Firewire Question

[lfm]

Firewire is really built for the burst kind of technology .... not realtime audio.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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..

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.

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

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.

[BertKoor]

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.

Where did you get that PC from? I guess if it was built by ADK you could get quite lower...

Switching Windows drivers to legacy driver, altering bios settings for cores and stuff like that.

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.

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.

Shop around, get a more flexible cable!

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

This shows how wrong you are and how little you know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewire

The IEEE 1394 interface, developed in late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple as FireWire, is a serial bus interface standard for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer.

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?

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

Actually it did:

Apple intended FireWire to be a serial replacement for the parallel SCSI bus while providing connectivity for digital audio and video equipment.

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?

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

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.

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

You should then know there's always things you don't know. For example: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=346205

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

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.

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.

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.

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

That shows somewhere a priority is set wrong. I'd first have a look at the DPC Latency of the graphics card.

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

This is a known issue. Wifi adapters usually have extremely "selfish" drivers.

So bursting video through is pretty easy task. It seems to me that realtime audio is much harder task to perform well.

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

[lfm]

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

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.

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.

[lfm]

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.

Where did you get that PC from? I guess if it was built by ADK you could get quite lower...

Switching Windows drivers to legacy driver, altering bios settings for cores and stuff like that.

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.

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.

Shop around, get a more flexible cable!

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

This shows how wrong you are and how little you know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewire

The IEEE 1394 interface, developed in late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple as FireWire, is a serial bus interface standard for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer.

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?

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

Actually it did:

Apple intended FireWire to be a serial replacement for the parallel SCSI bus while providing connectivity for digital audio and video equipment.

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?

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

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.

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

You should then know there's always things you don't know. For example: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=346205

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

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.

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.

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.

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

That shows somewhere a priority is set wrong. I'd first have a look at the DPC Latency of the graphics card.

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

This is a known issue. Wifi adapters usually have extremely "selfish" drivers.

So bursting video through is pretty easy task. It seems to me that realtime audio is much harder task to perform well.

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

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.

[BertKoor]

To some extent I agree with you. Especially:

firewire is very sensible technology to malfunction.

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.

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

Because simple things like faulty cables do occur. Things do go wrong in the real world.

trying to save others from having to go through the same thing.

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.

[lfm]

To some extent I agree with you. 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.

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

Because simple things like faulty cables do occur. Things do go wrong in the real world.

trying to save others from having to go through the same thing.

That's exactly what ADK does, but in a completely different way

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.

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.

[jcschild]

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..

[BertKoor]

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..

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

[Ether Trogg]

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..

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!

[jcschild]

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

Scott
ADK

[Ether Trogg]

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

Scott
ADK

Thanks Scott, I definitely will!

[Ether Trogg]

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

Scott
ADK

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~

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

[lfm]

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.


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

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

[jtiis]

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.

[camsr]

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.