USB to Firewire 400 converter?

[OakleyMoffatt]

I have the macbook with no firewire input, which is annoying when wanting to record with firewire equipment. Is there a converter i can use so i can use firewire in a usb port?

Also will is downgrade the quality of my recording?

 

[TimOBrien]

No you can't do that.

USB is this big:
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Firewire is this big:
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It's like trying to shove a semi-truck into a shower drain.

Does your Macbook have a PCMCIA/Expresscard slot?

If so, you can get a Belkin or SIIG firewire card with TexasInstruments chips (the ONLY ones you want to use for firewire interfaces.) Try newegg.com

 

[mattr]

I don't quite get Tim's 'size' comparison, but yea, to give another analogy this is like asking how to plug a toaster into your shower.

 

[OakleyMoffatt]

No you can't do that.

USB is this big:
|---|

Firewire is this big:
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

It's like trying to shove a semi-truck into a shower drain.

Does your Macbook have a PCMCIA/Expresscard slot?

If so, you can get a Belkin or SIIG firewire card with TexasInstruments chips (the ONLY ones you want to use for firewire interfaces.) Try newegg.com

No i do not have a PCMCIA/Expresscard slot, i have use a usb converter for that as well!


Does anyone know if an emulator would work for using Logic on my PC

 

[TimOBrien]

I don't quite get Tim's 'size' comparison, but yea, to give another analogy this is like asking how to plug a toaster into your shower.

It's called 'bandwidth'. The visual was an easy way to show it.
If you want, think of USB as a 1/2" garden hose and Firewire as a 24" water main.

USB2 tops out at about a dozen simultaneous channels.
Firewire400 can do well over 100 (FW800 can do twice that, but thats why you dont see many FW800 interfaces- no one really needs that much pipe).

With Firewire, you can hang the audio interface AND hard drives and convolution processors on the chain (I do with ZERO problems). Cant do that with USB.

Even if you are just recording a few you can't translate that much space into a tiny usb pipe.

 

[mattr]

Yea, but doesn't that miss the point somewhat? The OP was asking why he couldn't simply find a physical adaptor to provide interoperability between the two interfaces, and in that context the lack of compatibility between Firewire and USB has little to do with bandwidth. Whilst on the point, USB2 actually has a greater bandwidth than FW400, but differences in interface architecture mean that real-world performance of FW400 will generally exceed that of USB2 (particularly for applications like audio interfaces). I too prefer firewire devices to their USB counterparts for the same reasons, but the bandwidth comment is simply a comparison and not the reason for the inability for a simple conversion between them. I like analogies, but surely its important to make sure the point they make is the same as the explanation they're linked to?

Hey, I'm hungover after a very long night of celebrating exam results. Maybe I'm just being grumpy and overly picky...

 

[oretez]

stuff like this typically in the $100 price range and designed primarily for the DV camera market is available

there is also stuff like this typically for pennies that permit direct interconnect

there are also laptop carss (PCMCIA, cardbus, expresscard, etc. though have not remained current on any Mac centric product) that support both USB 2 & F/W on a single card

how well any of these might work in support of Audio ADC is open question/crapshoot. do not know of a single audio card converter that works with any combo card USB/FW and on the surface one might think that vid camera demands would exceed audio . . . fact is vid is easier to buffer and vid cam's tend to support highly compressed audio formats and overall are less demanding in terms of streaming data then multi channel audio

There is stuff out there but since introduction of USB 2 I don't know of a single individual that has been successful (for multi channel audio) when attempting this type of conversion

there used to be (rghly 6 yr. ago) fairly expensive (apprx. $600) boxes that did data format conversion but a quick web search failed to turn up any of those beasts . . . a more exhaustive search (then for which I have the patience might reveal them)

(personally, on Wintel platforms, have never had audio success with either carbbus or PCI USB/FW combo cards)

 

[cusebassman]

stuff like this typically in the $100 price range and designed primarily for the DV camera market is available

This might get a camera to attach to your computer to transfer files, but something tells me it wouldn't provide sustained audio transfer without lots of pops/clicks, etc., and that's an optimistic outlook.

there is also stuff like this typically for pennies that permit direct interconnect

I realize you are just making suggestions, but as others have explained, since USB and FireWire are entirely different types of interfaces to transfer data over, there's no way this thing could ever work, not just in the audio world. Perhaps there's some legitimate reason for its existence, but I'm not seeing it.

I have the same problem the OP does - bought a standard Macbook back when they had removed the FireWire ports. The regular Macbooks also have no PCMCIA or ExpressCard slot, so really, therr's no way to solve this problem. I ultimately bought a 300 dollar Core 2 duo Lenovo laptop that I attach my firepod to. While I wasn't thrilled about having to switch to audio production on the PC, it's the only answer short of upadingto a newer Macbook with a FireWire port.

You're welcome to try the first link i commented on (the adapter with some sort of processor in the middle for about 90 bucks), but as i said, since it's going through an extra data conversion process AND over USB in the end, the sustained transfer rate just isn't going to be there.