does firewire really matter?

diggy · Mar 26, 2009

Hi this is my first post
i just joined the forum and looked at the posts about the new macbooks with no firewire port, ive decided to to get a mac laptop for music production does usb have longer latency times than firewire? i don,t know which laptop to get ,the unibody macbook or the the unibody macbook pro which has the firewire port , i would be really interested to know if you can can make professional sounding tracks with a usb audio interface, i would have got the white macbook which has firewire but i prefer to have a sturdy laptop and one i can upgrade and use for years any suggestions would be a great help,

thanks

LiddleBuddha · Mar 26, 2009

diggy said:
...does usb have longer latency times than firewire?

Greetings, diggy. Welcome to the forum!

I'm a bit of a noob so I'm unable to answer your question about latency time. However, I did read the following on another forum somewhere...

Firewire has a more consistent data-flow, both up and down stream. While USB2 might have more bandwidth, it is only in bursts, and is not always consistent. In addition, I think USB has a slower down (or is it up?) stream transfer than firewire.

I've read of some people running into occasional problems with USB drivers, but I don't really know if that's also something that happens with firewire. :Confused:

diggy said:
...i would be really interested to know if you can can make professional sounding tracks with a usb audio interface...

Again, I'm not a pro, but I'm willing to bet that you can make some mighty fine recordings with a USB interface.

Hopefully some of the more experienced members will weigh in on all of this for you.

Good luck and have fun! :Cool:

diggy · Mar 26, 2009

thanks for the reply , i guess ill do some more research ,
thanks again

LiddleBuddha · Mar 26, 2009

diggy said:
thanks for the reply , i guess ill do some more research ,
thanks again

No problem at all.

There are some audio forums out there you might want to check out. You might have more success at a forum dedicated to audio. Here are a couple links...

Harmony Central Musician Community Forums
Home Recording - Powered by vBulletin

Good luck!

Village Idiot · Mar 27, 2009

USB only supports one direction at once, iirc.

diggy · Mar 27, 2009

LiddleBuddha said:
No problem at all.

There are some audio forums out there you might want to check out. You might have more success at a forum dedicated to audio. Here are a couple links...

Harmony Central Musician Community Forums
Home Recording - Powered by vBulletin

Good luck!

thanks im checking out these forums now

LiddleBuddha · Mar 28, 2009

diggy said:
thanks im checking out these forums now

Hey diggy,

You're most welcome. I just found one more today that seems to have a lot going on. I found some answers I was looking for just by poking around and reading some posts...

Home Recording Forum

Best,
- d

KB3GZW · Mar 28, 2009

I was very disappointed to hear that apple dropped firewire support on the macbooks this time around. I know that even USB 3.0 which will be out shortly will not be as fast as the slowest Firewire. IMHO its firewire for life. and especially if you are getting into music production, firewire is the way to go. There will be no lag times and it makes for a better quality sound.

diggy · Mar 28, 2009

yeah i heard about usb 3.0 i thought maybe that was the way to go but i reckon i might as well get a mac with firewire whats the point of doing music production with a mac without firewire? that would be a pc ?