Which interface?

[Kurt]

I just bought a new computer and my old soundcard (Steinberg VSL2020 which I didn't like, the control panel was extremely basic) won't work with a 64 bit OS. I have a Presonus Firestudio which should work well with this machine, but doesn't.

This is the third time I've tried a firewire interface and the third time it's been a shit fight, I give up on firewire.

It looks like the RME HDSP 9652 should do what I want (at least 16 inputs). Can anyone else suggest a decent quality card that won't break the bank? Are there any USB interfaces I should look at?

[lonearranger]

I just bought a new computer and my old soundcard (Steinberg VSL2020 which I didn't like, the control panel was extremely basic) won't work with a 64 bit OS. I have a Presonus Firestudio which should work well with this machine, but doesn't.

This is the third time I've tried a firewire interface and the third time it's been a shit fight, I give up on firewire.

It looks like the RME HDSP 9652 should do what I want (at least 16 inputs). Can anyone else suggest a decent quality card that won't break the bank? Are there any USB interfaces I should look at?

Are you on a Mac or PC - Model or mobo details? What are the issues you are experiencing?

There are some documented issues with certain types of firewire chipsets and certain brands of interfaces. Just saw something on homerecording forum where disabling/removing WIFI rectified dropout issues. If you happen to have one of the more problematic firewire chipsets you may want to try installing a compatible firewire card (eg - Texas Instruments chipset - check what presonus have to say) and disable inbuilt firewire in your bios (if PC).

Lots of people using firewire quite happily, including myself, with an Yamaha n12 and a PC with inbuilt Firewire, and no major issues over this time. Also should bear in mind that if there is some underlying issue with your config or setup then going to a PCI(x) solution may not actually work any better.

Cheers

[jkhuri44]

You'll need a texas instruments FW card on your laptop or computer if you wanna run FW audio.

[chribble]

i had issues with firewire whilst on PC, like you.
Rme has USB offerings.

If mac, firewire is OK.

[heathen]

I've never had trouble running firewire on pc, though ran my 10 channels of apogee on an HDSP96/52 with no issues either, always runs smoothly either way.

Though a compatable firewire card would be the cheapest option to try I guess.

[Drumstruck]

It can go deeper than just the f/w card in a PC......

I have a PC (8-core Intel / Gigabyte Mboard / TI f/w card / W7) that worked fine with an M-Audio 2626 but was not stable with my Ta@#$% firewire interface - tried 2 different f/w cards (TI and noname) and the onboard with no luck. It's rediculous, such a high powered machine, but it does browsing duties and not much else now.....

With a MacBook Pro / Lion the Ta@#$% runs beautifully over firewire.

I think USB is an easier option, but some of the USB ADACs have lower sample rate.

[Kurt]

It's a pc running Windows 7/64. Intel i7 on an Asus motherboard with 16gig of ram, it is literally brand new.
I installed a TI based PCI Firewire card.

I can find no reason for it being glitchy and shithouse. I have plugged the Presonus into a friends computer and it seemed to work fine. I guess it's possible I have an incompatible FireWire card and I'll probably try replacing that before spending many hundreds on a new interface. Not that the presonus is anything special but it should certainly be adequate for my needs, if I can get it to work.

[Chris H]

A mate knows PC configuration really well and he often tells me of certain versions of motherboard or chipset combinations or other components that will not go well with something or other so it pays to check before you settle on the purchase of a PC whether your choice may have issues with firewire. If you give as much detail as you can of the components in your PC i will email it t5o him and if there is a problem he is most likely able to pick it. He builds them for audio all the time.

[Drumstruck]

Hey Kurt,

I really empathise with you - it sucks spending hours working on a friggin' PC when all you want to do is record with the sucker.

Are you getting any error messages? I was getting a PT message that basically said "the sample rate had been reset and PT must restart". Something in W7/Mboard/CPU was over-riding the sample rate set in my firewire interface and PT. Everything was disabled on my PC and W7/64 was stripped to the basic O/S. The PC absolutely flew, but not with PT.....

I would be really interested if you find the answer, but I suspect it's lower level than the f/w card.

[Kurt]

Thanks Chris, see if he thinks any of this will be a problem.

