usb and firewire interfaces on the same laptop

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this post should be on alt.music.home-studio, but i've changed my
newsserver and the new one does not carry it. so i expect i don't
offend anyone with my amateurish post.

i've got a m-audio fw410 for recording with my laptop (an hp compaq
nx9010) and i need a pair of inputs more. i would buy a motu traveler,
or 828mkii or an rme inteface, but right now i am on a extremelly tight
budget.

so i've checked around my options, and the cheapest way of getting two
more inputs would be using my fw410 along with an m-audio transit. (if
anyne knows another equally cheap way of getting four tracks, let me know)

my question is if there will be any problems / bottlenecks / etc, on my
laptop feeding audio through both the firewire and the usb inputs at the
same time.. has anyone used this setting and had success?

thanks in advance.
alex.

 

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The closest I came to trying this was connecting a Traveler and Mbox in
at the same time, powered both through the bus (laptop got pretty darn
hot) and decided to hold off going further until I got the thermal
under control. What s/w are you using?

In the mean time, if you've a small mixer, how about some submixing?

BTW - How smooth is your hp/compaq nx9010 <-> fw410 working? Just
curious.

Andy

 

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"alex bazan" wrote ...
> this post should be on alt.music.home-studio, but i've changed my
> newsserver and the new one does not carry it. so i expect i don't
> offend anyone with my amateurish post.
>
> i've got a m-audio fw410 for recording with my laptop (an hp compaq
> nx9010) and i need a pair of inputs more. i would buy a motu traveler,
> or 828mkii or an rme inteface, but right now i am on a extremelly
> tight budget.
>
> so i've checked around my options, and the cheapest way of getting two
> more inputs would be using my fw410 along with an m-audio transit. (if
> anyne knows another equally cheap way of getting four tracks, let me
> know)
>
> my question is if there will be any problems / bottlenecks / etc, on
> my laptop feeding audio through both the firewire and the usb inputs
> at the same time.. has anyone used this setting and had success?

I'd anticipate problems keeping the two independent A/D converters
in sync for any significant period of time. Assuming you can work
out the issues with your software (not identified) accepting inputs
from two different devices.

 

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En/na Andy Eng ha escrit:
> The closest I came to trying this was connecting a Traveler and Mbox in
> at the same time, powered both through the bus (laptop got pretty darn
> hot) and decided to hold off going further until I got the thermal
> under control. What s/w are you using?
>

Sonar.

> In the mean time, if you've a small mixer, how about some submixing?

i've never submixed anything, so i'm not sure of what you mean by
this... do you mean mixing the four audio sources so i only get finally
two sources to record on the interface?

sure i could do this on a drum track, but if i use 2 tracks for drums, 1
for bass and 1 for guitar... then it should be pretty well mixed so then
i don't regret recording it like this.

btw, i don't know if i'll record with this setup or 3 tracks for drums
and 1 for bass and record guitars later. in this case i could submix the
drums and get the 3 drum tracks on 1. but then, wouldn't i loose the
stereo image?? (each fw410 input is MONO).

the case, is that i don't want to record each instrument at is own as
this has yielded bad results all the time.

> BTW - How smooth is your hp/compaq nx9010 <-> fw410 working? Just
> curious.

depends on the day sometimes works like a charm... and sometimes i
get dropouts but i can get over them by touching a bit of sonar's
configuration ... but, it's not a full tuned-up laptop for audio (it
gets other uses as i share the laptop with my girlfriend)

alex.

 

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En/na Richard Crowley ha escrit:
> "alex bazan" wrote ...
>
>
> I'd anticipate problems keeping the two independent A/D converters
> in sync for any significant period of time. Assuming you can work
> out the issues with your software (not identified) accepting inputs
> from two different devices.

hmmm... you mean as if they had different latencies?

could the audio be then manually aligned after recording? or will it be
impossibe as it should be moved in the order of few milliseconds?

btw the software as i stated in another post, will be sonar.

 

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"alex bazan" wrote ...
> En/na Richard Crowley ha escrit:
>> I'd anticipate problems keeping the two independent A/D
>> converters in sync for any significant period of time. Assuming
>> you can work out the issues with your software (not identified)
>> accepting inputs from two different devices.
>
> hmmm... you mean as if they had different latencies?

No. As if they had different clock references (which they do).

Latency is only a fixed offset. The problem with using independent
interfaces (especially different ones) for concurrent recording
is that their sampling clocks are not synchronized together.

> could the audio be then manually aligned after recording?
> or will it be impossibe as it should be moved in the order
> of few milliseconds?

Depends on how different they are and how long you are
recording. If they are very close you might be able to go
an hour with no discernable problem. (Very rare IME)

OTOH, if they were each slightly "off" in opposite directions,
they might not stay in sync enough to go more than a very few
minutes without drifting apart. This is exactly the same issue
we see when we shoot video and audio on separate machines
(or use two different cameras that are not synced together).

> btw the software as i stated in another post, will be sonar.

Does it support concurrent recording from two different audio
interfaces? It is a rhetorical question. We don't need the
answer, you do.

 

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Hello Richard,

Finished up laying out 16 tracks (individual instruments/vocalists) and
2 overhead tracks from different machines. The entire run length was
97 minutes about - Bluegrass fiddle, dobro, mandalins, etc. etc. etc...

Listening to it early this morning, it seemed like the slightly
"off'ness" added a nice depth to the mix! Will rest the ears and give
it another whirl this evening...

Best,
Andy