Where Are The Firewire Audio/midi Interfaces?, Inexplicable absence of what should be Options

[Levon River]

Firewire has been around for over ten years. Does anyone have any insight into why there are so precious few audio/midi interfaces utilizing this technology?

The field is glutted with USB interfaces, which only carry about 1/40 the bandwidth and information transfer capability of Firewire.

Of the few Firewire interfaces on the market, the cheapest I can find (MOTU's 828) starts at over $800.00--and that doesn't include MIDI, while being complete overkill on the audio side for my needs. Five years ago I expected to SOON see Firewire interfaces for audio and MIDI that would be affordable and accessible. Now there are quite a few under $500.00 using USB, but NONE in t hat price bracket using Firewire.

I think the market is ripe for a Firewire interface with, e.g., four audio inputs and two MIDI ins and outs priced for the masses. Why, oh, why was it not there years ago?

[Levon River]

I don't think companies showing products at trade shows means zip. How many products in the past have been shown, then either delayed by a year or two - or more - or never actually appear at all?

Apparently you missed the second part where I said that eMagic had "firmly ANNOUNCED that it [Logic for OS X] would be RELEASED in September 2001."

I've been to a few trade shows. I know companies are always trotting out their "in development" wares. I also know marketing, and there were enough disaster surrounding vaporware in the '80s and earlier '90s that most responsible firms got very circumspect about announcing release dates until they were certain they could meet them. And eMagic made a FIRM announcement that Logic for OS X would be RELEASED in September 2001.

And just in case you quesion it, they *still* (unbelievably) have the old press release on their web site, which says:

"Emagic Announces Music Production Suite for Mac OS X at MacWorld

"Today at Macworld Expo New York 2001, Emagic, one of the world's leading manufacturers of software and hardware for music and audio production, presented an integrated suite of its professional software and hardware products for Mac OS X. Now in beta form, final Mac OS X versions of Logic Audio 5.0, and drivers for the Unitor8 MkII, AMT8 and MT4 MIDI interfaces and the EMI 2I6 audio interface will be available in September 2001."

And if you want to see it for yourself, the url is here:

http://www.emagic.de/english/news/2001/macworld.html

And if at this point you still don't differentiate between a trade show booth dog-and-pony show on the one hand, and an official release date announcement from a manufacturere on the other, I'm afraid I'm fresh out of hands.