Subject:Firewire superior to USB?

Posted by: PRMartinVOTalent

Date:1/13/2008 1:05:50 PM

I've been doing some digging since I'm in the market to upgrade some equiptment and the firewire/usb issue has been thrown down.

The few PC/audio people who work in local stores seem to be of the opinion that Firewire is superior to USB if I'm using PC for recording. Basically, I am looking for a quality, but economical interface that will produce a cleaner sound that my M-Audio FastPro (which has worked well, but I'm ready for an upgrade) by going to either a small mixing board (I will be recording some multiple mic'd VO stuff occasionally) and/or a better Mic Interface.

Any truth to this FIREWIRE/USB debate?

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:1/13/2008 1:20:10 PM

It will make absolutely zero difference to the sound quality. The signal has already been digitized before it gets to the USB or firewire interface so it doesn't matter in that respect.

Firewire has more reliable bandwidth. If you're transferring lots of channels at high sample rates or high bit depths simultaneously then firewire can probably handle the load better than USB, but we're talking about lots of channels. 128 channels at 96KHz 24 bit will go through either interface with no trouble. The bigger difference is that USB requires processor cycles and can bog down your computer some when transferring a lot of data rapidly. Firewire doesn't have this problem.

USB is a little more trouble-free when hotswapping. Firewire has been known to have some power shorting issues with cheaper plugs and has been known to fry equipment on rare occasions. I've never heard of this being a problem with USB.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: Larry Clifford

Date:1/13/2008 1:33:08 PM

I cannot talk specifically about audio. FireWire is faster in general.

There are two versions of FireWire - 400 and 800. Check the specificaitons of Your PC to see which you have, if any.

I bought a Western Digital WD My Book™ Premium Edition™ II external hard drive (1 terrabyte). According to the specificaitons, FireWire 400 is somewhat faster than USB. However, FireWire 800 is much faster than 400.

I recently used Windows Explorer (no backup program, no compression) to copy 20+ GB of data from my D-drive to the WD My Book™ Premium Edition™ II using the FireWire 800 intrface. It took less that 30 minutes.

The only part I do not understand is that some very long filenames stored on the D-drive were too long on the external HD.

I previously used a tape backup. That probably would have required about 1 hour per GB.

I give you this information only because the faster the interface the better the sound may be. This is just an educated guess on my part.

I would like to know if others agree/disagree with me in whole/part.

I hope this helps you some.

Guess what? Chienworks replied while I was composing this reply. I guess I am slow.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: PRMartinVOTalent

Date:1/13/2008 7:42:48 PM

Thanks guys,

So, basically, if I am interpretting well, my single voice Voice Over recording projects ( or at most 4 voices) through a mixer won't be reduced in quality if I were using a USB connection vs a Firewire connection (400 or 800). But, for speed, the firewire (800 especially) will be better and, possibly improve the sound slightly?

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: jumbuk

Date:1/13/2008 10:13:43 PM

As Chienworks said, faster speed won't improve the sound. It will just enable you to handle more tracks with lower latency.

What WILL impact on sound quality is the quality of the preamps. Check out the reviews to compare - I personally like the presonus gear.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: R0cky

Date:1/14/2008 12:03:01 PM

Windows has problems sometimes with firewire. I've had trouble with firewire with Alesis and Presonus gear which use the windows 1394 driver. Basically the firewire interface would hang or lose connection entirely.

I switched to Echo whom wrote their own firewire driver and haven't had any trouble at all. This is all on the same machine with the same windows installation.

Other problems I've had are Delayed Write errors with external firewire hard drives.

If you search Microsoft's knowledge base there are a number of issues documented and some hotfixes for firewire performance issues that you can find.

I don't have any experience with any high performance (more than 2 channels) USB audio devices so I can't say about their performance. I only use USB now for external hard drives because of the delayed write errors with firewire. I've had them on multiple machines.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: Kennymusicman

Date:1/14/2008 12:23:15 PM

I've suffered from Presonus and M-Audio firewire devices - but for cameras I wouldn't use anything less than firewire, but that's a little OT.

