Firewire pin question

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riccol

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I have been recording for some time on a desktop system that I love.
Quad core processor that just works with emu1212m card.

But now my work is causing me to travel constantly for the next 9 months.

So I am trying to set up something I can take with me. I can take a guitar mic and even one pre (speck 5.0) since it's small.

My question the same old thing which interface for the laptop. The laptop has firewire but it is the 4 pin. I don't know jack about the difference between the 6 pin and 4 pin. How that affects the performance. Can I adapt any firewire card to work with the 4pin?

Since I will only be recording a track at a time any real difference if I went with USB interface?

Also so many of the interfaces come with their own pres ... Are there any that would let me bypass the built in pres and use an outboard pre?

Used the search function for a while ... cannot find answers so any help sure appreciated
 
The major difference between usb and firewire is that USB is a master/slave relationships (computer is master, interface is slave) and firewire is peer to peer. With USB this means that, if you are trying to record a bunch of tracks at once or use several high demand usb units at once, you might end up having problems, since all the work is being done by your pc. Just one input at a time, you'll be fine with a good USB interface.
 
there is no difference in speed with a 4 pin or 6 pin firewire, just the 6 pin will power your device where the 4 pin won't and you'll need external power. i use a presonus inspire into my 6 pin connection. the 6 pin powers the interface, however it comes with an wall adapter if your computer only has a 4 pin firewire.
 
Hey thanks for the response,

Just what I needed to know. One more question, if the interface comes with a 6 pin plug, I assume adapters to 4 pin are readily available?

And what about an interface that allows me to bypass the interface pres and use another outboard pre?
 
How many new modern laptops have firewire connections? Is that something you need to specifically add when buying?
 
already have the laptop that was provided for me... has 4 pin firewire and of course USB.

Just wading through decisions now as to which interface.
 
I personally think that you will not notic a difference between firewire and USB 2.0 these days and for what you are doing, so don't rule out the usb. Look for the other features you want in an interface. If you really want to use an external pre amp, shouldn't be a problem with any interface. Just feed the pre into the interface as a line level device.

I find that a good interface also will have a decent preamp with phantom power, so you may want to consider using that instead of an external preamp. There are so many interfaces to chooose from, you will probably have to just do some googling and read reviews to decide what you want.
Good luck
 
*Most* Laptops firewire is pretty badly executed (Mac Pro being an exception). They almost never use TI Firewire chips, the bios is horrible and very often there are terrible compatability problems. Most of the time adding a bus card FW port won't help since it still goes through the same bus the onboard FW does and so doesn't bypass the onboard FW issues at all.

If you already have an interface buy a 4pin to 6pin cable and see, you may be one of the lucky ones and find it works out.
If not all you've blown is the cost of a cable.

USB is often a better choice on a laptop and will be less prone to the compatability issues of FW and for track at a time isn't really a problem. That said again because of the BIOS and resource allocation on a laptop it may still not be problem free. Off the shelf brand name laptops (again Macs not included) are notoriously horrible for audio and other specialist highly demanding applications. They're are simply not designed for it what they are designed for is websurfing, emailing, photo sharing, document reading facebooking, etc.

There is more to a good DAW than sticking a fast chip with a bunch of other components and calling it done
 
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