Firewire, Thunderbolt & PCs

[Bill Phillips]

9 hours ago, msmcleod said:

To be honest, I've had much better performance with USB 2 than with Firewire.  I was hoping to have an mLAN system with 01X , 2 x i88x and 1 x ADA8000 to give me 32 tracks, but it gives up at 26 tracks.

My RME Digiface USB however, quite happily copes with recording 32 tracks, whilst simultaneously playing back on all 34 outputs - and that's with an ASIO buffer half the size of what my mLAN system is (64 vs 128).

Other things to bear in mind...
1. Firewire is a deprecated technology - certainly mLAN is completely discontinued.  The chances of it working in future Windows updates/upgrades is diminishing.
2. The quality of converters in newer gear is far better than the ones used in older interfaces. The mic inputs on my i88x for example, are the same as the Yamaha DM2000, which was their top-end digital mixer at the time, but my Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 sounds so much better.  Not to say they aren't good - they certainly are - but more modern converters are likely better.

Thanks for the perspective Mark. My reason for wanting to get the Firewire working is to to use my MOTU 828 mkII to have 26 inputs available in case I need it on occasion. My Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 is limited to 18 inputs. But I admit that Firewire's days are numbered; but so are mine.?

That said, the last time I was able to use my Firewire 828 mkII for mixing (no inputs and only the main outputs) it seemed to work smoothly with the sample buffer at  256 samples. When it quit working, probably due to an update, I switched the same project over to the 18i8 gen1 with the sample buffer maxed out at 1024 and was still getting dropouts. I know that Focusrite was having USB ASIO problems with the Scarlett early on. I wonder if the gen 1 Scarlett line may have some inherent problems that couldn't be solved with firmware or software updates but were were solved for gen 2 & 3 units.

[msmcleod]

8 hours ago, Bill Phillips said:

I know that Focusrite was having USB ASIO problems with the Scarlett early on. I wonder if the gen 1 Scarlett line may have some inherent problems that couldn't be solved with firmware or software updates but were were solved for gen 2 & 3 units.

FWIW, all of my Scarlett's are gen 1... I've got the 2i2 (dev laptop), 6i6 (dev desktop), 18i8 (laptop) and 18i20 (studio).   The 6i6 I use daily.   I normally run with an ASIO buffer of 64 on production builds without issue, although for larger projects I may increase to 128 or 256.  For development, I use 256.

All of my Scarletts have the latest firmware (v1056).

I've not had any issues with dropouts, unless I drive my PC beyond its limit... but that's a CPU limitation, not the Focusrite.

On my 18i8, I've successfully recorded 16 simultaneous tracks whilst playing back 32 - and that was on a silent PC the size of an iPhone 5 running at 2GHz. Using my laptop, it copes with far more.

I'd recommend trying a different USB port - it could be that it's sharing an IRQ with another device. Also, I know this doesn't work for some people, but I have my Scarlett plugged into a USB 3 port and have zero issues.

[Bill Phillips]

18 hours ago, msmcleod said:

FWIW, all of my Scarlett's are gen 1... I've got the 2i2 (dev laptop), 6i6 (dev desktop), 18i8 (laptop) and 18i20 (studio).   The 6i6 I use daily.   I normally run with an ASIO buffer of 64 on production builds without issue, although for larger projects I may increase to 128 or 256.  For development, I use 256.

All of my Scarletts have the latest firmware (v1056).

I've not had any issues with dropouts, unless I drive my PC beyond its limit... but that's a CPU limitation, not the Focusrite.

On my 18i8, I've successfully recorded 16 simultaneous tracks whilst playing back 32 - and that was on a silent PC the size of an iPhone 5 running at 2GHz. Using my laptop, it copes with far more.

I'd recommend trying a different USB port - it could be that it's sharing an IRQ with another device. Also, I know this doesn't work for some people, but I have my Scarlett plugged into a USB 3 port and have zero issues.

Thank you very much. I must be missing something. I'm going to dig into it further using your suggestions. Thanks again. 

[Clovis Ramsay]

Multitrack Recording and mixing live can all be done over Cat6 solid core home networking cable.  One just needs to implement Dante cards or adapters which basically become your I/O. 

Use Thunderbolt for data retrieve, file storage and read/write, external media.

USB 2.0 is still being implemented into multichannel audio interfaces by RME and Lynnx so I take it that USB is going to be a constant.

Apple stopped developing FireWire right around the release of iPad and Macs cpu swith to Intel, despite most of the equipment deployed in the Music & Film industry made FW a standard.  FW streams data full duplex where USB sends packets that have to be unpacked and assembled in one direction.  I can only assume that Apple's little fling with Intel forced the end of FW to allow Intel's thunderbolt tech to replace it.  God what an awful decade of ADAPTERS and DONGLEs it was! 

[sjoens]

So how does one use ethernet cabling to a DAW without an interface? Or does one?

[msmcleod]

1 hour ago, sjoens said:

So how does one use ethernet cabling to a DAW without an interface? Or does one?

Normally you'd use an ethernet audio interface such as MADI or Dante.

There are other solutions though - ASIOLink allows you to send audio over ethernet from one computer to another. I think some of the VBCable suite might do it too.

You can also use shielded CAT6 cable as XLR cables as a cheaper alternative. Using a common ground, you can carry 4 balanced signals.  Of course, that isn't using ethernet - just the cable.

[sjoens]

Those units look quite expensive and seem more for studios than joe homestudio guys like me. Still I wonder if this had been the option for all things audio, obsoletion may not be a thing right now?!? RJ45 has always been on just about every desk & laptop out there.

But then, once audio is piped to your system, something has to make it audible, like whatever soundcard you have.

[Brian Hunsaker]

I plugged a MOTU Traveler mk3 into my Windows 10 laptop Thunderbolt port with 2 more adapters. One turned Firewire into Thunderbolt 2 and the other turned Thunderbolt 2 into Thunderbolt 3 (for which I have a jack). Surprisingly it worked fine and gave the MOTU power. I might have got those backward but I can look them up if you like.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Brian Hunsaker

[Bill Phillips]

On 1/5/2023 at 4:53 PM, Brian Hunsaker said:

I plugged a MOTU Traveler mk3 into my Windows 10 laptop Thunderbolt port with 2 more adapters. One turned Firewire into Thunderbolt 2 and the other turned Thunderbolt 2 into Thunderbolt 3 (for which I have a jack). Surprisingly it worked fine and gave the MOTU power. I might have got those backward but I can look them up if you like.

Thanks. That's amazing. My Win10 PC has a Thunderbolt 3 combo USB C port. I'll have to give that a try.