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.

[Synthetik]

I've been looking at that press release for awhile now and thinking to myself, "where is it" Cubase final got up to date, now Logic, we just need MOTU to give us a date for the new DP, not just saying at summer NAMM that it would be released the second half of 2002. The last time I checked Summer NAMM signifide the second half.

[rickenbacker]

As colourful and comprehensive as your explanation of the process is, River, it still doesn't change the simple fact that until you are standing in a shop holding the boxed product in your hands, what earthly use are company announcements?

Yes, I've seen that eMagic press release before, yes I know it's still on their website, but so what? We still don't have Logic OS X, so what difference does it make what they've previously said? Anyway, it comes with the territory - Logic OS X is hardly the first OS X app not to meet its promised release dates.

I don't think there's any great mystery to get to the bottom of here. If eMagic don't think an OS X version of Logic is ready for release to the market, then they're simply not going to release it. And no amount of dark mutterings/whining in public forums is going to make them hurry it along, however much its users want it. Why would they want to rush release their flagship product only to have to spend the next six months patching the bugs and taking flak from the very people who tirelessly demanded its release?

I'm as keen as every Mac musician to see Logic on OS X, but it looks like we'll just have to wait.

Peace. We're all friends here.

[Levon River]

Thanks, rickenbacker, for the penetrating glimpses into the obvious. If even a single sentence of it had had anything at all to do with A) the topic of this thread or B) my original point about OS problems likely impeding development and release, then this discussion might continue.

As it is, maybe someone can make a lovely planter out of it.

[rickenbacker]

Er, it was actually you who went off-topic first in your post of 15th August, where you described the Core Audio and Midi implementation pre-10.2 as "half-assed". You were also first to bring up the matter of companies demo-ing new releases at trade shows, using emagic's display of Logic on OS X at Summer NAMM 2001 to illustrate your point.

This is what I originally replied to. If someone makes a comment in that another participant wants to reply to, isn't that the point of these forums? If you don't like that, maybe you should stick to your own topic in the first place.

And as far as I'm aware, le petit martien is the moderator of these forums, not you.

As for FireWire, I don't think there's widespread enough use across the computer industry for the range of products to suddenly multiply, nor enough companies specialising in audio hardware. With PCs taking 95% of the computer market, USB 2.0 seems more likely for mass-market products. There you go - back on topic.

[Levon River]

Er, it was actually you who went off-topic first in your post of 15th August, where you described the Core Audio and Midi implementation pre-10.2 as "half-assed".

It wasn't remotely off topic. It was (and still is) my *speculation* regarding *why* there are no firewire combination audio/midi interfaces--which *is* this topic, which I started.

My point in even *mentioning* the Logic anomaly, which seemed to be easily understandable by most, was that I believe OS problems account for the slow/no development in COMBINATION AUDIO/MIDI products in BOTH hardware and software, the software side of which I've covered more specifically in another thread that maybe you can find. [Hint: it's called "Day 952--still No Pro Sequencer For Os X."]

Illustrative *only* of my reasoning for speculating that OS problems were behind slow/no development in the HARDWARE arena for combination audio/MIDI products was the example of *evidence* of hold-ups on the SOFTWARE side as well for COMBINATION AUDIO/MIDI products. The entire point was that this lends some weight to the possiblity of there having been a central OS X issue--which is the one thing that would affect BOTH hardware and software development for COMBINATION AUDIO/MIDI products--and that perhaps it's not all just attributable to the sloth of developers, which seems to be the drum you want to beat.

The COMMON element, since you still missed it apparently, is the scarcity of COMBINATION AUDIO/MIDI products for OS X--both in hardware *and* in software--and so the point I was making about pre-Jauar OS problems being a possible, if not likely, culprit affecting BOTH hardware and software is entirely germane to this discussion of the HARDWARE side of the equation. The mention of an example from the software side was merely *supportive* and *illustrative* of that entire rationale--the OS being the thing that BOTH hardware and software must work with.

You decided to climb onto my mere mention of that supporting evidence (from the software side of the same equation) like a hobby-horse and ride it to death as an excuse to give me an unsolicited lecture on the marketing frailties of music software developers, which is not the topic, and was not at all the point of my mentioning the anomaly of the Logic for OS X press release--that being merely illustrative of further *evidence* for my reasoning that a long-term OS problem might likely lie at the center of all of it.

That's *still* my position, and I think it's consistent with the facts--one very RELATED fact (to possible OS problems) *including* the announced release of Logic for OS X that has now been delayed for an entire year. You don't think it has anything to do with any OS problems. Fine. Nobody here, including me, is stopping you from saying so. So your characterization that I was somehow trying to wear the moderator's hat was entirely disengenuous.

Beat your drum all you want. But why not start a new thread called "The sloth and devious marketing practices of software developers for OS X, which, itself, has always been perfect," since that seems to be what you're trying to discuss in this thread. I'm not.

[Francois Déchery]

keel cool guys please,
since lepetitmartien in on vacation...

Your discussion IS interesting!

[Stuartpa]

Logic for Mac OSX is out you can get from Emagic's Web site under updates right now.

I have not tested it yet as I use HD hardware and I am sure I will have ot wait a few months to a year to get that OSX Native but yoiu never Know it may be sooner and OSX works a whole lot better with the Jaguar release.

There are some limitation to the use of Firwire but what a way to go if it can be done High Spped MIDI and Audio in one Box sounds really good to me.

[Synthetik]

There is a new firewire in development, that has twice the Mbps,

Thats hot to death right there.

[Matmac]

I too am suprised at the lack of firewire audio devices - the 828 costs $aus 2200 here and is basically out of my reach. I guess it is us poor saps with iMacs and Powerbooks without a PCI slot that would make up the market. I am skeptical that USB has the band width to handle MIDI with lots of controller data as well as audio but that is what we seem to be stuck with - bugger!