Firewire vs USB 3.0

Fawkon

Very new to the idea of recording music, pretty much know sweet f* all to be honest but I'm planning on purchasing quite a high end laptop and one thing I would like to do with it is record some instrumental and vocals.

From what little knowledge i have it seems that it might be a good idea to get one with a firewire connection. Only problem is i would have to drop down to a lower spec/model laptop in order to get the firewire. The more expensive option has USB 3.0.

Which should i go for?

cgarrad

Firewire is all but dead....

Neurojazz

There's Thunderbolt also for Mac (Worth looking at the UAD Apollo and the specs with that - It's the first Audio breakout box with Thunderbolt support)

peter05

There is also the thunderbolt adapter from prism for FW 800 and 400. Am not sure how compatible it is with other firewire units or how much use it is converting FW to thunderbolt. will the adapter increase the bandwidth of the firewire unit. I think not, but it's there anyway.

Might be worth keeping an eye out for one,maybe not.

QuadLeo

cgarrad wrote: »

Firewire is all but dead....

That's not necessarily true. A huge amount of audio and camera equipment requires firewire. It may not be included in new products from now on but it's pretty much essential to have a firewire port for older and current audio equipment.

Fawkon wrote: »

From what little knowledge i have it seems that it might be a good idea to get one with a firewire connection. Only problem is i would have to drop down to a lower spec/model laptop in order to get the firewire. The more expensive option has USB 3.0.

Which should i go for?

That said I'd go with the USB3 option and buy a firewire express card, providing the laptop can take it. Best of both worlds then. If that doesn't work go with firewire. If you really want to have the flexibility to work with various pieces of equipment then firewire and usb2 will cover you 99% of the time.

Fawkon

This
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/vortexIII-Elite/

vs.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/vortexIII-17/

Which would be better?.
I'm guessing the first one due to the firewire port vs. the SLI model which doesn't have it.

Neurojazz

Fawkon wrote: »

This
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/vortexIII-Elite/

vs.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/vortexIII-17/

Which would be better?.
I'm guessing the first one due to the firewire port vs. the SLI model which doesn't have it.

A word of warning here. These high end machines might not work well (with the Firewire or the Express card) as there are many issues. Some are chipset based (So the firewire chip in the Laptop might be inferior and untested with external audio devices) and the 'form factor' build of the motherboard inside of the machine can have massive usb powering problems due to shortcuts.

Speaking from personal experience - the gaming style laptops don't cut it unless you want to spend a lot of time 'facedesking' with issues.

Please sanity check the following. Does the unit HAVE to be a laptop? - you can get a bespoke desktop machine from scan.co.uk that will run 4 times or more faster for audio for the same cash. A laptop will never run games as well as on a desktop as the components are usually cheaper and you get that lovely 45 degree hot spot under your hands with the gaming cards.

If still looking at Laptops, then consider going to something like this - http://3xs.scan.co.uk/ShowSystem.asp?SystemID=1289

or if you want bang for buck desktop then go speak with someone at scan to build to your budget and pop a nice graphics card in - then you'll have stable Audio machine with known working components and the graphics card for the fun stuff.

Neurojazz

peter05 wrote: »

There is also the thunderbolt adapter from prism for FW 800 and 400. Am not sure how compatible it is with other firewire units or how much use it is converting FW to thunderbolt. will the adapter increase the bandwidth of the firewire unit. I think not, but it's there anyway.

Might be worth keeping an eye out for one,maybe not.

Apple do a thunderbolt to Firewire adaptor for a few quid

peter05

It's the same one for the Orpheus, Prisim jumped on the bandwagon to keep their interface selling.

Is anybody here using Thunderbolt yet?

Fawkon

Neurojazz wrote: »

Speaking from personal experience - the gaming style laptops don't cut it unless you want to spend a lot of time 'facedesking' with issues.

I appreciate the advice. The issue is I want to use the laptop for many things other than recording (movie editing, bit of gaming etc.) and these laptops appear ideal for what I want to do. The company itself get hugely positive reviews for build quality etc. although I haven't heard much about audio quality. If you had to choose between the two?

Neurojazz

Fawkon wrote: »

I appreciate the advice. The issue is I want to use the laptop for many things other than recording (movie editing, bit of gaming etc.) and these laptops appear ideal for what I want to do. The company itself get hugely positive reviews for build quality etc. although I haven't heard much about audio quality. If you had to choose between the two?

The audio quality will be down to the devices you attach - You really want to be searching for compatibility issues with your planned 'soundcard/breakout' device with the motherboard in those laptops. It took me around a year to track down issues with previous 'desktop replacement' laptop. I couldn't really recommend either of those laptops as they are essentially unknown quantities for audio.

If you want a machine that will 100% work 'blind' with most standard hardware then Mac is the path to go.

In short, if you want/need 'X' device for the audio side - then check the web for any problems with google for the motherboard of those laptops and the device you are investing in. Search results will usually show what is giving people the most headaches.

Fawkon

Neurojazz wrote: »

In short, if you want/need 'X' device for the audio side - then check the web for any problems with google for the motherboard of those laptops and the device you are investing in. Search results will usually show what is giving people the most headaches.

Thanks for the advice dude.

studiorat

cgarrad wrote: »

Firewire is all but dead....

Sony's brand new PMW 150 camera has firewire.

Looking at that laptop it's about the same price as a Macbook pro! Would be a better route to go down imo.
However, if I wanted a machine for music, films and gaming I wouldn't get a laptop in the first place. You are limiting yourself in connectivity from the very start.

The major difference between firewire and USB (2.0 anyway) is that firewire carries more power and can send data in both directions at the same time. USB data rates may look faster but in reality they seldom go above 240mbit/s, and only in one direction at a time. Firewire also works without loading the host CPU with interrupts and buffer-copy operations.