What the hell is it, I see loads of Firewire soundcards/interfaces but what the hell has a fire wire connection, synths? Keyboards? Mics?

IEEE 1394 Firewire is a data transfer/bus standard.

DV camcorders have them and that is the most common form. They are also found on Playstation 2, and Sony "iLink" devices.

If I was building a studio today I would just get a cheap 1394 card and then get a 1394 audio preamp directbox. This would give multiple input channels and give you crystal clear audio since you would have your A/D converters outside the computer. Also, they are cheap these days.

Firewire and USB2 are two replacements for external scsi devices. They provide hot swapping, fast data rates and no ID conflicts. Most modern PCs should come with both these days, however you seem to find firewire on more older Macs than you would PC's - simply because the of the Mac's use in industry A/V.

'They' say firewire has a slower bandwidth/megabit per second, something like 400mbps compared to USB's 480mbps. However, tests in all articles I have read have shown firewire to be up to twice as quick in read/write applications.

As far as my use of Firewire / USB goes - my Ipod is firewire, my music and desktop keyboard, mouse and final scratch are all USB. I think generally PC has seen a greater USB surge as it was THE new technology when Firewire was still generally a Mac thing.

Firewire cards can be picked up for £20 - which will give you 2 ports, so if your looking at hardware thats firewire only - DONT BE PUT OFF!

quote:

Originally posted by Mossy 'They' say firewire has a slower bandwidth/megabit per second, something like 400mbps compared to USB's 480mbps. However, tests in all articles I have read have shown firewire to be up to twice as quick in read/write applications.

Well there are two versions of USB and 2 versions of Firewire. The first generation USB is but slow bandwidth wise but is super convinence (hot swap/plug-n-play etc). Firt generation Firewire runs at 400 mbps I believe. Then USB 2.0 came out to compete with Firewire, so I can believe that your figure of 480mbps is for USB 2. Then Firwire800 came out which has (as the name suggests) a bandwidth of up to 800mbps.

___________________
"You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are." - Colonel Adolphus Busch

Major Johnson - February Progressive Mix

Download Other Mixes

http://www.inc-tech.com/firewirefaq.html

___________________

JustinKredible