New Mac Pros announced

[t4mh]

Actually, I've been doin' midi over USB and audio over Firewire. I've been saving Ethernet for network file handling and so forth. So far so good because midi doesn't require much bandwidth. This will probably change because I'll need to stream sample data over Firewire sooner or later and I'm thinking that 1) sample data will not be audio and 2) I don't think the streams (audio & data) can be mixed on the same firewire bus. This last I'm not sure about and I'm expecting the worst. Maybe I'll be suprised.

Keith

[mojobone]

@ Keith: My Tascam FireWire interface handles MIDI and audio data over a single cable jes' fine. According to the literature, I jes' need to make sure any FW hard drives are on a different port; no daisy-chaining, but I think there may be other FW interfaces that aren't bothered by it.

@ Mazz: Ah, Vienna Ensemble isn't on my list; (I'm more of a Broadway Big Band guy, heh) I was thinking I could maybe use ReWire to stream the samples back to the master machine, so as to avoid buying another interface. It appears I may have to re-think that, thx.

[mazz]

Vienna Ensemble isn't a library, per se, certainly nowhere near as big or expensive as Broadway Big Band. It's basically a host for Virtual Instruments that allows you to stream the audio back to your host computer via Ethernet (or any flavor or audio you have if you choose to go that way). It's not that expensive for what it does and it comes with a nice selection of orchestral instruments. It actually works really well. I set up the server application and it recognized my other computer over the network when it had VE loaded on it. I think it's a good way to go.

ReWire is only designed to be from application to application on the same computer.

I think Ethernet is going to be the way audio is sent around in the future from computer to computer, I don't know if it's ready for prime time yet, but as soon as I get some time, I'm going to try it and find out. I don't really need a sound card for what I do, I have enough I/O for the occasional live vocal or solo instrument session, so being able to move multiple channels of audio over one cable I can pick up at Office Depot sounds like an excellent option to me.

[mojobone]

I got confused because it came with instruments; did a little research, and yowza, it might be jes' the ticket! It'll pay for itself right out the box, cuz my ol' G4 has Gigabit Ethernet, too. (might have to re-purpose an old Dell laptop so my wife can check her email, though) It'll save me enough money on interfaces, I could almost afford BBB. The trade-off is that I'll probably have to jettison Gigastudio in favor of Kontakt, but that was in the works anyhoo.....

[t4mh]

@ Keith: My Tascam FireWire interface handles MIDI and audio data over a single cable jes' fine. According to the literature, I jes' need to make sure any FW hard drives are on a different port; no daisy-chaining, but I think there may be other FW interfaces that aren't bothered by it.

Yes I do the same with my MOTIF. 16 channels of high quality audio with 4 ports (64 chan)of midi as well as all control, all on a single FW cable. The entire keyboard exists as a VST inside my DAW. Pretty awesome actually. But it is all run on a VERY proprietary driver. If I wanted to add, say an external drive from a different mfg or a control surface to the FW bus they would talk a different language and I don't think anything would work then. The downside is having only one FW port on the machine. I think this can be overcome but not without some effort. But yes you can daisy chain devices of the same protocol on the same bus. As an example, having a Yamaha, I can add an FW Mixer ( Yamaha ) and have them work together on the same bus. Much like daisy chaining SCSI or midi. There just doesn't seem to be a standard for FW like there is for Midi.

The DRIVE people want their stuff to do one thing and the AUDIO people want it to do something else.

Keith