Chiming in on the 'cheap-usb-audio-interface' conversation

Mike Holstein mikeh789 at gmail.com
Sat Jan 8 19:47:46 UTC 2011


On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 12:58 PM, Thomas Orgis <thomas-forum at orgis.org>wrote:

> Am Sat, 8 Jan 2011 11:34:59 -0500
> schrieb Mike Holstein <mikeh789 at gmail.com>:
>
> > in my experience, USB devices can sometimes
> > pick up as much electrical interference as internal sound cards on
> laptops.
>
> I have to spoil the specific take on USB interfaces: "Hey, I hear it when
> you move the mouse!" That's what I got with someone listening with
> headphones to the main output of my Edirol FA-101. I'm glad that you don't
> get that on the recordings (I _think_), just superimposed on the analog
> output portion.
> But still, I am mightily pi**ed about the lack of protection from such
> issues (our dear friend Improper Grounding again, I guess) even when
> shelling out several 100 € for the gear.
>
> Be it USB or any other digital interface, I guess you can have luck and the
> bad sort of which. I do not see a technical argument why a USB-connected
> device should suffer more than a device connected via FireWire (both being
> bus-powered, even) ... you can get bitten on both camps. For simple
> recording tasks, I really like the io|2 -- no comparison in bitchyness to
> the FireWire setup. I ended up angrily smashing a dual socket mainboard with
> a hammer because it featured a southbridge bug that just so might be the
> reason for reliable FireWire audio being impossible -- even using a PCI
> controller with a "good" FireWire chip. I strongly suspect that a USB
> interface would have worked just fine. Perhaps not ultra sharp latency, but
> without all the fuss.
>
> That being said, by current setup with ubuntu studio 10.04 and the FA-101
> on a custom PC worked without major hickup the last few weeks ... but I very
> well remember having to reboot the machine (or at least modprobe-cycle
> firewire) because the firewire subsystem got stuck because of just another
> subtle driver issue. The FA-101 is a rather old device, but still tricky. No
> comparison to just having snd-usb-audio loaded and off we go -- with the
> added plus that it works without JACK, too. To be fair: USB interfaces may
> not like being put behind a hub... so they're not _totally_ trivial;-)
>
>
> Alrighty then,
>
> Thomas.
>
> PS: To be a bit more on topic again; I did not test the MIDI performance of
> any of my USB or FireWire interfaces (uh, would that work with the FA-101?).
> I am using an Alesis ControlPad with in-built USB for triggering drums via
> MIDI ... but I don't play seriously enough on that one to judge.
>
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>
do dought USB should be easier than firewire, i just know that this week i
was preparing for an audio presentation at my LUG, and a simple little grey
ground lift added to the plug on the laptop quieted down my firewire
interface, and not the USB interface i wanted to use (because of the size).
i can only speak from experience, and i feel that an external USB interface
(something like a 2 channel interface without preamps) is probably not
a significant enough step up from an internal interface. you can get some
nice USB devices though. i really like the ZOOM H4
http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodid=1901 . the preamps
and onboard mics are very nice quality, and the standalone recording feature
could be nice. i dont think the quality of firewire vs USB can be
challenged. i have a presonus firepod that is literally plug and play in
ubuntu with ffado. the USB device i use needs the madfuloader, and can be a
little more challenging to get up and running, this is again *in my
experience. i have several texas instruments firewire chipsets that i like
to use, and are supported well. i have a VIA chip set that is not bad
either. when trouble-shooting xruns on a firewire or USB device, i think its
helpful to look at the output of:

cat /proc/interrupts

running that in a terminal can help determine what devices share IRQ values.
i try and set my firewire card to its own IRQ in the bios (when possible).
ive found that using a different USB port on certain laptops can really help
isolate a USB audio device, and reduce xruns.

i didnt mean to step on any toes earlier about the quality of USB devices.
although, you might want to take into consideration that if you were to
visit a professional studio, the likely-hood of seeing a USB interface in a
rack somewhere, or in the signal path at all would be rather unlikely.


-- 
MH

http://opensourcemusician.libsyn.com/
http://wnclug.ourproject.org/
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