Need more Firewire inputs -- a hub?

[KeithCF]

Hi -- I am setting up a mobile recording outfit and have:

-Acer Aspire 1660 notebook/Windows XP
-Presonus Firepod
-280 Gig LaCie hard drive

I want to run the hard drive Firewire (and not USB 2.0 -- I have read too many bad things) but the notebook only has one Firewire 1394a port, which is being used by the Firepod. I tried daisy chaining notebook<Firepod<LaCie but I got some long dropouts for some reason.

I can't daisy chain notebook<LaCie<Firepod because the LaCie hard drive only has 1 1394a port on the back and that would be the connection to the notebook Firewire input. The hard drive has multiple 1394b ports -- but the Firepod only uses 1394a connections.

If I want to run the hard drive via Firewire, I need another Firewire input. Are Firewire hubs a dependable way to go? I tried using a PCI Firewire notebook card for the extra Firewire port (an Orangelink Firewire 800 card), but it doesn't work correctly -- lots of errors, system crashes, etc. It seems to be a driver issue.

I can't think of any other options besides the Firewire hub. Anyone else?

Thank you for your help!

Keith

 

[crankz1]

Maybe a 1394b 9 pin to 1394a 6 pin cable adapter

 

[manning1]

keith. there have been in the past as i'm sure your aware a number of problems using underpowered laptops as daws. the three main problems being folks trying to use them with low memory, slow processors and slow hard drives. as well, usb in my opinion as a puter engr has not lived up to its potential. frankly i wont use it, and counsel people to only use it for low demand devices like mice etc.
such had been the many problems i never considered using a laptop as a daw. but now with the p4 and amd athlon and 64 processors in conjunction with faster hard drives , i feel more confident in suggesting folks look at them. FINALLY it looks like after many years of waiting there is the possibility of laptops being the center of a daw.

in your case it looks like however you have a nice powerfull laptop.
hopefully you have no less than 512 ram which i would recommend.
if the internal hard drive is slower than 7200 rpm (i searched but couldnt find info)....on some laptops you can do a hard drive upgrade to 7200 rpm.
i would check with acer if this is your situation.

also if your curious on potential performance of the acer in a real multitracking environment eg...number of tracks etc you might get
from prorec.com a utility called diskbench. this will provide some important performance stats on your system.
if you could post your results this would be most helpfull as i have many friends shopping for laptops for daw. and it will help comparisons with other configurations. if you want to try a nice piece of multitrack software for your laptop demo powertracks from pgmusic.com. that i use.
up in the menus is a test you can perform on your laptop which will tell you how many tracks. if over 40 , then you should be in good shape.
for 49 bucks you wont do better. it will do 48 tracks with a powerfull pc. i would be real curious to know as well how well powertracks runs on that acer. if you want set up tips. just ask. just make sure in preferences you identify the drivers to use. i would also be curious to know (powertracks has lots of built in effects) how long it takes to process reverb on a track.
as you have a p4 it should be quite fast.
peace.

 

[vestast]

On the dropout issue....

I found that once I removed internet access and disabled AV and my software firewall my Firewire connection (fw-1884) no longer experienced any dropouts.

Try these tweaks first before you decide to abandon firewire.

http://www.musicxp.net/tuning_tips.php

 

[KeithCF]

Firewire hub?

Guys -- thanks for the replies.

On the Firewire pin converter, didn't know that existed. That may work, although I am not confident daisy chaining is going to work for me. I will pick one up and try the notebook<hard drive<Firepod configuration.

Manning -- thanks for the suggestion on dskbench. I am going to run that and see what we get. I'll post the results. FWIW, I am running 1 Gig of RAM, a P4 3.0 processor, and am using the LaCie D2 Extreme as the audio file hard drive, which runs at 7200 RPM. Cubase LE is running on the laptop harddrive, and you are correct, it's 4800 rpm.

Thanks also for the XP tuning tips -- I have been to that site and made the adjustments. I shut down everything I can find before tracking, and make sure my wireless connection is also disabled.

So -- back to one of my original questions -- is using a Firewire hub a dependable alternative if I want to increase the number of Firewire inputs into my laptop?

Thanks!

Keith

 

[crankz1]

.....
So -- back to one of my original questions -- is using a Firewire hub a dependable alternative if I want to increase the number of Firewire inputs into my laptop?

Thanks!

