Firewire interface AND Creamware - does it work?

geoffd99 · Post by **geoffd99** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 2:32 am

Hi all

I have an M-Audio 410 firewire interface I use on my laptop, all great.
I want to plug it into my desktop, in order to load Protools (which has an MA version now).

But will the firewire connection mess up my CW set up? I have 3 cards, and the Luna Zlink interface which is firewire protocol I think.

Any advice welcome as I don't want a huge tech reinstall etc etc as very busy.

Thanks my friends

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 3:26 am

you cannot use the z-link connection for anything but connecting the Luna IO box or the A16 ultra. Period.
Afaik there's even a warning regarding the powerline of the cable.

the plug and electrical specs are IEEE 1394 aka FireWire, but the content that's sent over the cable is supplier specific.
it's not like the 'regular' OHCI compatible controllers from mobos and external disk cases.

cheers, Tom

geoffd99 · Post by **geoffd99** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 4:04 am

Thanks.
I will be plugging the M-Audio box into the normal PC firewire port, I was wondering if this will be OK with my setup.
Assuming the ZLink is just communicating between the card and the ZLink box, are there likely to be a problems using the desktop firewire, with the 3 cards? (PC Pentium 4, 3Ghz, 1 gig RAM)

I have 2 hardware profiles, one 'normal' with USB etc ON, one 'music' with USB etc OFF.
This means I will have to use my 'normal' hw profile to use the firewire.

There isn't much difference, but I have read that it is better to run CW cards with everything non-essential switched out.

Any tips?

marcuspocus · Post by **marcuspocus** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 5:18 am

I'm actualy running 3 creamware cards with a firewire audio interface.

I run the tascam FW1884 + Pulsar1 + luna + Pulsar2, and everything is perfect.

The only thing to watch out is the pci capacity of your board since obviously, the firewire card is pci, it's also using pci bandwidth. I had no problem whatsoever with pci bandwidth, but, it's worth a check i think.

I use the adat io of the tascam console connected to pulsar2 adat to send all preamp from the console to scope, and send from scope 4 stereo io (adat out) synths output etc.

I still mix in scope, and send the master mix out from the scope mixer to spdif to tascam console, and i monitor only this.

It's a perfect setup for me