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I want to post my problem here to see if anybody's encountered it before. I have found a workaround for the time being, but i'm not satisfied with the answer I'm getting.

My setup is an iBook G4 running Logic Express 6 with the Metric Halo 2882 + DSP firewire interface and a LACIE 80 gig firewire drive. I have the drive 1st in the firewire chain then the mobile I/O. When recording only audio I get the error "Error trying to sync audio and midi" which makes no sense because I'm not using any midi! All my prefs have all midi stuff off and all sync settings look fine.

Now, after hours of testing out different prefs, I decided I should tryjust recording to my local drive. IT WORKED! I'm starting to think that the firewire chain couldn't handle the bi-directional traffic into the computer and back out to the drive. Could this be? I don't want to have to record locally and only backup to firewire drive.

Anybody have any ideas?

Much appreciated,
Chris Cali

Comments

anonymous Mon, 05/10/2004 - 15:19

Chris you have hit the nail on the head, Buddy. Firewire 400 cannot handle all that traffic. Its because your interface and drive are sharing the same bus. Your interface is bringing audio in, handing it to your iBook, then trying to spit it back out PAST the interface to the drive recording it. And its not just Logic, Pro Tools and DP hit the same wall. Unfortunately, since it is an iBook, not much can be done. If you had a Powerbook, you could use its PCMCIA slot to add another firewire bus.
Hope this helps you figure out what you need to do next!

anonymous Tue, 05/11/2004 - 15:37

I think I figured it out. The powerbook would work on a seperate bus via PCMCIA card, and it also works firewire because it now comes w/ Firewire 800 which is FULL DUPLEX. Firewire S400 (what iBook uses) is HALF DUPLEX!! Unbelievable. The pipe/bus is big enough, but it doesn't support bi-directional traffic so when it's transmitting back to the drive, the audio coming in through the interface falls out of sync.

So I guess I'm recording internally for now, backing up to my firewire drive and eventually upgrading to a powerbook. Again, unbelievable.

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