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?

[aladinsane]

maybe YOU think the market is ready for firewire interfaces. the MARKET does not apear to think that.
most of the PCs still don't have firewire as a standard, and the interfaces are not produced only for macs (this is not a perfect world, and most of the people on earth still use windows machines).

[Levon River]

Since Firewire PCI cards can be had for as little as $25 for peecees, I don't think it would be *too* much of a stretch...

YMMV.

[kaboombahchuck]

Unfutunatly aladinsane hit the nail on the head. The PC market still dictates what goes and what don't. PC manifacturers are now pushing fire wire, but the going is slow. I am courious where the PC folks were going with the optical interface. Maybe it was just a bet gone bad....

[chrisk4]

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?

I was reading a review of a visit to MacWorld Tokyo earlier this year and to quote the reviewer who said something like the following, upon checking out the audio-related booths/stands:

'If somebody were to produce a firewire audio interface for under $400 they would clean up.'

With this in mind I had a brief email dialogue with a company by the name of Miglia in the UK who specialise in firewire devices, namely external disk(s) and the Director's Cut firewire video interface.

Miglia have apparently discussed this idea but they have no expertise in this area and would have to check out the design and manufacturing requirements.

I emailed the spec of the Edirol UA-3D (no midi) interface to them. I may not have included mdi interfaces as I don't use them much and I really would like a portable firewire interface for audio only - my mistake not including the midi.

Why has nobody produced such a thing yet - probably due to the number of PCs without it as already indicated here. We can only wait and see.

[Levon River]

chrisk4' wrote that a reviewer wrote: "'If somebody were to produce a firewire audio interface for under $400 they would clean up.'"

Whoever said it got it right. Maybe the lack of firewire in PCs *has* been the anchor dragging the bottom in the firewire arena, but then why have so many video device manufacturers jumped in to firewire? It just doesn't all add up to me.

LEVON PREDICTS: After Jaguar is released, there will be a sudden surge of audio and MIDI products, software and hardware, including more firewire audio and/or devices. I think Apple had a half-assed implementation of the Core Audio and MIDI Services in 10.x pre-10.2, that the audio/MIDI developers were in the loop on what was coming, and that most of them held everything back to wait for Apple to get its act together fully, as well as to take advantage of whatever Apple has done inside the box in 10.2

One of the things that makes me believe that is that eMagic was showing Logic for OS X at summer NAMM 2001, and firmly ANNOUNCED that it would be RELEASED in September 2001! That was almost a year ago! Something put the skids on that release *hard*, and now Apple has bought eMagic out.

Having gone out on a limb, I'll start sawing it off now...

[rickenbacker]

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? I saw Reason demo-ed running on OS X back in January - six months later, it finally appears. Cubase SX was shown in January... still waiting...

As for OS X's CoreMidi, it was always pretty good, then release 10.1.5 really tightened up performance. See Intuem's Midi sequencing program for what OS X has been able to do for months, Jaguar conspiracy theories notwithstanding!

[bandara1]

Go to the Digidesign site and look at the fabulous DIGI 002. It's NOT cheap, but... WONDERFUL!!! It only lack OS X compatibility

bandara1

[Synthetik]

when getting my new system I decided to go with PCI because the bandwidth is going to be constent. I like firewire and have never had any problems but, when it comes to my music I did not want to take the chance, I think a lot of people feel the same.

[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.