28 am

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And the flame war in this thread did stop indeed.
So the issue of the OP is solved.
Now why did you put more fuel on the flame war? I thought we were done already...

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risome - Tue Apr 17, 2012 5:54 am

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Didn't mean my post as a flame just stating facts .No ill will meant .Night Night

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lfm - Wed Apr 18, 2012 12:32 am

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I don't think you managed to read all the posts, really?

Anyway - my experience was from 3 month of tweaking and changing gear.

And I think a big studio install is rackbased and has cables tied everywhere, and the only place they plugin cables are in patchbays.

I would go internal cards from Lynx and RME (ADAT/AES/EBU) to build 20+ channel studio. So claiming that big studios only use firewire would not be the case - there is better technology for the job.

Just read through the whole lot if you are up to it.

And I don't think exchanging views means flaming....

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There are 41 posts in this topic.