re 828's and mac book pro.

[IKKAKUJUU]

Hello,,i just saw the posting from yesterday,,similar to my request so here goes.
i have Macbook Pro late 2008 intel core duo 2.5..6GB ram.
At present i have been using it with my Traveler which is like a 2nd gen one.Recently i bought a 828MK3 and haven't set it up yet ,reason being is i want to get another MK3 & a MK2 so as to make a 24 track input set up on the FW800 bus with the 3x828 units for a fixed home install coming from a Mackie Onyx 24 direct outs.,,,,and keep the traveler for mobile usage/and as inputs for my old emu sampler 8 outputs (this would be set up on the 2nd FW400 bus. I imagine that the FW 800 bus is my best bet for the 828's but would like to confirm the following: If i do plug in the traveler + on the FW400 bus and try to use it to get more inputs does this mean that FW800 will bus down to 400 bandwidth ?.(.will this prevent me using up 4 units at 48khz per bus as stated in the motu user guide?.....do you think a laptop like mine could really be expanded to 2 sets of 4x Motu Firewire devices (64 analog inputs) each upon one of the available FW buses or would 1 set of 4 units giving me 32 analog inputs be sort of my limit for such a MBPro 4.1 ?. Ideally id like to have the 3 828's on one FW bus as a fixed install for the Mackie,and on the other bus the Traveler for use as fixed inputs for my EMU,,and another 2 Travelers for the 16 outputs of my old Akai sampler,,,so legacy samplers are all patched to those dedicated inputs ,plus giving me a multiple Travelers for mobile work,,,so demanding about 48 in/outs from my MBP...Sound on Sound statistics for the MBP of this age would imply that it could be capable of that performance but of course DP has moved on since then and i imagine would be exerting its own particular demands upon my Mac which is now 7 years behind the DP revisions.
Many Thanks....!

[mikehalloran]

All MOTU FireWire devices operate at 400 speed. The later ones have the 800 type connector to connect with later Macs.

[IKKAKUJUU]

hello Mike,,,so if i understand well,,,it is just the cable that is fw800 but even the 828 mk3 still operates at maximum fw400 speed...?

For the number of devices on a fw bus,,,motu state that it is 2 units at 96khz and up to 4 units at 48khz,,,,so that gives me +/- 32 analog i/o....
but my mbp has 2 fw sockets,,,1 fw400 and 1 fw800,,,,,,,do these count as 1 bus internally or 2 seperate busses? ie,,can i connect 4 devices to each fw port,,or does connecting 4 to either the fw400 or the fw800 use up all my possible bandwidth?.....

thanks again....

[IKKAKUJUU]

ps,,,i just took a trip to my local Mac retailer,,and they told me that the FW sockets and the USB sockets all share the same internal bus..!

[mikehalloran]

Max FW speed is 400 no matter what the connector. MOTU has this stated in a number of places. The 800 connector is to make cabling more convenient. There are some old threads with the usual outrage over such decisions but that's the situation.

A Mac has only one FW bus, even those with multiple connectors.

On a MacBook Pro, only one of those FW ports will support bus power (not an issue with the 828 but still good to know). The same is true with the USB ports on a laptop -- only one supports bus power. Not knowing this causes confusion when devices are plugged into the wrong port.

[IKKAKUJUU]

thanks again,,,so it looks like 4 units daisy-chained as 48khz is the maximum number of motu units supported then...whether i put 2 on each fw socket,,or 4 or 1 single socket.and if it is correct that the USB bus is the sme internal bus as the firewire then that would effectively mean that the limits of the analog inputs and output (jack/xlr) connectivity would be 40 i/0 using 4 x 828's...apparently the optical bandwidth would at this point become compromised.,,with all that traffic summed through the one FW bus.

[IKKAKUJUU]

Mike,,,i've just thought about what you said about only one FW bus supplying bus power ,,but in my experience this does not seem correct. I have until now always and only used a Traveler via bus power on my FW400 port and powered an OWC pro mini dual raid hard-drive via the FW800 bus simultaneously....

I just plugged that set up in again,,with Traveler unplugged from the mains and on bus power in the FW400 socket,,and the OWC pro mini dual powered from the FW800 bus and both work at the same time....