Firewire express cards and audio recording.Please help.

[elvisvalentine]

greetings all,
i just bought a pretty nice spec laptop which i want to use for primarily audio purposes it has no internal fw input but it has an express card slot. i was told by a computer technician that a fw express card would work perfectly well with my computer just as if it was originally installed, is this the case? also what will happen if i get an express card with 2 or more fw inputs? will there be a slow down in transfer rate etc if using 2 at the same time?
now ideally i want to use my tascam fw 1804 for recording but i also want an external fw hard drive can i hook them up to my 2 input fw express card without any problems? or could i somehow daisy chain them together?
Thanks in advance for all/any help.

 

[KineticSound]

I can't give an exact answer to your entire post, but can say that:

1. Since the TASCAM is self-powered (vs. bus powered), I don't see how utilizing an express card would be any different from a IEE-1394 4-pin connector built-in to the laptop. If I were attempting what you describe, I would use a 6-pin/4-pin adapter off the TASCAM so that only data is flowing between the card and the interface.

2. I can say to a fact that TASCAM discourages "daisy chaining" via the second FireWire port on the FW units. I still can't figure out why in the heck they even build them in (I have a FW-1082 and the secondary FW port is essentially useless). The only utilization I could imagine is as a "thru" port when the interface is not in active use. When utilizing my external drive, I record directly to the computer's hard drive, then back up or transfer the files after the fact.

EDIT: What I meant in (1) was that the TASCAM isn't really drawing any serious power from the FW bus. It draws some, but not much. Using a 4-pin adapter would prevent any overheating and possible damage to the express card.

 

[mixsit]

http://forum.cakewalk.com/default.asp

You might try doing some searches here. Seems there have been similar subjects over there.

Also if you don't know as a better way to search in any of these sites use this 'site specific format at the standard google- This example;
"bounce to tracks" site:http://forum.cakewalk.com <Note; as text at google. this site turned this into a link- not part of the plan)
(the "___") is for 'use exact phrase", (or their other options in 'advanced')
-way less suckage than most of these forum search thingies.

 

[elvisvalentine]

Thanks very much for the help guys.
I'm going to check out the cakewalk site just now.
i suppose the crux of what im asking is just if i can use a fw express card with 2 inputs at the same time without any serious loss of data transfer. but i wrote an essay instead
Thanks a lot.

Elvis Valentine

 

[dementedchord]

i cant say i understand the issue but as i hear it the issue of daiseychaining FW is a windows issue...