According to the apple website the 2019 mbp comes with a usb 3.1 port. This will connect to your scarlett. Im not sure if you will need a 3.1 to 2.0 cable or adapter, but you have to use the usb port, the thunderbolt port wont work with a usb interface as far as i know.

Ok. I see now, it says support for usb 3.1. Isn't that the new smaller usb. That's what Thunderbolt is isn't it? Maybe I'm wrong but I know the new ones are a lot smaller.

I do know that I've seen new flash drives for storage that have a connector on both ends, one for the old usb slots and one for the new one's on the new macs.

These are the specs on the Macbook Pro I'm planning on buying. And I found an article on usb 3.1 vs Thunderbolt, and if I understand it correctly Thunderbolt will support usb 3.1 but has faster data transfer speeds.

Attached files

Hi, I have the 2018 MacBook Pro, it also has 4 tb3/3.1c ports. The way I use my ports for usb is a hub with ports off it. There are a number of good multiport hubs about and they include usb 3 and HDMI and a LAN connector on some.

Satechi Aluminum Multi-Port Adapter V2-4K HDMI (30Hz), Gigabit Ethernet, USB-C Pass-Through, SD/Micro Card Slots, USB 3.1 for 2016/2017 MacBook Pro, 2015/2016/2017 MacBook and more (Space Gray) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B075FW7H5J/?tag=r06fa-20

Cheers,

Tony

rainsong23, post: 462773, member: 34145 wrote: These are the specs on the Macbook Pro I'm planning on buying. And I found an article on usb 3.1 vs Thunderbolt, and if I understand it correctly Thunderbolt will support usb 3.1 but has faster data transfer speeds.

I dont know off hand if TB3 will support usb 3.1 or not, make sure you have a trusted source, and confirm with focusrite.

Otherwise just use the usb port for the usb device.

Even tho they both use the type C connector the transfer rate (speed) is different 40gb/sec for TB3, 10gb/sec for the usb.

You don't gain any advantage using the tb3 for a usb device. The device will operate at usb 2.0 speeds, since that's its protocol.

tb3 and usb are handled differently by the motherboard chipset, and processor. So they are not interchangeable.

Tb3 devices can have higher latency than usb2 devices, its about the audio drivers, not the connection type.

Before using any tb3 adapter ill repeat, verify with focusrite that it will work. Otherwise just use the USB connection since that is what the scarelett was designed to use.

Allow me to state the fact that TB3 is definitely usb fully compatible and this from the creators..

What is the difference between Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C?
Thunderbolt 3 is a superset solution which includes USB 3.1 (10Gbps), and adds 40Gbps Thunderbolt and DisplayPort 1.2 from a single USB-C port. This enables any dock, display, or data device to connect to a Thunderbolt 3 port, fulfilling the promise of the USB-C connector. See more information on the Thunderbolt Blog

A word of warning though, it’s all about the quality of your cable and connector!. Do not skimp.

USB-C is a sad story of lots of marketing promise and very little that fully works.

DisplayPort, fi, could connect several monitors daisy-chained. With USB-C, MacOS no longer supports it. We used to need one adapter (DP to VGA) to support nearly all projectors and screens with nearly every laptop on the market. Now we need a dozen and we need to keep notes as to what works and what doesn't.

Gigabit ethernet (and it's predecessors) supports booting from ethernet. Apple uses it to do a clean install remotely. Not a lot of USB-C to ethernet adapters support it. We've found one and that one is no longer for sale. Apple's first gen adapter supported it too. The quietly launched replacement no longer does. There goes another day of testing. Don't even dream about promiscuous mode. Etc. You need native Wifi to install some Macs. USB Wifi dongles and USB-C Wifi adapters don't allow it. Built-in ethernet ports always work. Recent Macbooks no longer have ethernet ports...

Some FW harddisks don't even work with some adapters. It's rare though.

There was a dock that supported audio (large channel count, think MADI) over it's FW and USB ports. With every audio interface. Guess what? The new model doesn't.

And HDMI turns out to be the same mess. Can't tell what it does by looking at the plug. Ever tried to do 8 channels of audio over HDMI? Same like "How much power is in that USB-C port? Or "can I charge my Mac over that USB-C port?" (answer: yes over the left ones, no over the right ones).

The only thing you can do, is test.

Man thats insane. It seems to me like Apple is leaving behind its audio centric features in the designs, with a focus more on video creators. Ive heard even the macOS was giving audio people trouble. Which is horrible because macOS was super awesome when i used it daily from '08-'15. It seems to me apple decided to leave the niche of audio/vid people behind for mass market devices instead. Even the new mac pro is video centric and overpriced/underpowered even by apple standards.