I've also had problems with USB hardrives and delayed-write errors (counter to bastinado). - but this only happens when using a lot of them, or using a firewire camera...lol

A nice thing about USB is you don't have to have it on before you turn the machine on, whereas all firewire devices I've used it has had to be on prior to pc.

Pro's and con's to them both. Guess there's only one way to find out if something is any good for you...

But as stated already - USB/Firewire will not influence your sound - the actual hardware will.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: PRMartinVOTalent

Date:1/14/2008 8:38:22 PM

Okay, next question then. I found a Peavey PV 6 at a local music shop at the same 89.99 price as on line. I've read some good reviews, it is more than quallified for my needs and even inspires me to think about some private studio projects/animation VO type stuff with the options it creates. The only problem is that it is analog with no usb or firewire connection options....

Is there a way to connect this to the PC? Would the connection cause any problems if it isn't firewire/usb?

Thanks for your patience with me, guys.

I backed into this technical stuff when I decided to go be a VO out of the house.....

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: drbam

Date:1/15/2008 6:24:32 AM

Your initial post stated that your goal was to upgrade your sound quality. A noticeable upgrade will require a mic preamp that's better than the ones in the Peavey mixer. You will also need a decent soundcard/interface but the entry level Echo and Maudio units should be fine for VO. Last and certainly not least is a good mic. The good news is that there are many that can work well for VO at a low price point. If you will post your budget, I'm sure some folks can make several suggestions.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: Geoff_Wood

Date:1/16/2008 11:49:08 AM

No, Firewire won't improve the sound in the slightest, and you will not have performance issue either, unless working with dozens of tracks.

geoff

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: PRMartinVOTalent

Date:1/29/2008 11:14:33 PM

As of now, I use an AKG Perception 200. The mic is a solid VO mic for the price. A local media production company swears by them for VO and has a stable of them in their studio too - all of which I found out after I picked up mine. I do like the way it seems to pick up the male voice range.

Does anyone have a suggestion on a 'next step' upgrade from the Fasttrack Pro? I was considering something like the MOTU UltraLite.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: PRMartinVOTalent

Date:1/29/2008 11:14:38 PM

As of now, I use an AKG Perception 200. The mic is a solid VO mic for the price. A local media production company swears by them for VO and has a stable of them in their studio too - all of which I found out after I picked up mine. I do like the way it seems to pick up the male voice range.

Does anyone have a suggestion on a 'next step' upgrade from the Fasttrack Pro? I was considering something like the MOTU UltraLite.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: drbam

Date:1/30/2008 6:10:07 AM

The Motu would be fine but if your budget allows, I strongly recommend the RME Fireface units. Solid drivers and better converters. From what I've read on all the Sony forums, they seem to play nicely with Sony apps. I recently purchased a Multiface-2 and couldn't be happier.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: PRMartinVOTalent

Date:2/2/2008 8:56:54 PM

I couldn't find the RME Multiface 2, but the RME 400 looked perfect for my two mic rig. I'd like to be able to do 4 mics in the future, but this looks like a great step in that direction.

The price is a bit steep for now, but thanks for the RME product recommendation to consider.

Some of the RME reviews were critical of the upload complexity: is this a case of Mac/PC preferences? As a firewire tool, all I should have to do is plug and play correct?

