Apple powerbook

  • Thread starter Thread starter Babycham
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Babycham

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I bought a apple powerbook today, I was planning on getting the motu 828 interface, I want to know do I need any other sound card, or the firewire connection from the powerbook to the motu 828 is good enough?
 
I've got a motu 828. It works great. I wouldn't use the metric halo. At first I was gonna get it, but it's been two years and they still haven't released the final drivers for the soundcard. I'd rather have a piece of equipment I know will be ready out of the box. Check out the mhlabs.com message board and you'll see what I mean.
 
no extra card needed for the MOTU 828, just plug her into firewire (much like any usb device).

-Sal
 
RecTechMin

Hey RecTechMin.. since you have the MOTU 896 already you are a perfect person to ask. First of all... could you please run a quick list of all the major item you have in your set up? I have a PC pent III 933MHz / Logic Audio 4.8.1 DAW. And I am running a Delta 66 - OMNI studio soundcard package. Now I am going to have to leave Germany soon and come back home to the US and I will be leaving the PC here. I will have a descent amount of start up money onc I get back home and I was wondering. Should I get the MOTU 896 Firewire thing? I have no mixer, because the OMNI has so far acted like my mixer. But now I will be recording a whole band and the OMNI's inputs count just doesn't cut it. But the 896 with it's 8 In's should cover most of my full band needs. (One more IN would have allowed me to round out my drum mic's a little ebit better, but I can think of something). What I am asking you are a few things...

1. How do the pre-amps sound?

2. Any problems with the Firewire conector?

3. Is this a serious project studio solution or is it maily geared towards lap-top, weekend warriors that only want to get a few ideas down?

4. What are the major headachesthat you have noticed about this device?

5. Does it matter if you are using a PC or a Mac?

6. Do I still need a mixer, or could this along side the Logic Audio Platinum be used as a mixer... seeing as there is a vurtual mixer inside the software?

7. My PC did not come with a Firewire connection... if I buy a Firewire card and install it into a PCI clot... istn#t that just like having a PCI sound card? In this scenerio, where does the advantage of firewire lie? Firewire is faster than PCI, but when you have a firewire device shoved into a PCI firewire card... the data chain is only as fast as it's slowest link... i.e. the PCI slot. Or am I wrong about all this?

Sorry to hit you with my fat top 7. You're a real cool fella if you answer even half of these for me.

Thanks man,

Mike
 
if I buy a Firewire card and install it into a PCI clot... istn#t that just like having a PCI sound card? In this scenerio, where does the advantage of firewire lie? Firewire is faster than PCI, but when you have a firewire device shoved into a PCI firewire card... the data chain is only as fast as it's slowest link... i.e. the PCI slot. Or am I wrong about all this?
Click to expand...

It's not like having a PCI sound card; it's like having a PCI USB card with a few USB ports, and then you can connect various devices. Firewire is just another bus, it's just that if you get the PCI card version, it's a bus through a bus. Also, Firewire is certainly not faster than PCI. Think about it - you can get a UW160 SCSI PCI card that's four times faster than Firewire. Like USB, there is a limit to the number of simultaneous i/o you can run with Firewire - or any bus for that matter.
 
Re: RecTechMin

pisces7378 said:
7. My PC did not come with a Firewire connection... if I buy a Firewire card and install it into a PCI clot... istn#t that just like having a PCI sound card? In this scenerio, where does the advantage of firewire lie? Firewire is faster than PCI, but when you have a firewire device shoved into a PCI firewire card... the data chain is only as fast as it's slowest link... i.e. the PCI slot. Or am I wrong about all this?
Click to expand...

Firewire is *NOT* faster than PCI

Firewire - 50Mbytes/sec
PCI - over 100Mbytes/sec
 
Am I retarded then? i work for Texas Instruments here in Germany. I work in the European Product Information Center (EPIC) for texas Instruments as an electronics engineer consultant. I answer questions all day from people building systems around IEEE 1394 "Firewire". Now I am a DSP (TMS320C6000 Platform) specialist so granted I don't get too many Firewire questions, but I do know for SURE that the ieee 1394 chips we sell have a data exchange rate of 400 Mbytes/sec. And there is newer technology being sold to most military projects called iee 1394b which boasts an 800Mbytes/sec data exchange rate.

Where did you see that it has 50? I am not saying you are wrong. I am just asking.

Thanks for the answer at any rate,
Mike
 
Umm, Firewire is 400 Mbits/sec, not bytes.

400 Mbits = 50Mbyes (400/8)

You should know this, 8 bits equal 1 byte... ;)
 
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