With usb4 on the horizen maybe they will omit the endless .xxxx's and get back to just being simple and "universal" as its namesake implies.

It depends on your hardware at hand. >90% have no problems. Once you need say, >64 channels with low latency, it quickly turns into another story. You might want to look at Dante or AVB.

The same goes for PC hardware.

You just can no longer assume it'll work in the case of Thunderbolt. USB-C incorporates so much stuff, you'll never find all the features in every product. An example: there's even an analog stereo out for headphones in the standard. But it is, of course, optional.

We used to have standards. Like VGA. Even then, you came across weird non working combos. It was rare enough not to care.

Now we expect all of the previous standards to run on one plug. We shouldn't be amazed to find some combos just don't work.

Mainstream devices from long term audio manufacturers are safe with a Mac. I’d be more worried with PCs not made specially for DAW use :).

Makzimia, post: 462814, member: 48344 wrote: Mainstream devices from long term audio manufacturers are safe with a Mac. I’d be more worried with PCs not made specially for DAW use :).

I disagree, PC's are a much larger share of the computer market in general. Mac still has a foothold in the niche market of commercial audio and video. Since that's such a tiny % of sales in the overall a/v market, i would reason PC's are equally or much more likely to be the main consideration for mass market which is generally prosumer or lower.

Even more so if apple continues to put out 10k computers that can't compete with a 3k pc. If that trend continues, its likely to be cheaper for commercial entities to contract out custom pc builds, or simply hire a couple in house builders/techs.

kmetal you’re missing my point Kyle :). Your more likely to get incompatible hardware in a random laptop or PC with thunderbolt support. Unless it’s made to run for DAW. I’m not arguing value for power :).

Let's not turn this into an OS turf war...

The problem is Thunderbolt. Not the machine an sich. Hec, the first mobo's with TB that came out didn't support a lot. No DisplayPort, for example. As a consumer, you'd expect that new connector to support a display, wouldn't you?

And even Apple doesn't fully support DisplayPort. So where's the consumer to go?

Ot's a question of trust. Can you trust your computer to work as you expect? And your expectations are based on marketing drivel like Intel's TB blog...

cyrano Trust me, no turf war :). Kyle and I know each other’s knowledge of computers. He was simply missing the fact OP has a mainstream interface and a MacBook Pro. Core audio just works with all the fixed hardware in a Mac. I am constantly at odds with cost over my trust in core audio, for music :).

Makzimia, post: 462825, member: 48344 wrote: Your more likely to get incompatible hardware in a random laptop or PC with thunderbolt support.

Oh ok, i didnt realize you were speaking about a pc with TB. My thinking was any random pc is very likely to have a usb port that works with the scarlett, and its stock cable. Where the mbp requires at least a usb3 to usb2 cable.

Makzimia, post: 462827, member: 48344 wrote: Core audio just works with all the fixed hardware in a Mac.

unless the Catalina os update destroyed your latency performance and rendered some of your pluggins useless for several months.

I actually criticized core audio for this very reason in a thread with Cyrano, before the catalina update. Drivers may be annoying, but are quick to reinstall, and can be updated or reverted back to, independently of windows updates, which seem to take place hourly, lol. Core audio is great when it works. Win devices should just include a small rom chip containing the drivers to simulate plug and play. The amount of times a person actually plugs into a new system with their hardware just isnt frequent enough imho to justify locking core audio into the os. It takes 15 sec, once, to install a driver. I don't think the plug and play factor really comes into relavance very often. Core audio however is probably more stable day to day and less likely to be the source of an issue, where driver reinstall is usually first step troubleshooting in win. At least i never experienced a core audio issue from '08-15.

cyrano, post: 462826, member: 51139 wrote: The problem is Thunderbolt.

I agree. Im planning on tb3 because of the new Apollo, and its still annoying. The tb2/3 aic's arent compatible with tb1, and the mobo options supporting the cards are limited, especially on the AMD side.

I know apollo via tb has been running well for years at at levels or pro audio, but i just still dont trust it...

How long until we audio people have AudiOS, and dedicated hardware and connections? This whole "lets use a regular computer and os" idea is over 30 years old now....

The fact that a thread about using a scarlett, a near ubiquitous interface, is more than just "plug it in" is absurd, and really reflects on the state of computers racing to be first to market, and toying with proprietary/unsupported features. At least we can run 400+ pluggins at 64 sample buffers!!!!!!!!

Sorry tangent over.

kmetal I’m not on Catalina still :). I agree it’s not great to blow up stuff.. but, the journey from 32bit to 64bit continues lol..

kmetal, post: 462828, member: 37533 wrote: Oh ok, i didnt realize you were speaking about a pc with TB. My thinking was any random pc is very likely to have a usb port that works with the scarlett, and its stock cable. Where the mbp requires at least a usb3 to usb2 cable.

