A firewire question
 

I?m considering buying an Asus A6Ja notebook that i?m gonna use for music (and other stuff) and i will therefore need a firewire audio interface. I want it to be 100% portable so the interface has to get it?s power from the laptop. Now the problem is that on almost all laptops the built in firewire ports are the type with 4 pins and as far as i know only firewire ports with 6 pins has power supply. This means that i can?t run firewire equipment that doesn?t have a powersupply of it?s own right? Now i?ve seen that you can buy a card bus adapter with 6-pin firewire (see picture below). Can i just buy one of these and all trouble solved? Will the audio interface eat the battery in no time? What do all you guys with laptops do?

Hi Onkel, also make sure which "cardbus" type you have. All the new laptops tend to use PCI "ExpressCard" slots instead of the older PCMCIA type-II Cardbus slots.

Both slots look identical from the outside, but inside the ExpressCard slot's length is much shorter (it's about half the length of PCMCIA type-II slots inside). Thus, you can't use PCMCIA type-II cards in PCI-ExpressCard slots, and vice versa.

I've run the Apple Powerbook with a presonus Firebox, battery time is reduced by about 1/3.
Your mileage may vary.

I guess this means that i can use one of these cards right? The specs say "1 x Type II PCMCIA 2.1 compliant" so i guess they haven?t converted to PCI-ExpressCard yet.


Is this with an adapter or from an internal firewire port? Will it make any difference?



Concerning the Audio interface i was thinking of getting a MOTU Ultralite. Any thoughts?

By the way; what does "non-adapted 6-pin FireWire port " mean?

Thats with the laptop powering the Firebox, phantom power will also drain more again.

and if i've said it a 1000 times i'll say it again,make sure it has Texas instrument chips on it.as these work with all audio devices .With other chip sets there is no guarantee.
I had a Firewire 410 from M-audio and it only ran stable with a Texas chip PCMCIA card...

I jsut setup a laptop based studi for a friend of mine:

Toshiba 2.8 GHz laptop w/ 1.5 GB RAM, Windows XP Home SP2, 4-pin firewire, KRK Rokit 8 speakers, Motif 8, MOTU Traveler as audio/MIDI interface, Tracktion 2 as sequencer.

It was a really nice little rig.

The Traveler is a GREAT piece of kit. It handled audio, MIDI, synth, guitar, and microphone inputs VERY well.

If the MOTU Ultralite is similar to the Traveler in any way it has to be a good piece of kit.

The use of the power supply wasn't a big deal.

We just rigged up an extension cord with a high-end power strip/surge protector and everything just plugged into that.

Piece of cake, and great sound!

Good luck Bro.

8)

-Alex

My next bit of kit...
Video--> http://www.tcelectronic.com/Default.asp?Id=7620
........................................

As far as i can see the biggest diffenrence besides the number of I/O?s (and the price of course) is that the Traveler has 24-bit 192kHz converter and ADAT, the Ultralite has 24-bit 96kHz converters and no ADAT. I think i can live with that when you think about the price diffenrence :roll:

Well i was planing to be able to take it with me for some field recording so it has to be able to run "off the wall plug"...


The girl next door: I wouldn?t think twice if was a powercore compact and audiointerface in one. That would be cool :twisted:

How will i know which ones that has Texas Instrument chips? They don?t excactly write this on the box :roll:

Hey Onkel Dunkel, just out of curiosity what do you mean by field recording? I agree that the more mobile a device can be, the better. It seems if you buy that PCM card above (as long as it has Texas Instruments chips) that the UltraLite can be bus powered and your objective accomplished.

My friend Bob goes into fields with condensor microphones and tries to capture the sound of natural phenomena. He captures butterflies and puts them in a box and tries to record the airflow coming off their wings (I am not kidding) and then he wants to laod it into a sampler. He's a trip!

OD,
That is what I am using for my interface. i absolutely love it. I moved up from a firewire410 and could immedieately hear the difference in the converters. Not class A stuff, but it sounds fantastic. Gold plated jacks and all. Very little rugged piece of kit and it sounds fantastic. Stable as can be also.

I took my laptop with me to the shop and tried different ones in the shop.you look in control panel/system/hardware/device manager and there you can see if its got Texas chips.
If failing that you can always search for one http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=...firewire&meta=

I am considering going firewire with the motu ultralite ,
Are you runing it on pc or mac?


im corrently building a recording enviroment ,so minimal amount of noise is nececery:
im planing on having my accual DAW in the next room and runing all the cables (screen mainly,i got a wireless key\mouse) thru a small drilled hole.
whats the maximum length\restrection about firewire cable length?

im looking at about 2.5-3 meters between the interface and the computer.
is that too long for firewire?

I am on a mac using logic. I use a 4 ft cable and do not have any noise issue. The drivers are solid (at least on a mac, don't know about pc). I wouls think you would be safe the length you plan on using.

cool,
thanx mate!

I?d like to take it with me to different places and record all sorts of shit like car noise, birds, crowds of people talking, etc. (no butterflies though :wink: )


Sounds like he got himself a challenge. He must have very good mics and a very quiet place to do this. Sounds nutty :lol:


Anyway, thanks for the feedback guys. I?ll write some dealers and ask them if they use TI chips...

isnt it easyer to just use a modular and protend that the filtered noise you just created is what a butterfly realy sounds like?
exacly like the blip blip which represents computers for the past 50 years in Scifi movies. :D my computer make these sorts of sounds all the time,thos guys back in the 50s at the BBC soundlab were realy right after all! :shock:

Hmmmm, it seems that none cardbus firewire cards have power built in even though they have 6-pin sockets :? Some of them have an option for using an external powersupply (to power bus-powered gear) but then again, what?s the point. Maybe i could buy an external battery for powering the interface :roll:

From what I understand, the PCMCIA bus cannot provide enough power to run bus-powered devices.

jackholexxxx

Yes that?s what i?ve come to realize (sadly) :?

But you can modify a cable, using 2 firewire ports from the computer into whatever device you need??? Hmmm....I've seen it done with USB but not with FW

Well i thought about using a card with plug for external power adapter and then draining the power from a USB port (or in worst case a battery) but i think that the USB has only 5V supply and i will need more for firewire right? The UltraLite comes with a 9V supply for standalone operation so i think this must be minimum. I?m not sure about the specs of firewire because everywhere i look it says that it can operate up to 40V. What the hell does "up to 40V" mean? That it will automaticly regulate the voltage for what gear that is used (sounds unusual)? Well anyway i got my new laptop yesterday (yeah :twisted: )and i ordered the MOTU UltraLite 2 days ago that should arive soon so i can begin experimenting...'

Edit: Just got a mail from Aten (a manufacturer of firewire cardbus cards). They say that the ports ARE powered BUT it depends on if the computer can (or will) deliver enough power. If it can, i can use it and if it can?t i will need an external powersource. Maybe good news :roll: