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Hello, all ...
I recently changed my music production rig somewhat -- it's now laptop-based, even at home. Things are generally good, but i've a few concerns, mainly having to do with my usage of the firewire bus for more things now. I used to run everything off of a G5 with 2 TC|PowerCore cards installed, now I run everything from a 2.4ghz Core2 Duo MacBook (running OSX Leopard) with the firewire version of the PowerCore. I also have a MOTU Traveler and Motif ES6 (via mLAN) connected to the same 400mbit firewire bus. Does anyone else here run a laptop-based firewire rig with 3 or more devices on the same firewire bus? What are your experiences?
I'm basically wondering if I should run the audio interface off of USB2, leaving the firewire bus for the PowerCore and Motif ES, or maybe get a MacBook Pro instead and run some things off of its' extra firewire bus (with an 800mbit -> 400mbit adapter, if that will work). I'd really be interested in discussing some of this with others who run lots of firewire stuff simultaneously ...
Regards,
John
Falling You - exploring the beauty of voice and sound
www.fallingyou.com
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SF Bay Area
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Re: firewire rig size?
Sat, August 30, 2008 - 12:07 PMYou can create a different firewire bus with an adapter like a PCIMA to Firewire adapter card...they are cheap and can be found on Ebay. Here is just one example of many....
cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Startec...cmdZViewItem
You might as well use that cardbus for something, right? I haven't heard too many good things about using USB 2.0 for an audio interface. Most USB interfaces offer latency free monitoring, which isn't TOO bad but, you got a nice interface so stick with it.
www.myspace.com/mortal_engines -
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Re: firewire rig size?
Sat, August 30, 2008 - 12:11 PMSorry the one I just listed was pc only. Here is one for a Mac. There are others as well, you'll just have to scroll thru the listings.
cgi.ebay.com/NEC-Chip-Fi...cmdZViewItem -
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Re: firewire rig size?
Sun, August 31, 2008 - 10:18 AMExcept that one won't work, either. There's no PCMCIA on a MacBook Pro; Apple upgraded to ExpressCard/34.
FW ExpressCard adapters exist, of course:
catalog.belkin.com/IWCatPro...e.process
That's a $100 example. I've seen others for less. Of course, if you're going to add an ExpressCard FW adapter, it might as well be FW800, right? -
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Re: firewire rig size?
Sun, August 31, 2008 - 3:01 PMI daisy-chain my firewire hard drive from my kyma firewire interface from my soundcard right into my macbook pro firewire port.
No problems here.
Just a great joy! -
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Re: firewire rig size?
Sun, August 31, 2008 - 3:46 PM
Adam,
Yes, I do that, too ... I connect my Traveler to the firewire port on the Mac, and daisy-chain the PowerCore to the other Traveler firewire port, and them daisy-chain the Motif ES to one of the other ports on the PowerCore. It has some caveats, though:
1. I have to have everything on
2. The PowerCore software sometimes shows an error message, saying that the host application (DP 5.13 in my case) has lost communication with the PowerCore. This happens when i'm using the PowerCore effects on audio coming form the Motif, which is often. It makes some sense, since the Motif, Traveler and PowerCore are all actively sending / receiving data on the single firewire bus when i'm doing this (recording from the Motif, processing on the PowerCore, monitoring via the Traveler).
... hence my thought that perhaps 3 simultaneously active (not just idle) firewire devices on the same bus is too much, and my desire to try to put them on different buses. I'm hopeful that my problem will disappear then :-)
Regards,
John
Falling You - exploring the beauty of voice and sound
www.fallingyou.com
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Re: firewire rig size?
Tue, September 2, 2008 - 10:45 AMThe problem I have on my PC desktop was the battle for firewire bus supremacy between my Mackie Onyx Mixer and my TC PowerCore Firewire.
I had to but two separate firewire pci cards for the main reason that the Powercore really wants to be on its on bus to be most efficient, and I don't blame it because I run the hell out of these chips. Sometimes as much as 40 processors open in any given project.
Also, the Mackie, wants to be the one and only on it's bus because of all the audio streaming it handles, regardless if you're using it or not. I have the 16-channel Onyx and usually only record 2 or 4 channels at once, but it has the buffer to handle 16 channels simultaneously.
my fix to get this to even work at all, was to buy two separate PCI cards and only run one device on each. I can't even put a harddrive on these busses because total meltdown will ensue. -
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Re: firewire rig size?
Tue, September 2, 2008 - 12:26 PM
Arahat,
Thank you -- this confirms my suspicions that I need to put my devices on multiple firewire busses instead of daisy-chaining them on one. My new MacBook Pro arrives tomorrow, so i'll be able to put the Traveler on one bus, the PowerCore on the other (maybe the FW800 bus with an adapter), and perhaps get an ExpressCard FW card for the Motif ES. Again, thanks!
Regards,
John
Falling You - exploring the beauty of voice and sound
www.fallingyou.com
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Re: firewire rig size?
Tue, September 2, 2008 - 2:08 PMjust a general FYI on the firewire bus topic, the firewire bus will only run as fast as the slowest device on it. i.e. If you put a FW400 device in a chain on an FW800 bus, all the FW800 devices will run as slow as the 400. Probably not pertinent to your specific issue but good to know if it comes up. -
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Re: firewire rig size?
Fri, September 12, 2008 - 7:06 AMright. aren't the FW400 and FW800 ports on the Macbook Pro both on the same firewire bus? I don't think the laptops have multiple busses. -
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Re: firewire rig size?
Fri, September 12, 2008 - 9:05 AM
Andy,
System Profiler shows them as two distinct busses, if that's any indication. I also bought a FW400 ExpressCard for the MBP, and it's working (though for some reason it doesn't show up in the Firewire section, it shows up in the PCI card section in System Profile and doesn't enumerate the devices connected to it).
So far, things are good. I've the Traveler connected to the MBPs FW400 port, and the 2 FW400 ports on the ExpressCard are taken by the Motif and the PowerCore. I have an external hard disk on the FW800 port. I used it all last night for a piece i'm doing for a dance company I often work with, and i'm happy to report that the "could not communicate with device" messages that I was seeing after awhile with the PowerCore and the Motif when I had everything daisy-chained on one FW400 bus last night didn't show up. I plan on putting it through its' paces a bit more today and this weekend, but so far, so good :-)
As an aside, i'm quite happy to report that my rig (and everything else in the house) is now solar powered! I've been super-interested in solar ever since Orbital's "The Girl With the Sun In Her Head" came out in the early 90s, and i've been saving, and researching, and saving, and planning, and saving ... and now, it's finally done! I even helped the installers mount the panels and wire the inverter -- it was _so_ fun :-)
Regards,
John
Falling You - exploring the beauty of voice and sound
www.fallingyou.com
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Re: firewire rig size?
Fri, September 12, 2008 - 11:00 AMdang dude, a solar studio! That's totally awesome! rock it.
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