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: Larry Clifford

Date:2/3/2008 4:44:55 AM

Here is the RME Multiface II - http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_multiface_2.php

Please let us know what you decide on and your opinion using it in the real world.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: drbam

Date:2/3/2008 6:44:57 AM

"Some of the RME reviews were critical of the upload complexity:"

"Upload complexity" isn't a term I'm familiar with. If you are referring to "install complexity" some people have problems with initial driver installation, which I did encounter. For some weird reason, XP Pro would not recognize that the driver was installed. However, after about 4 tries, the driver installed and was recognized and from there its been totally smooth and solid. Neither my computer tech nor I could figure out why this happened, but apparently its not uncommon.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: PRMartinVOTalent

Date:2/17/2008 10:02:58 PM

I found this http://www.digifon.com/homestudio.html info from the Digifon website that is doable if it is really a good deal for the price. I'm just not sure about the equiptment quality for VO/Audiobook narration, given all the talk here.

I am moving cautiously on any upgrades, obviously for the money, but also some of my VO colleagues have suggested that a side line for the home studio is to offer it (and me) for recording other VO.

1. ISDN, essential or down the road given the specs of what I am doing?
2. Do the specific equiptment pieces seem worth the price?

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:2/18/2008 4:30:43 AM

ISDN? I can't think of any reason why you bring that up in this discussion. ISDN is a method for briging and external data connection into your office/home. It's also rather old technology. Most any cable or DSL connection will blow ISDN away these days, and probably for about 1/8 the cost.

ISDN certainly will have absolutely nothing to do with your recording process in any imaginable way. As far as that system you posted, why on earth would it need to connect to the internet? The only thing i can think of is if some technician takes that to a remote location and sends the data back over the internet to you where you record it in real time on your PC. Sounds like a completely foolish thing to do since a good laptop will cost less than 3 months worth of ISDN service. Not to mention that ISDN isn't portable and it would need a telephone company installation wherever it is being used, and that would probably cost more than a laptop for each installation.

That system is intended for something odd that i don't think you have any use for.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: drbam

Date:2/18/2008 6:25:18 AM

You can put together a superb, first class VO system for less than 1/2 the price of the bundle posted on that site. Other than what Chienworks already stated about the ISDN thing, what immediately got my attention was their choice to include Hosa cables (which are entry level) with a Neumann mic and the Grace mic pre. Unless you have an overwhelmingly compelling need for the codec/ISDN system, I'd not give those folks a second glance.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: Geoff_Wood

Date:2/18/2008 1:53:51 PM

Sounds like it might be info from 5+ years ago ...

geoff

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: PRMartinVOTalent

Date:2/27/2008 7:13:53 AM

Thanks again.

I know that tools like Skype and such are available for 'phone patch' sessions that will do for the current level of work.

I have been checking on the RME product lines and they are a bit out of my current price range. The MOTU is about right for now, and still a decent upgrade from what I have read here as well as info from our local experts.

You mentioned mic cords. The ones I use now say VTG Audio Professional Braided Shielded Balanced down the length. So far no problems that can be attributed to the cords.

I will follow up when I have my 'new' stuff up and running.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: Phil Sayer

Date:4/8/2008 5:30:51 PM

Maybe I can chip in here and clear up some misunderstandings about ISDN, which is much more significant in Voice Over Land than you might think...

For VO work, ISDN is very much alive and well, and likely to remain so for some time. It is used extensively, around the world, for connecting a voice artist to a recording studio. Using various audio compression algorithms, it delivers two-way, near-real-time, broadcast-quality audio. It means we can hear backing tracks and music beds, sound-effects, and so on, as well as the director's guidance, as if we were joined by a cable to the room next door. In turn, they receive audio which is good enough quality (just about!) for broadcast.

Because it is "point-to-point" via a phone network, it delivers 64K per line, each way, with utter reliability. (On very long distances it has some latency, but it is far better than an internet connection, which is almost always subject to severe latency issues - but this may change one day - read on if you can bear it.)

Our home-based VO studio uses a Musicam CDQ Prima LT (do a Google!) and we link up with radio stations and other audio producers both here in the UK and abroad. Confusingly (to computer buffs, anyway,) this box of tricks is called a "codec," and it converts the analogue signal from the mixer into a digital stream - there needs to be a similar device at the other end.

