USB hubs?

Goldilox

New member
Apologies if this is an idiot question, but how problematic is it to attach an interface through a usb hub? Or for that matter an external hard drive?

I went to turn on my main PC this morning & nothing is happening, but I do have a laptop that I bought to keep on top of emails while I'm on tour and have used successfully for 'in the field' recordings before now (usually tracking drums in more drum-friendly locations than my terraced house), so I'm wondering if the diagnosis on my main PC is bad whether I can just slot that in to my set up.

However it only has two USB ports, compared to the 4 front & 4 back on my desktop PC. So by the time I attach my interface & external hard drive that's them both used up before I even attach a mouse. It's also be nice to attach a proper monitor & a printer etc...
 
From what I understand, while hard drives and printers have no problem working on hubs, some audio interfaces don't like it. However, since you have two USB plugs, you could use one for the interface, and hang the hub with everything else off of the other.
 
I had issues with line 6 hardware through a hub until I powered the hub externally. My guess is the hub was drawing to much power from the computer because it made the interface stop working at all.
 
Power can be the issue, especially if it is a bus powered AI only (which is??) but there can also be the problem of sharing bandwidth.

I would guess the two USB ports are a "pair" and so share the same channel to the MOBO. I am typing on an HP i3 laptop and that has one pair of ports on the left and a solo port on the right. Sometimes things are not found on the single port which tells me it has a separate path to the MOBO?

I suggest you buy a decent quality powered hub and one with only a small number of ports, say 4. I have no evidence that a 10port hub is any "worse" but it can't do any harm to K.I.S.Sir? AFAIK so long as you are not trying to run 20+tracks from the USB hard drive AND printer AND AI you should be fine.

Dave.
 
In theory if you use a powered high quality hub it should perform fine. As others have said though, you will probably want to direct connect your interface and use the hub for everything else as long as everything else is nonessential. One problem you might run into is if you are actively reading and/or writing on your external harddrive via the usb hub (for example, if your DAWs program files or project data are written to the external drive). Again, a powered hub will have a better shot at limiting any issues, but they may still exist.
 
Your biggest issue (didn't read all the posts) could possibly be latency. The power seems to be more obvious, but if you do find everything works but your latency is not what you expect, might try using a direct port for the interface, hub for all other USB devices.
 
Way back when I used one port for my fast track pro and the hub for my ilock, mouse etc even the external HD - seemed to work okay

just my 2 cents and happy to reply for once! lol
 
just my 2 cents and happy to reply for once! lol

You're just 5 months too late. ;) :D

I've get one of those 4-port Gear Head hubs that I ran up from the computer (which is kinda hard to reach) and put it under my LCD monitors. It has the additional power adapter...so it can drive anything I connect to it. Works great, and very small.
 
You're just 5 months too late. ;) :D

I've get one of those 4-port Gear Head hubs that I ran up from the computer (which is kinda hard to reach) and put it under my LCD monitors. It has the additional power adapter...so it can drive anything I connect to it. Works great, and very small.

Yes, can work. I was told (by THE man from Scan!) that a hub has to share the bandwidth between all the ports. So if you had say a 4 port hub but JUST had an AI on one port and maybe a printer on another (which needs very little bandwidth and not often) you might get away with it. But an AI on same 4 way PLUS a stick, PLUS a printer, PLUS a Bluetooth/wi fi dongle and you are asking for botheration!

BTW, I have just discovered, after 5 yrs of use that one of the 3 ports on my HP i3 g6 lappy is USB 3.0! Happy daze.

Dave.
 
I don't know why but getting things working is often down to the hub itself.
I've tried three different ones. The first was temperamental, the second, would not run my interface. The 3rd is bang on
 
What model is the hub which worked Dave? The powered hub I have doesn't play nicely with other mains-powered devices such as my mixer.
 
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