PROBLEM : Digidesign 003 (audio interface) + Mac Pro Quad Core

[BipProductions]

Today our Mac Pro and Digidesign 003 arrived, and we already have a little problem. The Mac Pro has a 4-pin firewire port while the Digidesign 003 contains a 6-pin port. The official manual mentions that you should buy a convertor if that's the case about the connections, which convertor should we buy ? And will this give us any LATENCY ? That's actually the biggest concern. Let me know as soon as possible.

[lincol1]

If you are connecting firewire 800 to fw400 you'll need a fw800 to fw400 cable, that's all. You should'nt experience any problems such as latency...

[albee1952]

Yup, the cable will have no affect on latency. The proper adapter cable is all you need. I believe you want a FW800 to FW400 cable as lincol1 said. 4 pin FW cables are FW400 without the bus power, and I don't believe Mac uses that connector on anything(you would find that connector on lots of PC laptops). If its a NEWER Mac Pro, then its FW800 for sure. BTW, since the Mac Pro has space inside for 4 SATA drives, I would add 1 or 2 and keep the firewire drive for backups and transfers(performance on an internal SATA drive will be much better than any firewire drive).

[Craig F]

I've never seen a Mac with a 4 pin
DVCAM and some other digital video cameras and a few video I/O boxes have them (or had them)

[tcbetka]

According to this link, the new Mac Pro units have four FW800 ports--two on the front, and two on the back. Since Apple had a pretty big role in developing the firewire interface (if memory serves), I think they have always been on the cutting edge of its technology. Like a few here have said, I've never seen a 4-pin FW400 port on any sort of Mac machine. In fact, I think they got away from the 6-pin FW400 ports a few years ago as I recall.

TB

[BipProductions]

No sorry, the mac has 4 firewire 800 ports, and the Digi 2 firewire 400 ports. Any recommendations for the convertor ? I've seen some from Belkin, but I'm not sure if that's a good brand. We're looking for high quality.

[nst7]

The Belkin ones seem to work fine. Apogee also makes one, available in their online store. I don't know if it's any better. It's actually cheaper than the Belkin.