USB/Firewire

  • Thread starter Thread starter Milnoque
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Milnoque

Milnoque

Resident Curmudgeon
Thanks for your help yesterday. After your replies yesterday I have a much better undarstanding of what my choices are.

Next question:

Is it possible to input tracks via USB and FireWire simultaneously?
 
Are you planning on running 2 soundcards or something?

I spose there's always a way. But I dunno.
 
Maybe I misunderstand how this works.

I have seen cards that have both kinds of ports. I thought you could bring in data straight to software bypassing the sound card. Am I wrong about this?

I have never recorded anything. Much less used any of this technology. I don't have any kind of gear. I'm starting from scratch. With the help of people like you I have decided to go with FireWire components. I was wondering if doing so precluded using USB devices for simultaneous tracks.

The idea was, if I have a basic mixing unit (I'm leaning toward a Phonic Helix Board 12 FW) and I want to expand my I/O will the next unit need to be FireWire?

I obviously need a 101 on how the sound card fits into the picture.
 
Milnoque said:
Maybe I misunderstand how this works.

I have seen cards that have both kinds of ports. I thought you could bring in data straight to software bypassing the sound card. Am I wrong about this?

I have never recorded anything. Much less used any of this technology. I don't have any kind of gear. I'm starting from scratch. With the help of people like you I have decided to go with FireWire components. I was wondering if doing so precluded using USB devices for simultaneous tracks.

The idea was, if I have a basic mixing unit (I'm leaning toward a Phonic Helix Board 12 FW) and I want to expand my I/O will the next unit need to be FireWire?

I obviously need a 101 on how the sound card fits into the picture.
Click to expand...

The interface you choose to buy, say, a firepod, counts as your sound card as far as your recording application is concerned. It is the way that audio goes into and comes out of your computer. Think of a USB or firewire interface as an external soundacrd. If you choose an interface like the firepod, you can record 8 sources at a time though your firewife interface. Do you need to record more than 8 tracks at a time?
 
Milnoque said:
Maybe I misunderstand how this works.

I have seen cards that have both kinds of ports. I thought you could bring in data straight to software bypassing the sound card. Am I wrong about this?

I have never recorded anything. Much less used any of this technology. I don't have any kind of gear. I'm starting from scratch. With the help of people like you I have decided to go with FireWire components. I was wondering if doing so precluded using USB devices for simultaneous tracks.

The idea was, if I have a basic mixing unit (I'm leaning toward a Phonic Helix Board 12 FW) and I want to expand my I/O will the next unit need to be FireWire?

I obviously need a 101 on how the sound card fits into the picture.
Click to expand...

I think the question (or at least one of them) is whether or not your recording software will recognize two different sound cards at the same time, which I think most don't.
Now the nice thing about Firewire, is that it is expandable, so you can daisy-chain one firewire device to another for more I/O.
If the Phonic Helix has ADAT I/O, you can also got expand that way.
 
For now I don't think I can use any more than 4 inputs. I'm just trying to understand how things work.

What is ADAT
 
I suppose you could, but it would be pointless. Like someone else already said, it would depend on if your software could recognize, or use 2 different interfaces at the same time.

It goes like this:

Instrument -> Microphone -> Interface -> Computer

The interface is where everything being recorded gets directed to the computer. This could be a soundcard, a firepod, or a USB interface.

Sometimes there is a preamp before the interface, after the microphone. But some interfaces have preamps built in, which can range in quality. External ones are not always needed but they are recommended.

A FirePod acts as an external soundcard. You can record into your computer, and play audio back through it. It allows you to hook up speakers (monitors), microphones, etc.

So since everything is already done with the FirePod (Firewire) there is no point in hooking up a USB interface. You could daisy chain a USB interface into the FirePod, if you have a USB/FireWire converter to hook on the cable, but the end result would still be firewire so it would be pointless.
 
Milnoque said:
For now I don't think I can use any more than 4 inputs. I'm just trying to understand how things work.

What is ADAT
Click to expand...

Without getting into too much detail/history, ADAT stands for Alesis Digital Audio Tape, it was a 8 channel digital recording format developed by Alesis.
It is also a 8 channel digital audio transfer protocol over an optical connection.
So if your FW interface has ADAT Input (as many of them do) you can buy something like an 8-channel mic pre with ADAT Out, and connect that to the ADAT IN (via the optical connection) of your firewire interface, giving you an extra 8 channels. There are many 8 channel ADAT Output mic pre's on the market, with a wide range of prices and quality. The cheapest would probably be the Behringer ADA8000, just to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

What is limiting you to 4 inputs? If that's all you need, USB should do it. But if you want to expand, FW is definetly the way to go.
 
RAK said:
I think the question (or at least one of them) is whether or not your recording software will If the Phonic Helix has ADAT I/O, you can also got expand that way.
Click to expand...

Helixboard 12FW has no ADAT I/O
 
You can still use USB for things like plugging in Midi controllers, just to clarify. I use Reason and Ableton live with a firewire interface and an Oxygen 8 controller which is USB. This is to input Midi, not to record audio
 
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