There's no such animal. USB3 is almost completely compatible with USB2, if implemented right.

unless the Catalina os update destroyed your latency performance and rendered some of your pluggins useless for several months.

I actually criticized core audio for this very reason in a thread with Cyrano, before the catalina update. Drivers may be annoying, but are quick to reinstall, and can be updated or reverted back to, independently of windows updates, which seem to take place hourly, lol. Core audio is great when it works. Win devices should just include a small rom chip containing the drivers to simulate plug and play. The amount of times a person actually plugs into a new system with their hardware just isnt frequent enough imho to justify locking core audio into the os. It takes 15 sec, once, to install a driver. I don't think the plug and play factor really comes into relavance very often. Core audio however is probably more stable day to day and less likely to be the source of an issue, where driver reinstall is usually first step troubleshooting in win. At least i never experienced a core audio issue from '08-15.

I feel it's a bit strange criticising Core audio When Windozs has four (or five?) different sound systems and even Linux has two, resulting in endless confusion for the user...

I agree. Im planning on tb3 because of the new Apollo, and its still annoying. The tb2/3 aic's arent compatible with tb1, and the mobo options supporting the cards are limited, especially on the AMD side.

I know apollo via tb has been running well for years at at levels or pro audio, but i just still dont trust it...

How long until we audio people have AudiOS, and dedicated hardware and connections? This whole "lets use a regular computer and os" idea is over 30 years old now....

The fact that a thread about using a scarlett, a near ubiquitous interface, is more than just "plug it in" is absurd, and really reflects on the state of computers racing to be first to market, and toying with proprietary/unsupported features. At least we can run 400+ pluggins at 64 sample buffers!!!!!!!!

Sorry tangent over.

I agree. An audio OS was started once (beOS), but it's forgotten. Mainly because the one device that used it, the Tascam SX1, was a gigantic disaster...

Audio was almost there, in XP days, with USB 1.1 Audio class compliant devices. True plug and play. It was still OK in USB2, but then MS decided to screw it. Result: most audio interface manufacturers abandoned it. Then, USB3 came along and the USB consortium killed Audio class compliant devices, much to Apple's liking, as they were pushing Thunderbolt to be the next great thing. The resulting disagreement and panic in the USB consortium resulted in the USB-C spec. If you can't beat them, join them...

cyrano, post: 462831, member: 51139 wrote: I feel it's a bit strange criticising Core audio When Windozs has four (or five?) different sound systems and even Linux has two, resulting in endless confusion for the user...

For me its about the fact that the MacOs and core audio are intertwined. I dislike this. Catalina came around and wrecked audio interface performance and rendered pluggins useless for months. This has never happened in windows that i know of. I dont like the idea that a new os update could also affect the audio driver. Im sure in windows its possible that the update could affect other things related to audio performance, but i like being able to revert back to the most stable driver and/or os version seperately.

cyrano, post: 462831, member: 51139 wrote: I agree. An audio OS was started once (beOS), but it's forgotten. Mainly because the one device that used it, the Tascam SX1, was a gigantic disaster...

I think it would be great to see another attempt. Maybe something open source would be the way. Or even an audio/videos edition of an existing os that strips away all features not necessary for a daw.

computer manufacturers and software developers have a vested interest in keeping the consumer in a constant cycle of updating.

on the other hand audio producers need stability and long life in their tools. it is not uncommon to revisit a project even 10 or 15 years after it was initially produced.

aside from the inconvenience of having to futz around with sh*t like buffer settings and erroneous applications running in the background and all the other NONSENSE computers bring to the table, i dislike computers and software solution for just this reason.

anything that a computer can do that can't be done with tape recorders and consoles is imo BS.

the more musicians live with capabilities (like auto tune or the ability to put off decision making) the more they allow it to erode their talent. there' kids out there making records who can't play live! the sharp ones come to realize those capabilities are more hindrance than benefit to producing good records, as many of us have learned. keep it simple stupid.

as long as you have a good song and you can play or sing you don't need that sh*t. if you need it, you have no business recording ... that's it!

Core audio and Macos are intertwined. Of course they are. It's not like you would install ASIO on linux, is it?

If you want a general purpose audio setup, get a Raspberry Pi 4, run Reaper on Raspbian. An awful lot of stuff just works out of the box. ALSA with Jack and a class compliant interface (RME Digiface USB?) and go.

I'm currently testing Lubuntu, on an old Dell laptop with 2 GB ram. Looks good. You could also try Ubuntu Studio, which is an audio centric distro. The Dell is free (nobody wants to use it) and has Firewire. Lubuntu even reads HFS+ disks these days, as I found out when I plugged in the wrong disk :D

I'm building an audio router, with VOIP, WebRTC and up to 32 analog IO.

cyrano, post: 462836, member: 51139 wrote: Core audio and Macos are intertwined. Of course they are. It's not like you would install ASIO on linux, is it?

