• Registered: 2012-09-22
  • Posts: 12

Topic: FF400 upgrade advice

Hi!

I am having lots of troubles with my FF400 lately which is due to the bad Firewire support on Windows. As I had this interface for more than 10 years with mostly no troubles I am not mad at all.

Now I am looking for a new interface, most likely from RME. I am a full time composer and sound design for commercials, film and TV and work mostly with VSTs on Windows 10 and Cubase. Sometimes I  record single instruments like voice, guitar, violin and so forth. As for monitor I use Adam A5x with a subwoofer and a pair of Behritone.

Here are my requirements:
- low latency for VSTs (most of the time I work with 64 buffer size)
- Good preamps (I want to record directly into my audio interface)
- surround compatible (but most of the time I work in stereo)
- future proof
- my computer is in a separate machine room, about 10meters away from my setup
- no Firewire!

I don't want to go overboard with the budget - around 1.500 € would be nice...
I am open to internal cards as well.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Matt

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • From: UTC+1
  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 13,183

Re: FF400 upgrade advice

> my computer is in a separate machine room, about 10meters away from my setup

Which requirement do you want to raise by this for the recording interface ?

If possible go for the UFX II or UFX+ (€1879/€2139).
Latest USB driver generation, overhauled analog section.
DuRec for direct USB recording to disk or stick.

Especially the UFX+ gives you the advantage of MADI (64ch @44.1/48) and it dropped in price from €2699 to 2139.
This is a real nice price. It has USB3 and Thunderbolt interface.

With a Lindy high quality USB3 cable (3x shields) you can use up to 5m cable.
MADI devices can be up to 2km away from each other.
Normal OM3/OM4 patch cables are available up to approx 30m.
This would offer to you greatest flexibility for future expansion.

All 4 inputs in the front of the UFX+ can be used at Mic or Instrument inputs which is very useful.
All analog channels can be set individually to different reference levels.

See here how flexible it can be used from some of my blog articles:

https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … Rec-EN-DE/

https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … 8-RME-UFX/

And here a comparison sheet between the different RME recording interfaces:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/index.ph … 8-08-xlsx/

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • Registered: 2012-09-22
  • Posts: 12

Re: FF400 upgrade advice

Wow, thanks for the detailed description!

For the 10m cable I would use an active extender - I saw Lindy offers a pro version - without any  bandwidth loss.
Would you run the UFX+ with USB or Thunderbolt? Is there any difference?

Thanks!

4 Reply by matt0815 (edited by matt0815 2020-01-31 08:40:12)

  • Registered: 2012-09-22
  • Posts: 12

Re: FF400 upgrade advice

Sorry - just saw your chart for latency and a comparison between USB and Thunderbolt.

5 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2020-01-31 09:22:18)

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • From: UTC+1
  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 13,183

Re: FF400 upgrade advice

Cool, nice indication that you actually read (and understood) the article LOL wink

BTW .. the values for thunderbolt I got from somebody from forum (as I do not have TB).

And if you look at my personal little benchmark project ...

I could not see any "performance difference" in terms of reliability with a huge project
between RayDAT (PCIe) and UFX+ (USB3).

https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … cks-de-en/

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • vinark
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-06-05
  • Posts: 2,778

Re: FF400 upgrade advice

Did you already install and try the legacy firewire driver? Works here (for another device).
https://support.microsoft.com/nl-nl/hel … s-8-1-or-w  this works on win 10 too.

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632
  • Registered: 2012-09-22
  • Posts: 12

Re: FF400 upgrade advice

vinark wrote:

Did you already install and try the legacy firewire driver? Works here (for another device).
https://support.microsoft.com/nl-nl/hel … s-8-1-or-w  this works on win 10 too.

Yes, I run it with the legacy driver. Although the official link is down since ages. I also bought another TI-based Firefire card - lots of hicc-ups and dropouts...

8 Reply by vinark (edited by vinark 2020-01-31 12:43:27)

  • vinark
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-06-05
  • Posts: 2,778

Re: FF400 upgrade advice

There is a TI chip with known issues. Not sure if you have the right one. Maybe someone will tell you here.
Microsoft link is still up.

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632
  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • From: UTC+1
  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 13,183

Re: FF400 upgrade advice

XIO2200A is the broken TI Firewire chipset

https://www.forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=23876

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14

10 Reply by matt0815 (edited by matt0815 2020-01-31 14:26:29)

  • Registered: 2012-09-22
  • Posts: 12

Re: FF400 upgrade advice

vinark wrote:

There is a TI chip with known issues. Not sure if you have the right one. Maybe someone will tell you here.
Microsoft link is still up.

The link to Microsoft is working, but not the link to the driver file.

  • vinark
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-06-05
  • Posts: 2,778

Re: FF400 upgrade advice

https://www.studio1productions.com/Arti … wire-1.htm
Link in this one works

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632