Keith

Yes and No ..... A hub won't be much different than daisy chaining. You are still using the same IEEE 1394 controller. Some FireWire devices may be fine with sharing the controller. Your Firepod and/or external drive may not.
For under $20, that cable may be worth trying as opposed to looking for a different PCMCIA card. If you do end up going the route of a different PCMCIA card, I would look for a 1394a card with the Texas Instruments chipset.

 

[KeithCF]

Firwire hub

Just spoke with Presonus about daisy chaining the hard drive off the Firepod, and they said the drop outs I was getting might be a controller conflict. They also advised not using Firewire hubs -- said they had not seen good results with that. Their advice was to use USB 2.0 for the hard drive, and utilize the Firewire input for the Firepod. That way, you keep the devices on totally separate buses. I tried it yesterday and it did seem to work OK, despite all the bad things we have heard. In any event, I don't have any other options!

Thanks for your help and feedback --

Keith

 

[crankz1]

Yeah, there are many people having success using USB 2.0 drives.
USB 1.0 is the standard to steer clear of. It just doesn't offer the required transfer rates.

 

[KeithCF]

Dskbench

keith. there have been in the past as i'm sure your aware a number of problems using underpowered laptops as daws. the three main problems being folks trying to use them with low memory, slow processors and slow hard drives. as well, usb in my opinion as a puter engr has not lived up to its potential. frankly i wont use it, and counsel people to only use it for low demand devices like mice etc.
such had been the many problems i never considered using a laptop as a daw. but now with the p4 and amd athlon and 64 processors in conjunction with faster hard drives , i feel more confident in suggesting folks look at them. FINALLY it looks like after many years of waiting there is the possibility of laptops being the center of a daw.

in your case it looks like however you have a nice powerfull laptop.
hopefully you have no less than 512 ram which i would recommend.
if the internal hard drive is slower than 7200 rpm (i searched but couldnt find info)....on some laptops you can do a hard drive upgrade to 7200 rpm.
i would check with acer if this is your situation.

also if your curious on potential performance of the acer in a real multitracking environment eg...number of tracks etc you might get
from prorec.com a utility called diskbench. this will provide some important performance stats on your system.
if you could post your results this would be most helpfull as i have many friends shopping for laptops for daw. and it will help comparisons with other configurations. if you want to try a nice piece of multitrack software for your laptop demo powertracks from pgmusic.com. that i use.
up in the menus is a test you can perform on your laptop which will tell you how many tracks. if over 40 , then you should be in good shape.
for 49 bucks you wont do better. it will do 48 tracks with a powerfull pc. i would be real curious to know as well how well powertracks runs on that acer. if you want set up tips. just ask. just make sure in preferences you identify the drivers to use. i would also be curious to know (powertracks has lots of built in effects) how long it takes to process reverb on a track.
as you have a p4 it should be quite fast.
peace.

Manning -- I tried to run the dskbench program you directed me to, but the "CPU Check" which is supposed to be at around 50% was only 13%. According to the notes, that means the CPU measurement index is off, and the test won't give reliable results. Let me know if any other programs can do the same thing and I'll try it. That site looks very useful BTW, thanks for passing it along.

Keith

 

[guhlenn]

I would love some info on how the firepod is behaving in the real world, does it live up to all the great reviews?

Thanks!

 

[manning1]

keith ive never ever seen that occur before !!!
highly unusual.
i dont know if this is the case. but is your cpu ok ?
in control panel device mgr are you getting any "flags" ?
dont know what to suggest.
other than doing a balls to the wall test of your laptop
using some multitrack software. heres an idea. download the demo of powertracks that i use from pgmusic.com. it will run a test on your system.
it will even work with terrible on board laptop sound.
just id the drivers in audio preferences.
(look up in the menus) and report the number of tracks.
please tell me the result. i'm worried in case your system is performing under
rated spec.
peace.

 

[crankz1]

I wouldn't worry to much about the dskbench results. I've seen others get odd-ball CPU check #'s.
Even my P4 shows 11.82%. I think it's an issue with Hyper-threading or the P4 itself.
Just do a real world test .... record a butt-load of tracks and see how many you can get before the computer craps out.
As you can see in the image bellow, dskbench shows that I should be capable of between 140 and 360 tracks.
That ain't gonna happen.
I think my 3gHz P4 will crap out long before I get near 100 tracks.
In all honesty, I hope I never have to mix anywhere near 100 tracks.
30 to 40 tracks and a moderate amount of plugins and I'm happy.