New usb or firewire computer interface

[BrentEvans]

I have a pair of Aardvark Q20 that are PCI based.
Bad news is, they went broke before releasing drivers for XP/SP3. I am stuck at SP2 forever.
This is a non-problem when the machine is used only as a recording workstation.
Stuck.. is one of the downsides to any proprietary interface.

In all fairness, Bruce, the cards being PCI has nothing to do with the fact that the company went out of business. When that happens to any company, the users of the products are "stuck" as you put it, with regards to drivers, regardless of whether their interfaces are PCI, USB, or Firewire. PCI interfaces have lower latency and can handle higher channel counts than USB or Firewire, this is fact. The best that anyone can do regardless of the interface choice is to select a company they feel will last the longest. MOTU and RME are very respectable in this area, as is M-Audio, Presonus, and so forth.

Moral of the story: when buying used, check out the support on the cards, and make sure you get something that's futureproof for a while. For instance, the MOTU 324 and still works great, but driver support ends with XP. The 424 is very similar with a few revisions, but is current on support, and cost is minimally different.

[bgavin]

In all fairness, Bruce, the cards being PCI has nothing to do with the fact that the company went out of business.

Of course not. And not at all what I stated.

The Q10 card is a proprietary PCI design, and that means a proprietary hardware interface to that card.
The hardware interface is by far superior to any consumer serial interface, but is again proprietary.
As noted above a 'main stream' vendor is more likely to stay in business.

Without the intimate details of the Q10 hardware interface, writing a driver is impossible.
Take a little trip into the Win DDK and you will see what I mean. Daunting is the word that comes to mind, and I'm an experienced programmer.

I wish the Q10 driver source would appear somewhere, so at least I could make it work with a newer OS.
Alas, source is gone forever, so I will run it under XP/SP2 as long as the hardware works.

What galls me the most about Firewire is the corrupt implementation.
It is a published spec, so the non-TI chipsets should (read: should) be able to work properly to that spec, but they don't.
Perhaps I'm getting jaundiced in my old age, but I'm seeing a marked decline in software quality in this area.
The amount of complainst over Firewire, especially on non-TI chipsets, is staggering.

I'd hate to pay good money for a Presonus only to find out later about its compatibility problems.
After much research, I referred my daughter's band to the MOTU 8Pre which has the best compatibility.

[pwfirst]

Thanks again for all the information.
Reaper is up and running and I have midi, but the midi latency is a problem( delayed sound when playing the keyboad), No audio or play back issues. I have changed all the settings but the tascam is just not fast enough for me.
So I bought a used M Audio Delta 10 10 with the PCI card, for $200. After more research it seems like a very good option for my Sonar. I guess I'll see.
Thanks again for all the great support. Phil

[gdougherty]

What galls me the most about Firewire is the corrupt implementation.
It is a published spec, so the non-TI chipsets should (read: should) be able to work properly to that spec, but they don't.
Perhaps I'm getting jaundiced in my old age, but I'm seeing a marked decline in software quality in this area.
The amount of complainst over Firewire, especially on non-TI chipsets, is staggering.

Absolutely agreed. I think if Firewire weren't the niche interface it became there'd be more pushback on non-spec implementation, but it seems something that gets thrown on as a market ploy to more consumer grade stuff and cost is more the issue to those folks. In the audio world we've all gravitated toward chipsets that work and we know to care about and look for those specific items (after long periods of experimentation and frustration on the part of others).

It's all rather pathetic.

[pwfirst]

Well the used Delta 1010 just came in. It is in great shape, put it into my rack and inserted the board and loaded the latest driver and it works just fine. Still playing around with all the setting so we will see. I am thinking of using my old tascam 1641 as a pre amp. Plug the vocal and instraments into it and use the monitor outs into the Delta inputs. have to see if it works. It would just make it easier to plug every thing into. I do have a good tube preamp for the lead vocals.
The midi has no latency at all. I may have my solution. Phil