So ISDN wasn't an irrelevant topic for the questioner to ask about - it's just that this is a fairly obscure use of an old, but reliable and secure, method of hooking up two facilities. (British Telecom are pretty much the sole provider of ISDN in the UK, and even their engineers are rarely aware of this particular use of ISDN. There are only around 500 ISDN audio codecs in use in the UK, whose population is 60 million!)

For the future, IP-based technologies such as SourceConnect look like a promising alternative to the rather expensive ISDN, and some people say the latency issue is now a solved problem, provided your bandwidth is both sufficient and steady - in my view that's quite a caveat. (I use cable for my internet connection, and my very best upload speed is around 700kbps. Local contention issues make this far from guaranteed as stable!)

ISDN is also used for data transfer, as chien observes. Supermarket tills are often linked via ISDN for sending data to the head office, for example, and it's a preferred option because it offers security that's hard to equal on an internet connection. (Remember, you dial a "phone" number to connect, so it really is point-to-point.)

I've contributed this to add a little to the vast store of knowledge that resides on this forum - having often received immense help and support from many contributors, including chien, I was slightly troubled to see a new member of the forum being ridiculed for asking a question that is actually relevant and sensible - if you happen to know how VO people operate!

Regarding cost, yes, it's a little expensive - here, we pay around £32 per month for line rental, (plus call costs if we make any outbound connections) but it's just another business overhead. It's almost the same as we pay for a 20MB broadband service via cable, and yes, ISDN can handle far less data, but that's missing the point. Although it was adapted to be used in a number of countries as a kind of interim improvement between 56K modems and DSL broadband rollout, that was never its primary purpose.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: jumbuk

Date:4/9/2008 5:43:19 PM

Thanks Phil for adding to my personal store of knowledge - and despite Chien's bagging of the idea, he is another who has contributed to the forum over a period of years.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:4/9/2008 7:46:55 PM

It could also be the difference in geographical area or nationality. Here in the USA ISDN has always been horrifically expensive. I would sooner use WiFi, cable, or DSL for that task if i had to. Those are all more portable, much faster to acquire and setup, and much much cheaper than ISDN. They're all a lot faster too, way way faster. ISDN is pretty much a dead forgotten dodo here in the states. Regular dialup is more popular than ISDN, even for business usage.

Subject:RE: Firewire superior to USB?

Reply by: BradlyMusic

Date:4/9/2008 9:35:33 PM

Chienworks.....just as an FYI. Most major VO studios here in the U.S. use ISDN connections for studio to studio live connection work. While there might be other better and cheaper methods, they won't do you any good if every studio throughout the U.S. is using ISDN dial up connections while you're using some newer/better technology that no other studio is using. The VO studio I worked in had 24 ISDN lines. 3 lines where used for doing a 2 way mono/record session and 6 lines for a stereo session. The reason that studio had 24 lines is because their where 10 seperate studios and it wasn't uncommon to have 4 or more inter-studio VO sessions going on at the same time between those studios and a connecting remote studio......and yes, I've even done sessions between the U.S. and the U.K.....as well as the U.S. and Tailand.

There is also nationally published directory which lists the studios that have these ISDN services available. So it isn't uncommon that you can get extra business just because you are located in the vicinity of a particular VO person and they don't have to travel too far so that a studio in Timbuktoo can record them.

It is also pretty common for some of the more popular VO people who have studios within their own homes to also have an ISDN setup within their home. It's actually a pretty smart idea for VO people, because an ad agency can save on the cost of having to only pay for ONE studio instead of 2...and there are many occassions where a VO person is needed in a hurry, where a producer might say..."Well, let's call Joe-VO and get him to read this script....if he's at home, he has an ISDN connection and we can get this work done and not have to wait and schedule more studio time."

So ISDN for VO work is NOT a dead forgotten dodo here in the U.S. It's how VO work is done on a daily basis here in the U.S. and between the U.S. and the outside world.