Issues with knocking FW800 to FW400 in DAWs

[vdubreeze]

Looking for a little technical insight here. Two things I have run
into lately at places I've recorded, that the DAW interfaces are FW400
and yet there are sometimes no FW400 ports on the computer. I'm
referring here to recent MacBook Pros which have 2 USB and a single
FW800 port. I know that FW800 was engineered to be backward
compatible, but at some places things are not so smooth when combining
them, which is a necessity to use the interface. Two rigs in
particular which should be more solid than they are both seem to have
seemingly random issues introduced when the two are combined, but it's
difficult to pinpoint because the alerts thrown up (on an AVID/Digi
mBox 3 Pro and 003 rack) are very unspecific "reset your buffer"
alerts, and the buffer could be all the way high or low when it
happens.

I have tried every combination of attaching the drive and interface to
the MBP and the results do not change, same random alerts, so I don't
believe that any reordering will help. There are a few pieces of
advice I received that I would like some clarity on. One was to not
use any 800 to 400 adapter but rather use the drive's 800 in and 400
out to get into the interface. The reason being that the pins on the
two formats are different, including bus power (which has three pins
for FW800 and two for FW400) which may be just enough be an
intermittent issue. Is this plausable/poppycock? Normal moving of
data is never an issue, but it *seems* there *may* be something to
this regarding audio, or at least interfaces.I have an older TDM PT
rig on a G5 and never have any issues with either FW or both together,
but this is different because everything is not on the same port bus
as on a laptop. Unfortunately, there are no ExpressCard slots in new
MBPs to add another port to try this on them.

Anyone here have this issue, where there was a lessening of stability
adapting FW400 interfaces with FW800 drives into a recent MBP with
only FW800? FWIW, the mBox 3 Pro has been a world of random
problems, so it's hard to trouble shoot when the alerts are so
uninformative (and AVID has been less than helpful). But since this
issue of the adapting the FW is something there have been some
opinions about there I figured to ask here.

Thanks!

v

[Mike Rivers]

On 6/3/2011 11:14 AM, vdubreeze wrote:

> Anyone here have this issue, where there was a lessening of stability
> adapting FW400 interfaces with FW800 drives into a recent MBP with
> only FW800? FWIW, the mBox 3 Pro has been a world of random
> problems, so it's hard to trouble shoot when the alerts are so
> uninformative (and AVID has been less than helpful). But since this
> issue of the adapting the FW is something there have been some
> opinions about there I figured to ask here.

Audio to or from a computer over Firewire is more
unpredictable than ever, probably because there are more
computers, more Firewire chip sets, and more people who want
to do this now than every before. Drivers, both for the
Firewire chips in the computer and in the interface, are far
from universal. Sometimes certain combinations just don't
work and won't work until some software is changed, and
these days that just doesn't happen, with the exception of a
few manufacturers. And sometimes the problem is as simple as
the Firewire connectors just don't make good contact.

Over on the PreSonus StudioLive forum, they all say "Get a
MacBook Pro. It always works" (get a 400-800 cable, not an
adapter for one end). On the Mackie forum, they can't get
MacOS to work with any of the Firewire interfaces (or Win7
either, but XP works OK). This just isn't worth spending
time or money on. If you have a combination that works,
don't mess with it, don't upgrade it, don't change anything.
If you can't get a combination working, get rid of it and
try something else. I hear about fewer problems with RME
than anything else, but you pay more. You're probably paying
for the in-house software development team that seems to
keep up with things, but everybody else seems to develop
their hardware and driver, then throw it over the fence and
start working on the next great product.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[vdubreeze]

I've had nothing but completely rock solid use out of every Mac and
every FW drive and audio interface I've used with them since FW was
introduced. I have two Macs at home that I don't use for audio much
but that get a huge workout with image work, and I've never had the
slightest hiccup due to FW800 or 400, even mixed. This is the first
time I've every worked on rig that was finicky at all much less
troublesome, and I'm chalking it up to issues in AVIDland in these
particular new units. That, and using them both on a single bus on
the current MBP are the only differences.

The particular rigs I'm referring to the post are not my places, hence
not my decisions of whether to cut bait or keep troubleshooting. I've
also never had any issues with any Digidesign hardware ever, but my
feelings now are that AVID has let some things slip by that should
have been smoothed out before release.

[Mike Rivers]

On 6/3/2011 9:49 PM, vdubreeze wrote:
> I've had nothing but completely rock solid use out of every Mac and
> every FW drive and audio interface I've used with them since FW was
> introduced.

Oh? Then get yourself a Mackie Onyx Blackbird. ;)

They test computers with Firewire disk drives and video
cameras. Those are all pretty much alike. But audio
interfaces are difference, every one of them. One thing that
the Mac has going for it is that most audio interface
manufacturers try to use the Apple Core Audio driver so they
don't need to write a driver for their hardware, but Windows
has no such equivalent.

People in the Windows world talk about the "quality" of the
drivers. I don't think it's a quality issue, it's just a
matter of writing good software. At the rock bottom price of
hardware these days, they just can't afford to put a lot of
development and sustaining engineering time into the
companion software. Stuff pretty much either works or it
doesn't, and there isn't much hope in waiting for a fix.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[vdubreeze]

Yep, there are no different FW drivers from interface drivers in any
hardware I own, or use for that matter. It's all in the system.

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

vdubreeze wrote:

> Yep, there are no different FW drivers from interface drivers in any
> hardware I own, or use for that matter. It's all in the system.

With Vista ... or was it 7, can't remember ... one should probably choose
"legacy driver" since Microsoft screws fw more up whenever they update the
driver or the OS or the weather in the state of Washington changes.

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[vdubreeze]

On Jun 5, 2:49*am, "Peter Larsen" > wrote:
> vdubreeze wrote:
> > Yep, there are no different FW drivers from interface drivers in any
> > hardware I own, or use for that matter. *It's all in the system.
>
> With Vista ... or was it 7, can't remember ... one should probably choose
> "legacy driver" since Microsoft screws fw more up whenever they update the
> driver or the OS or the weather in the state of Washington changes.


Peter, it's all OSX. The mBox Pro is definitely the culprit in the
rig I have the influence on. When I swap it out for my Metric Halo
hardware on the same computer it sails.

It's finicky, and it's going back. AVID stubbed their toe on this
one, IMO.

v