If you want a general purpose audio setup, get a Raspberry Pi 4, run Reaper on Raspbian. An awful lot of stuff just works out of the box. ALSA with Jack and a class compliant interface (RME Digiface USB?) and go.

I'm currently testing Lubuntu, on an old Dell laptop with 2 GB ram. Looks good. You could also try Ubuntu Studio, which is an audio centric distro. The Dell is free (nobody wants to use it) and has Firewire. Lubuntu even reads HFS+ disks these days, as I found out when I plugged in the wrong disk :D

I'm building an audio router, with VOIP, WebRTC and up to 32 analog IO.

This stuff sounds exciting it would be cool if you started a thread about it.

Will the audio router do realtime multitracking over the web?

Kurt Foster, post: 462835, member: 7836 wrote: anything that a computer can do that can't be done with tape recorders and consoles is imo BS...

Stick your head out of the door, some time this century :D

I've got a friend who's pulling 256 inputs from five studio's. One of these is 2 km from the rest. Ever try routing that to a dozen recorders, three consoles and a few dozen stereo preview mixes? His previous console is for sale. 104 channels :D

What I'm doing, is for theatre. Another kind of "studio". More like broadcast. One day, we need audio from a phone conversation. Another day, the source consists of 12 hanging mics for a choir. In between, acrobatic dancers need a head-mic cause they're singing too while occasionally beating a drum...

cyrano, post: 462838, member: 51139 wrote: Stick your head out of the door, some time this century :D

why would i want to do that? :LOL:

cyrano, post: 462838, member: 51139 wrote: I've got a friend who's pulling 256 inputs from five studio's. One of these is 2 km from the rest. Ever try routing that to a dozen recorders, three consoles and a few dozen stereo preview mixes? His previous console is for sale. 104 channels :D

why are they doing that?

i'll admit a tape recorder would probably be a bit limited for things like modern TV or film but for music it's all i would ever need. i can make records on 8 tracks.

it doesn't really have to be analog tape. it could be a stand alone digital recorder and i'm fine with that. what i meant was too many tracks and too many decisions postponed along with all the extra stuff like grid alignment and auto tune, fifty thousand plugs that every else has too and it's all starting to sound same o same o too me especially if you distill things down to genre'. to boot people are actually forgetting how to play music.

We used to have a console and a recorder. That was fine. Smaller groups, or individual musicians still can make music like that. I don't often use more than eight inputs either.

But he's got sources from five theaters. Could be there are only 2 mics, or 56 mics, per theater. And these need to be channelled to a recorder, a console or to an external destination, like a radio station. They used to have 3 big patch rooms. One for lighting, one for video and one for audio. Such a system is constantly in need of service and it was very limited in outside connections. All these are now controlled and monitored from one office and can be sent all over the world, while remaining in sync. Speed of operation is up, cost is down.

I felt DAW projects of a hundred or more channels were insane too. Until I got to install a studio that handles audio for movies. A musician who composes music for movies, can easily have several hundreds of tracks in one project. They need to change entire groups of VSTi's and recorded tracks at the push of a button when the producer decides he needs more oomph... or something. Not really home recording, or even your average studio, but hey...

And when we had less gear, we needed to use what we had. We had time to learn. Now we have an unlimited number of plugins, but no time to learn, it seems. Very hard to develop your own style. Especially if you expect to learn from a youtube vid made by someone who hasn't tried it before either.

Digital is either black nor white. It's as grey as analog. We need to hear potential colour.

cyrano, post: 462840, member: 51139 wrote: I felt DAW projects of a hundred or more channels were insane too. Until I got to install a studio that handles audio for movies. A musician who composes music for movies, can easily have several hundreds of tracks in one project. They need to change entire groups of VSTi's and recorded tracks at the push of a button when the producer decides he needs more oomph... or something. Not really home recording, or even your average studio, but hey...

that's one approach to a task. Sergio Leone shot all his movies to soundtracks that were scored and recorded before filming and then played back on set while they shot. there are few movie soundtracks that will live as long as "Good Bad and the Ugly" not only in composition but also in dynamic impact as a recording so i think it's fair to question if one way or the other is better? do we really need all this digital capability or can it be as much of a hindrance as it is an enabler?

Do we really need cars?

cyrano, post: 462842, member: 51139 wrote: Do we really need cars?

electric ones. :ROFLMAO:

I make music and perform because it’s part of my soul. When I hear great music it makes me cry and ache in my heart. I’m thankful for those who also feel the same and can share it however it is made :).

Tony