# The death of the Firewire recording interface



## Jeff Flowerday (Jan 23, 2006)

I've always believed in and had good success with firewire based interfaces. But times are a turning, it seems not one manufacturer, not even Mac uses the T.I. firewire chipset anymore. It and the VIA are the only truelly stable firewire chipsets for super low latency recording. Most use the cheaper, crappy Ricoh chipset.

Example: On my desktop machine I have a VIA firewire chipset and can achive 2ms latency with my RME Fireface 400. Live monitoring with 5 tracks and a dozen effects, no issues at all. The same just isnt achievable on my laptop with the Ricoh firewire chipset. At 4ms (aka 128 samples) I get spiking and clicks and pops. Anything higher just isn't usable in a live environment, the delay is annoying.

So where does this leave all those firewire interface companies? I guess, looking at USB 3.0 or even moving to USB 2.0 already. I'm going to pick up the equivalent USB 2.0 based fireface today on the way home from work. From what I've read they have done some different things with their USB controller and drivers and are able to achieve the same latency with the right chipset. Fortunately my laptop has that right Intel chipset.

In the past I've never gotten a USB inteface working stable, hopefully that all changes tonight.


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

Don't count FW out yet. I've heard rumors that there is FW3200 in the works (not an April 1 joke folks).

And didn't Mac go back to TI after a failed cost-down exercise?


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## Jeff Flowerday (Jan 23, 2006)

A faster FW isn't a solution to any problem. If the computer manufacturers won't spend money on quality TI chipsets they are no further ahead.

I was having an email conversation about firewire chipsets with a product manager at one of the bigger firewire interface companies yesterday. Here is the response I got from him about fixing the crappy RICOH chipset.

_From what I understand, the issue cannot be corrected for in drivers, as it's a low-level issue with the hardware/firmware of that chipset itself. I agree, it's unfortunate. But really, it points to a weakness in firewire itself, which is why most manufacturers are seriously testing/prototyping next-gen solutions...within a few years, firewire interfaces will not be around anymore._


An educated guess: next-gen = USB 3.0


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

It's too bad if FW does go away because of lack of support by manufacturers. The FW3200 protocol has been developed since 2007. Sometimes the high tech world is anything but leading edge...

In the end it really doesn't matter what system you go with. There is a level of built in product obsolescence in everything we purchase.

"The wonderful thing about standards is there are soooo many to choose from."


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## Jeff Flowerday (Jan 23, 2006)

We had a practice with the USB interface last night. 96 samples, 2ms latency and multiple effects on each of our 5 channels all monitored and being recorded without a hickup. Needless to say I'm quite impressed.

This is one good unit. But it also isn't cheap.

RME: Fireface UC


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

Love RME units. I am using the FF800.


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