Re: AW: RME PCI cardbus vs Firewire

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On 25 maj 2006, at 10.58, Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill wrote:

>> Also, some audio interfaces don't perform so well if MIDI cc
>> data is shuffled through its MIDI in/out port (as is the case
>> with my RME Multiface
>
> Could you elaborate a little more on that? What do you have to do
> specifically on the MIDI ports to get which effect on the audio  
> ports? As I
> do own a Multiface, I'm somewhat curious...


Using MIDI expression pedals or faders to send MIDI cc data through  
the Multiface built-in MIDI port sometimes creates crackling  
artifacts in the audio. This problem is still around with the latest  
OS X drivers but in my own praxis I solved it long ago by going out  
to buy a cheap USB MIDI interface, thus leaving the Multiface to  
handle audio streaming only.

I have not used the Multiface MIDI ports on Windows XP, so I can't  
tell if those drivers have the same issue.


> Beware however, from what I've read, the USB2 implementation on
> Macs is faulty, resulting in an effective USB2 performance of about  
> half the
> Firewire 400 data rate.

Thanks you, that's important information! I didn't know about that  
but, I have had a certain impression that my firewire drives work as  
good over USB2 as over FW when I pop them into my PC. On the Mac I  
usually feed them from the  FW800 port.

I once tried an USB audi interface on a Mac and it was so bad that I  
brought it back to the store and got my money back. Maybe it should  
have worked better if I had tried it on a PC then?

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)
http://tinyurl.com/fauvm (podcast)