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.

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.

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.

have you called support yet?

Scott
ADK

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

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..

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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...

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

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.