Computer Audio Asylum

Music servers and other computer based digital audio technologies.

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RE: Or firewire. [nt]

Posted by Charles Hansen on February 7, 2009 at 16:43:48:
I think the differences are just a matter of perspective.

The pro companies started working with computer audio many years ago, as it was a much cheaper way to do things than have dedicated, ground-up audio workstations. At that time, Firewire was being heavily promoted and people thought that USB was just for peripherals like mice and keyboards.

Apple was the main champion of Firewire, and they were about the only people that included it with their computers. If you were a professional audio person, having to buy a Mac instead of a PC in order to get Firewire wasn't a big deal. The computer only cost a small fraction of what ProTools or some of the other software packages did. So the whole pro industry focused on Macs and Firewire. That made complete sense given what was available and the needs of the pro industry.

But even Apple didn't think it was important enough to include support for Firewire audio devices, so the pro manufacturers were *forced* to write their own device drivers. (Not an easy task, but much easier than designing a complete computerized audio workstation from the ground up!)

But today is different, and we are designing for a different market. Most of our customers have PCs -- Apple still only has about a 10% market share, and even they are starting to drop Firewire from their products. So it doesn't really make sense for us to design something that has limited hardware support and requires custom device drivers. Not when we can design something that has universal hardware support and runs on the native drivers that come with the OS.

That doesn't mean that you should throw away your equipment and run out to buy new stuff. Obviously your equipment works great and there is no reason to change it. It's just that it wouldn't make sense for us to design a Firewire product in 2009.