Firewire for Xite

[fraz]

Hi there,

I'm considering the Xite - like a tractor beam I'm being reeled in........ .........can't fight it much longer...............so I'm thinking of the possibilities......naturally I use PC and for which I will use the standard PCI-E once I've been reeeled in completley......

I do have an iMac so am wandering if it is likely that there could be a firewire version of Xite or if there is an accessory that can be used so Xite can be used with the iMac as it has two firewire ports 1x400(1394) and 1x800 (????)

Maybe this has been covered before so sorry if this is a repeat.....

Thanks in advance.......

[garyb]

no firewire that i know of.

fw is convienient, but not really that great of an idea, if the use ever becomes mission critical...

[at0m]

no firewire that i know of.

fw is convienient, but not really that great of an idea, if the use ever becomes mission critical...

Are you saying the Fireface is a joke, or that Scope (or its plugins) relies too much on (PCI) throughput for firewire?

[garyb]

no, fireface is fine. a professional firewire interface is a joke. the fireface is consumer gear, althoughit's very good quality.

my problems with firewire are simple. the fw chip in fw devices are easily destroyed simply by plugging in a cable with the computer on. the pins can be crossed accidentally. freak accidents can always happen, but the design of the fw connector makes them a little more likely. worse than that, because that alone isn't a good reason to avoid fw as it's just something to be aware of, is that it's possible for the operating system to loose track of the fw connection at any time, and that it almost always happens eventually. normally, it's no great handicap, just a very minor annoyance that might not even bother anybody. for mission critical uses however, it's unacceptably flaky as pci or pci-e devices don't have this problem since they aren't hot-swappable(or maybe that's not the issue since pci or pci-e cardbus doesn't seem to have the same issues, maybe it's all in the connector, i don't know the full story there. i do know that pci and pci-e devices are seen by the os as part of the motherboard, while firewire devices are several layers above that with a whole lot of software in between.).

i consider mission critical use to be almost any commercial use with clients involved, especially when recording a live event or performance for pay. for that, the computer system better be as reliable as a tapedeck, at least.

i don't mean i'm against a cheap fw version of Scope, it just means i'd consider it to be a toy, which is fine, right? what i said was "fw is convienient, but not really that great of an idea, if the use ever becomes mission critical...". that seems a reasonable statement to me, but then...

[spacef]

FW stability/reliability is highly dependant on the FW chipset, and many problems with FW come from insufficient voltage.
I use a small saffire for mobile recording, and it is a great soundcard. It doesn't work fine on my main station, because the motherboard sucks in all respect when it comes to firewire, even with an added FW card. This is a problem of my computer... on the 7 y/old laptop, it works as a breeze. funny, the asus FW is seen as a network ressource.... probably sharing some port with ethernet or i don't know what other weird routing. but it doesn't work better witha pci-e FW extension, unless i plug the power supply of the FW soundcard/HD..

FW is pretty good for mobile work. I didn't try to compare FW vs PCI performances though.
if i had to choose, I'd be more tempted by a RME raydat than by a FW solution though (cause the raydat is probably the only card that can plug all its ADAT i/o into the 3 ADAT i/os of a scope pro, while leaving an extra ADAT for other stuff...) The Firefece UFX is pretty sexy, but the fact that it is firewire makes me wonder if it is really serious (is it? i have absolutely no idea... can you run 120 audio tracks on a FW interface, if yes, well , i guess it is good..).

I also went to a concert with Mr Akadin a year ago (i cite hilm so you can call hilm for proof, lol) , and we were appalled when the MAC book of the main synth guy crashed in the middle of the synth solo that everyone was waiting for the last 20 years as it was a band "revival tour"... According to the band, it is the firewire cable which was unplugged from the mac (roadies: don't walk around while your employer is doing his legendary solos, just stay in the bar with a couple of blonds will ya (lagger i mean))..., and so the guy could not use his synth. it didn't take that long to replug and get all back to work without having the band stop playing. We will never know if it is a mac crash, a firewire problem, or just some guy who forgot that usb and FW have to be firmly tapped to the KB/Computer and should have their own power supply, to avoid this kind of fun moments

[astroman]

... funny, the asus FW is seen as a network ressource.... probably sharing some port with ethernet or i don't know what other weird routing. ...

Firewire is basically a network protocol, so that makes perfect sense.
GaryB is absolutely right about the connector (mis)design. It's sh*t - we fried at least 4 external hard drives (their controllers to be precise) because of connector pluggin.
In one case I stood right beside when the worker connected the mobile drive (in the 'proper' way) and you could immediately smell what had happened...
The connector ISN'T SAFE to be moved with power on.

cheers, Tom

[spacef]

all my MAC friends fried their FW in no time.
I plug/unplug my FW HD ten times a week for 2 years now without problem...
i thought this frying FW was a purely mac thing.

[siriusbliss]

Firewire is a rapidly dying protocol - along with current USB.

Greg

[garyb]

i stand by my opinion....

fw is just something cheap and easy for cheap and easy consumer gear, although some of that gear works very well.

[Sounddesigner]

Firewire is a rapidly dying protocol - along with current USB.

Greg

I've read this aswell. Also the original Duende by SSL had major issues from firewire iirc, i believe related to bandwidth. I think those type issues helped in the downfall of that platform. I know UA stated they would never use firewire for that reason and wrote a statement that PCIe/pci was much more superior. Also firewire adds in extra latency for those trying to keep ultra low. I'm not convinced the XITE-1 would work properly with firewire, i know Metric Halo does but that's far more simpler platform with far less dsp power. Some companies have gotten it to work but it seems like a roll of the dice to me, plus i'd imagine XITE needs more bandwidth then those other products. Heck UA could not get the superior Expresscard to work properly due to bandwidth lack, their larger uad cards don't have laptop solutions for that reason.



EDITED

[spacef]

i don't think anyone disagreed with GaryB (i said myself, i would go pci-e instead of FW).
But, in the same time, it is hard to find a decent soundcard on pci-e. they still release 2000€ soundcard on FW .fireface UFX... the RME flagship soundcard is FW and doesn't seem to offer any other kind of connection (that's why i talked about raydat, as it is 4 ADAT i/os on pci-e, for less than 600 euros). the UFX also has usb2... is that a joke ??? that's what i think, but if RME does it, and at this price, there must be a reason (and i'd like to know). I go down to 2ms asio latency on the focusrite saffire duo,... ok, i usually don'"t need more than 4 tracks when i use it (1 stereo mix + a couple of mono for recording.). I need to test FW asio + scope on big projects (to get rid of scope asio and gain a little more dsp ressources) , may be i let you know of the outcome if i remember this thread after the tests .

[t_tangent]

Even the Eventide H8000FW.....nearly £5000, and guess what the FW stands for

[Fluxpod]

Or the Prism Orpheus....or the Z-link connection on the xite.Yes Z-link is just firewire with a different protocol.I wouldnt hotplug that.

I think they dont support the luna boxes on the xite tho...maybe that makes it safer as they dont have to carry power aswell.

The Fireface UFX is also equipped with usb to host.And can record all 60 channel to a usb flashdrive-hd via a front usb connector without a host connected.Works great with usb and firewire but i would go usb with rme without hesitation.