Firewire interface for DIY

I was looking at one of these yesterday and thought that it might make a good alternative to the ADAT outputs for a DIY pre that has been discussed:

http://www.mackie.com/products/onyxfirewire/index.html

While not as versatile as the ADAT out idea (this unit will act as a seperate audio card and needs it's own drivers, etc.), it seems super easy to pop into a DIY project. What what I can guess, it just takes analog inputs via a ribbon cable and dumps them into a firewire interface, without any bells and whistles. It seems like it would make a nice addition to a 8+ mic pre. It can handle up to 16 audio streams.

-Chris

Chris

I read some of the stuff at the mackie site. Is the A/D inside the module or does the module read the bits from an A/D(s) inside the mixer and combine the bits to a steam?

My guess is the module does all the A/D. There doesn't seem to be any digital in the mixer itself (no digital effects, digital summing, etc.). The block flow diagram in the mixer manual shows the tap to the firewire outputs comming right after the pre amp and before the EQ. That's going to be my first mod BTW, I want the option to send EQ to tape, despite that being out of style these days. :grin:

-Chris

if the AD's in this are actually in the card it could be really easy to make a 16 channel interface. find out what pins need power and how much power is needed and then trace back your channels and wire it up to 16 xlr jacks, and in theory run what ever board you would want into it.
does anybody know yet if these cards will allow daisy chaining to expand the amount of outputs, if so you could findyourself with a 32 ch. frontend for really cheap, and decent quality.

ok so i should have looked it up first on mackies site, you can daisy chain 2 cards together (only supported on PC right now, but i guess mac is soon to come). this is certianly worth looking into, as i imagine the ad converters in this card are probably far beyond the ones in my digi002.

[quote author="turtle"]if the AD's in this are actually in the card it could be really easy to make a 16 channel interface. find out what pins need power and how much power is needed and then trace back your channels and wire it up to 16 xlr jacks, and in theory run what ever board you would want into it.
does anybody know yet if these cards will allow daisy chaining to expand the amount of outputs, if so you could findyourself with a 32 ch. frontend for really cheap, and decent quality.[/quote]

I just spoke with Mackie and they confirmed that the Firewire card takes line level analog input and the AD's are in the card. I was unofficially promised that if I bought the card and sent an email with my serial number, they could send me a pinout/schematic. If that turns out to be a false promise, I don't think it would be too tough to do some signal tracing/probing from the mixer end to find out what's what.

I thought about doing the patch bay thing, but I want to keep the mixer/convertor in one piece, so I can throw it in a bag with my laptop and do a location gig if I wanted. On the other hand, I might be able to drop the interface into my Trident S-100 and have the same thing, but larger.

-Chris

How much is the firewire card?

[quote author="gyraf"]How much is the firewire card?[/quote]

$399 US from most retailers, $319 from an ebay discounter (who also ships international). I know that there are other $500 firewire interfaces out there, but the key is that this one can support 16 channels. I sometimes use more than 8 mics when doing drums, so this is perfect for me.

-Chris

any recent news ?

you guys might want to look at: http://www.mackie.com/products/onyxfirewire/specs.html

Dynamic Range
> 98 dB, 20 Hz to 20 kHz @ 96 kHz sample rate
> 100 dB, 20 Hz to 20 kHz @ 44.1 kHz sample rate

Even M-audio stuff reaches to 105dB...

However, their profire lightbridge looks VERY interesting...

[quote author="Gulistan"]any recent news ?[/quote]

Yes. I sold the Trident S-100 because it was a POS. But seriously, I never persued the Mackie card when I found out what the specs were (like Rochey mentioned).

-Chris

Does anybody use this Mackie firewire card? What about sound quality? I'm interested in diy projects with this card...
Kind regards.
Eric

PMI Audio too has this kind of card for the Toft ATB series mixer:
http://www.toftaudio.com/atb.html

Centrace has a DICE II based FW audio module with 10 ch analog I/O:
http://www.centrance.com/products/

CME Pro has got some FW audio interface modules too, but no multichannel:
http://www.cme-pro.com/

Mackie seems to be expensive.

Thanks for your reply.
Centrance card is interesting (about $230 when available).
Best regards.
Eric

the DFW card is available from profusion as well.