Need Help-Audio Interface for laptop(Vista)

[jrocko31]

hello,

i'm new to this forum.i have a HP pavillion dv4 Intel Core Duo 2.26Ghz,3Gig RAM(support up to 8Gig max) with Vista Home Premium.I'd like to use it primarily as a softsynth/sampler for live performance and also for occasional home recording.i'm planning to use Ableton Live with it and some NI softwares.i just can't decide yet what audio interface i'd use with it either firewire or USB.the laptop has the expresscard slot and i found one Siig from sweetwater to add firewire port to it and i'm interested with this better than USB for audio interface connection(since this laptop only has two USB ports,and one eSATA port and others...no firewire port) .but i don't know if this express card from Siig would work with my laptop with some firewire interfaces listed on sweetwater.so i'm kind of stucked wether to go USB or firewire.can anyone give some suggestions please?it will be greatly apreciated.i'm new to this.thanks!!

[uncle99]

2 Years ago I bought a SiiG Firewire 400/800 express card to use in my HP notebook with an Alesis Multimix Firewire mixer and never got it to work. Alesis said the Siig card wasn't compatible (wrong chipset or something).
USB devices on the other hand always seem to work. I use a M-Audio Mobile Pre and a Fast Track USB on notebook computers with Vista with no problems.
my 2 cents.
U99

[lebay]

jrock you can follow what uncle has given instruction to you..
its good and uncle have same experience with you..
good luck

[jwdutton]

2 Years ago I bought a SiiG Firewire 400/800 express card to use in my HP notebook with an Alesis Multimix Firewire mixer and never got it to work. Alesis said the Siig card wasn't compatible (wrong chipset or something).
USB devices on the other hand always seem to work. I use a M-Audio Mobile Pre and a Fast Track USB on notebook computers with Vista with no problems.
my 2 cents.
U99

I have four notebook computers. I use a SIIG expresscard 400/800 card. I have never had it not work properly with Onyx, M-Audio, or TC Konnect.

If you are going to do serious recording then you need firewire. USB will not do. Period. You will need an external USB hard drive. If you use Win XP you may have to revert the 1394 driver to the SP1 driver which is quite common for XP SP2 or SP3 upgrades. Really really common. If you use Vista the preferred versions are either Business or Ultimate. Home Premium will work but with any version of Vista make sure that SP1 is installed.

Anyone that tells you USB is better is not a professional engineer for sure.

[jrocko31]

I have four notebook computers. I use a SIIG expresscard 400/800 card. I have never had it not work properly with Onyx, M-Audio, or TC Konnect.

If you are going to do serious recording then you need firewire. USB will not do. Period. You will need an external USB hard drive. If you use Win XP you may have to revert the 1394 driver to the SP1 driver which is quite common for XP SP2 or SP3 upgrades. Really really common. If you use Vista the preferred versions are either Business or Ultimate. Home Premium will work but with any version of Vista make sure that SP1 is installed.

Anyone that tells you USB is better is not a professional engineer for sure.

hey man,thanks again.i thought no one would ever reply to my post though it took so long.i really apreciate all your suggestions.also,i'd like to know your thoughts about eSATA drives connected over eSATA ports compared to USB for audio recording.

[Musicman09]

I've been reading some of these posts in here and it sounds like I'm SOL when it comes to being able to actually record any music with my Acer Dual-Core laptop with Vista to my 8 channel MultiMix Alesis board. I have been on the phone with technical support with both Alesis and Steinberg and they are saying they cannot help me any further with my problem and I think it's because of the chipset within the laptop that's not communicating with the board. It keeps saying the ASIO driver is not mapped to Cubase LE4.....so that's it? I might have another use for it (the mixer) but not for recording huh?