[jdd]

Hello :-)

I have a PC laptop but with no Firewire on the motherboard. I use a
PCMCIA one for DV copy without problem, the computer is reasonably
fast (dualcore).

But for other use, Id est audio interface, I wonder if the PCMCIA
Firewire is as reliable as built in ones (or if USB is as good for
such things, given I wont use more than 3 / 4 tracks)

thanks
jdd
--
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[Mike Rivers]

jdd wrote:

I have a PC laptop but with no Firewire on the motherboard. I use a
PCMCIA one for DV copy without problem, the computer is reasonably fast
(dualcore).

I have two laptop computers that are reasonably slow (Pentium 4) and use
a PCMCIA Firewire adapter. It works fine for audio. Most I've ever
pushed through it is 16 channels at 44.1 kHz 24-bit from a Mackie Onyx
mixer. Anecdotal experience is that some combinations of motherboard
(PCMCIA slot), Firewire adapter, and Firewire audio hardware don't work
well together. You may get a combination that doesn't work well. Buy
from a dealer who makes returns and exchanges convenient. You may need
to do some mixing and matching.

My anecdote is that I bought the cheapest PCMCIA adapter that my local
store had (they had about 5 different ones) and I got a lot of clicks
with the Onyx. I figured that it was the cheap adapter, so I exchanged
it for the next most expensive one and still had clicks. So I tried
another one and still had clicks. I'd done all the "optimization" tricks
and played with buffer size to no avail. Eventually, I discovered that
the clicks went away when I disconnected the Ethernet cable from the
computer to my local network router. A new driver for the network
adapter in the computer fixed the problem for good. I suspect that any
of the PCMCIA adapters that I tried would have worked equally well.

I wonder if the PCMCIA
Firewire is as reliable as built in ones (or if USB is as good for such
things, given I wont use more than 3 / 4 tracks)

Not many people have anything good to say about built-in Firewire ports
for audio unless it's on a Mac. Again, this is mostly anecdotal. USB2
seems to work pretty well, and in fact USB1.1 is OK for up to six
streams (inputs + outputs) at 44.1 kHz. If you want to avoid hassles,
I'd recommend USB if you can find the right combination of gozintas and
gozoutas for your work. If you want the highest quality audio hardware,
you'll probably need to go with Firewire (that's just the way the
manufacturers chose to do it), but you may have to fool around to get it
to work. Or maybe you'll be lucky.


--
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)

[jdd]

Mike Rivers a écrit :

I'd recommend USB if you can find the right combination of gozintas and
gozoutas for your work.

there is much more choice with USB than Firewire :-)

If you want the highest quality audio hardware,

I can't afford the highest :-(. I just have to find some good audio
interface for making demos for a band, with minimal latency. I know
I'll have to test :-)

thanks for your anwser

jdd


--
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-eic8MSSfM