2 Firewire devices.1 firewire port (macbook pro)

[TBF Entertainment]

I am looking to purchase a Macbook Pro, but i have a dilema. I will be recording onto an external Lacie d2 hard drive that has firewire 400. I also have an M-Audio ProjectMix control surface that is also running firewire 400.

What is the best way to do this? Can I reliably daisy chain my projectmix to the lacie HD to the computer?

Do they make a firewire card for the card slot that the macbook pro has?

Anyone using a macbook pro in the same way I would be have success?

[edgarbc1]

One solution is to use USB 2 for the drive

Works better than daisy chaining

USB drives are not supported by Digi...
ive asked a similar question in PT-LE mac forum
and got replies with horror stories with a USB drive.

I dont do this, but I would think the daisy chained
HDrive and ProjMix would do the trick.

since you dont have the equipment already.. maybe call
digi/m-audio support to see what they say

or give an email to DUC members who responded to this
posting:
DUC post on Macbook and PTMP

(Cool Whip and JahNix)

good luck!
EBC

[edgarbc1]

Supported or not, it works. 9 months now and no "horror stories"

cool!
maybe its because of Digi Core Audio for PTLE while PTMP has m-audio drivers
for audio...

I just tried to run PTMP daisy chaining my Projmix to my FW HD using the davec II
file created to determine the davec II score

and was not able to playback at the same level as when I have the two devices plugged
into the iMac! (and its taking FOREVER to close down the file)

so I will concur that daisy chaining decreases your PTMP performance!
by how much.. not certain.. since ive got two FW ports, its not an issue for me..

i would do some more testing.. but im lazy and want to go to bed now...
get info from Chris on what his USB drive specs are.. you will likely be able to buy on
his information

[davidkain]

This is interesting, as I'm experiencing a very similar somewhat related problem.

I'm running M-Powered on a PowerBook G4 (which has both a 400 and 800 FW port), using ProjectMix I/O as my interface, and a LaCie FW drive.

I first tried hooking my LaCie drive up via FW800, and the ProjectMix via FW400, but everything locked up. Is there an issue with having both ports active at once? It seemed strange to me, but I have little experience with Firewire. I'm at work now, but I'll try and update this post later with the specific error message(s).

Next, I left the ProjectMix hooked up via FW400, and the LaCie drive via USB 2.0. This resulted in the "Unable to receive audio from drive fast enough" error.

The only workable solution I've found so far is to use the hard drive strictly as a backup device, and work entirely on the PowerBook's native hard drive... not entirely the setup I had hoped for, especially considering I'm almost out of space as it is. I have not tried daisy chaining yet.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[TBF Entertainment]

Thanks for all your posts. It gives me somthing to think about. I may look into the Express card that the macbook pro has. I will see if they sell a card that has a firewire port for me to use. What do you think of that?

TBF

[randyT]

Davidkain,

You should take a look at this....http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...4&itemid=23114
and this..
http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=...89704091cab226

it sounds like daisey chaining both at FW 400 would work ok but not FW 800 and 400 on the same FW interface.

randy

[davidkain]

Thanks! I'll take a look at those links, Randy.

The song I was using as test was the original demo track, by the way! I wouldn't think it'd be much of a hog...

Cheers

EDIT: Checked both links and it looks like exactly what I was looking for. Thanks a lot RandyT!

[100below]

Another approach is to use the ExpressCard/34port to run a hard drive solution like the FirmTek. I went into details on this post on Gearslutz:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php?t=80869

Gene

[Avid]

Although we have not tested this configuration with other FireWire interfaces, we just recently qualified the SIIG FireWire 2-Port CardBus configuration with the Mbox 2 Pro for maximum track count.

See the bottom of this page:
Pro Tools LE 7 with Apple MacBook Pro

Maximum Track Count With Mbox 2 Pro

In order to achieve close-to-full track count at 96kHz, 48 stereo tracks with DV Toolkit 2 or Music Production Toolkit when using the Mbox 2 Pro on the MacBook Pro, the following configuration is required:

• SIIG FireWire 2-Port CardBus (part number NN-PC2012-S4)
• Connect the Mbox 2 Pro to the built-in MacBook Pro FireWire 400 port
• Connect 2 or more qualified FireWire drives (daisy chained) to one of the ports on the SIIG FireWire 2-Port CardBus

[100below]

Although we have not tested this configuration with other FireWire interfaces, we just recently qualified the SIIG FireWire 2-Port CardBus configuration with the Mbox 2 Pro for maximum track count.

See the bottom of this page:
Pro Tools LE 7 with Apple MacBook Pro

Please explain how this works since the MacBook Pro has no CardBus port.
Gene