whats the difference?

[emomusician]

USB interface

firewire interface

PCI card

lets take a scenario...

a solo artists is wanting to demo some decent quality recordings, w/ an acoustic guitar, some lead/harmony vocals, a keyboard and possibly some sequenced drums, and or some synth. He's also got a pc.

What differences in the 3 recording methods above makes it different from the other or advantages/disadvantages they may have over the others for this particular scenario. Lets also say that this guy doesn't intend to use any of the built in preamps some of these units come with. How would that weigh in?

 

[AlChuck]

The difference is simply how they connect to a PC. PCI cards go in a PCI card slot in the motherboard. Firewire interfaces are external and go into a Firewire port. And USB ones are external and go into a USB port. Older USB models use USB version 1.x and offer just barely enough bandwidth to get two simultaneous audio tracks into the PC. USB 2.0 and Firewire are comparable in bandwidth, but if I'm not mistaken a PCI card still beats them.

 

[bennychico11]

Lets also say that this guy doesn't intend to use any of the built in preamps some of these units come with.

hopefully he has some other preamps he's using...yes?

 

[emomusician]

of course! This guy just wants to see whether or not the "latency" involved in pc recording is going to be an issue.

 

[dgatwood]

USB interface

firewire interface

PCI card

lets take a scenario...

What differences in the 3 recording methods above makes it different from the other or advantages/disadvantages they may have over the others for this particular scenario. Lets also say that this guy doesn't intend to use any of the built in preamps some of these units come with. How would that weigh in?

USB will be more likely to have dropouts and glitching (statistically) than either of the others, as the USB audio standard is neither.

PCI may be ever so slightly better than FireWire in terms of minimizing latency, but neither one will be audible to humans if the PCI card doesn't suck (i.e. if it is NOT a SoundBlaster -anything-) and is set up correctly (with a small sample buffer on a computer fast enough to not glitch at a small buffer size). Where PCI has a slight edge there is in not requiring quite as much CPU power at the smaller buffer sizes, but with either PCI or FireWire, you're so far ahead of USB that it probably isn't worth thinking about.

FireWire has the advantage of not being a deprecated standard. PCI, by contrast, is being progressively phased out in favor of PCI Express (which won't work with existing PCI cards). So in terms of a device that you plan to use for years, FireWire is probably better unless buying a FireWire card costs almost as much as the PCI audio card (e.g. the under $100 audio cards), in which case it's a coin toss.

 

[emomusician]

is PCI-X is something completely different than PCI-E right?

I think PCI would still be my best bet.. #1 because i don't have a firewire port.. which means I'm buying a PCI card anyway.. which cost the same about as the PCI audio interface. It would make no sense to buy both. #2 I am buying a new pc sometime soon, alienware with dual core, and 256 nvidia pci-e video, and all the bells and whistles.. for gaming. That leaves me with this pc to clean off and use for solely recording.

 

[studiomaster]

PCI-X and PCI-E means the same. They are both PCI-Express.

 

[bennychico11]

PCI-X and PCI-E means the same. They are both PCI-Express.

no, they are different
PCIe is the express card
PCI-X is PCI-Extended which is an modified version of the PCI standard. It has a higher clock speed and throughput and are compatible with existing PCI cards. PCIe is not. PCIe is also serial.

There are not that many PCIe cards available for recording right now. Apple is one of the first to roll out their new computers with PCIe standard....so hopefully soon most companies will start offering express cards as well (I know Digidesign does)