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Hi There!

I´m just helping a friend of mine preparing an DAW.
I wonder which audio interface I should recoomend to him. USB/PCI or firewire or maybe even PCI.

He is bassplayer and wants to spent maybe 150 € for the interface! Most usage is play along and record for error correction.

I´m glad to hear your experiences and want to thank planet Z for beeing a continius inspiratian over the years

Thank You guys!

DT

apogee duet/usb is one that is low cost but good sound.

i also like to know whats the difference between pcie,usb and firewire and which is best. why xite went for pcie why not firewire?

thanks

If you have firewire or USB interface those chips are ON the PCI or PCIE bus. They chose a PCIe card because then they can use a connection designed for their needs rather than adapt their product to use a general purpose USB or Firewire bus.

Mind you if its only for 2 or 4 channels USB should be fine.

PCIE > PCI > Firewire > USB2 > USB1 (IMO)

USB and Firewire are designed for consumer ease of use. they are made use of, but they are unreliable and therefore crappy for professional use. Firewire and USB operate at a level above the motherboard and os. PCI and PCIe are at the level of the motherboard. they are quite primary in the system. when they work, they always work. when Firewire works, sometimes it stops...

PCIe is also a bigger and more robust pipeline...

garyb wrote:PCIe is also a bigger and more robust pipeline...

Rather!!



ns

WOW!..talk about data accuracy! .R U a drummer 2? if so what kind of rig do u have?

netguyjoel wrote:WOW!..talk about data accuracy!

Graphic courtesy of UAD. God bless 'em.

"What about external DSP that uses Firewire? Can you do that with PCIe?

Not only does PCIe operate both inside your computer and over a cable, but there's no software overhead, there are no interoperability issues, and the bandwidth is much higher than any of the other protocols!

A Firewire S400 connector pokes along at 400 MHz. A single PCIe x1 slot runs at 2.5 GHz and provides more than six times the bandwidth of Firewire S400 and USB 2. Even Firewire 1394b will not deliver anything close to this performance for several years, if ever. (The equivalent port speed for PCIe x1 would be an S3200 port, but the next planned speed step for Firewire is only S1600). Ethernet runs at either 100 MHz or 1 GHz, and USB 2.0 only runs at 420 MHz. The future is already here, and it's PCIe."

netguyjoel wrote:.R U a drummer 2?

No.

ns

Thanks a Lot!!

That helped to clear it up to me.

Maybe a LUNA 2 Card will suit his needs better then USB/Firewire boxes!

I'm still satisfied with my 3 PCI Cards. Enough for making 20 Audio and 20 Midi Tracks running seperately. without any glitches.

wish everyone a productive time and

Love & Peace
DT