CPU Intel Core i7 2600 (3.40Ghz / 8MB / LGA1155 / Quad Core
Motherboard Asus P8Z68-V LX MB, Socket 1155, Intel Z68 Chipset, 4x DDR3, HDMI, DVI, D-SUB, CrossFireX, SATA3, GbLAN, 8CH, USB3.0, ATX
Memory G.Skill 16GB Kit (4x4GB), PC-14900 (1866MHz) DDR3, Ripjaws X, 9-10-9-28-2N, Dual Channel Kit
Hard Disk OCZ 128GB SSD, 2.5", Petrol, SATAIII, Read 360MB/s, Write 180MB/s
Hard Disk #2 Western Digital 1TB, Caviar Black, SATA-III, 7200RPM, 64MB Cache
Case Antec Three Hundred , Black, ATX, No PSU.2 x USB2.0, Top mounted 140mm exhaust fan
Optical Drive Pioneer DVR-219LBK 24x Single & 12x Dual Layer Unbranded Black OEM - SATA DVDRW
Video Card Inno3D Geforce GTX560 (810Mhz), 1024MB GDDR5 (4000Mhz), PCI-E 2.0, 2x Dual Link DVI, mini HDMI
Power Supply Corsair CMPSU-650HX 650W ATX Modular PSU, 120mm fan, Dual PCI-E Graphics Card Connector, 9x SATA Connectors, Universal AC input 90~26
Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium with Service Pack 1, 64bit DVD OEM

A mate knows PC configuration really well and he often tells me of certain versions of motherboard or chipset combinations or other components that will not go well with something or other so it pays to check before you settle on the purchase of a PC whether your choice may have issues with firewire. If you give as much detail as you can of the components in your PC i will email it t5o him and if there is a problem he is most likely able to pick it. He builds them for audio all the time.

[Kurt]

On a more positive note, it can play 96 tracks back just as badly as 8, so that's something...

There are no error messages, it plays back smoothly (I think) and happily records 32 tracks at once.

[lonearranger]

The other things to check - what is the buffer size for the card set to, try it at the max and see if the situation improves. Make sure you disable speed step in the bios. This is a power saving technique that changes the clock rate of CPU depending on load. This plays havoc with clocking and can manifest as glitchy playback.

[Chris H]

Here is the advise my mate Bill offered after looking at your system specs. Hope it helps you sort it out.

The system seems well spec'ed but if it's giving problems I'd check out these things first.
The first thing to check is to make sure the optimum hardware drivers for this mother board and video card have been installed. When you install an operating system Windows, Linix, OSX etc will install generic drivers for each component just to get the system running, ie IDE or SATA drivers for the disk system, USB drivers, chipset drivers for the Memory controller and so on.
Because most people don't use their computers for intensive tasks a lot of computer stores save time by not bothering to finish the install properly. Most people will be satisfied as typing or browsing etc won't be affected.
All you have to do to check hardware is to insert the disk which came with the motherboard. Most will have an autorun program which will check hardware drivers and install any if newer ones are available. The same goes for the video card particularly if it's got HDMI ports.

The next thing I'd check is the IEEE1394 or firewire card. Presonus list several makers of firewire chips and cards they've tested on their website.
They also suggest some which are not compatible. Your list doesn't include the 1394 card used but it can matter. Texas Instruments TI is the best but hard to get. I've used VIA, Lucent and Agere based cards no probs.
The length of the cable also matters, the shorter the better. On of my RME multiface systems (they use a proprietry 1394 protocol ) won't work with a 5mt cable but works fine with 1mt.

The last thing I'd check is the BIOS version of the motherboard. Asus make very fast computers but they OFTEN have to tweak the bios during the early life of the motherboard to impove stability, compatiblity and performance.
I personally avoid their MBs for this reason, I've always had a bit of fun getting things cooking (I use Gigabyte MBs mostly). Bios upgrades are easy but be careful as done incorrectly you can be in big trouble/

That's enough for now, if this doesn't help I'll gladly help in person, it would be quicker than my typing.

[Kurt]

Thanks for chasing that up Chris, unfortunately I have already done bios and driver updates, it is a TI Firewire card, the cable is the one that came with the Presonus and works fine on my friend's computer. I'll have to pull the 1394 card out and check the model, I don't know if it is specifically listed as compatible.

[lonearranger]

Further to what I mentioned on speed step - this utility http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html can be run and you will see the CPU speeds changing if speed step is enabled - do the speed changes copincide with clicks/glitches - definitely worth crossing this off your list.