Firewire Sound Card?

dano91

Hello,

I have a Presonus Firewire Studio that sometimes makes crackle/popping noises when first powered up. I usually restart it and open/close Studio One a few times and eventually it works.

I've heard that my sound card might not have the firewire compatibility even though it is connected via firewire and my sound card should have Texus Instruments or something along those lines?

The computer I use is running XP so it is likely it is quite out dated - will this be an issue? It has been formatted and only has Studio One on it to preserve memory, but I am thinking of upgrading to Windows 7 and getting Cubase.

My question is - will a new sound card fix the weird crackling I sometimes hear on startup?

If so - what is the cheapest card that will allow me to record without problems?

Many Thanks

ecc83

Yes,  you really need a TI chipset equipped firewire card for best results but check with Presonus, that is only true for maybe 90% of AIs. 

Win 7 should be even better than XP BUT! Are you thinking of upgrading your present computer to W7? If so, will it run 64 bits? If not you are probably better off going in for a new machine in 64 bit as everything theses days gets ever more ram hungry.

As for a FW card? Process of iteration. Find a cheap card on The Bay, ask if it is TI chips. No? Look for another cheap card on the.....NB. You want JUST a FW400 card with one or two ports..NOT a combined FW and USB and not FW 400+FW800.

Dave.

spark240

I use my hp laptop with a Presonus mixer , Studio One Pro running on vista, all works fine, and I don't think its. Texas FW card. When you say crackling noise, is this through your main monitors when starting your system? If sO , I would recommend leaving your monitors off any until all systems are ready to go. Oh ..and it's all on 32bit. The presonus website has a program you can use to analyse your chipset and check compatibility.

dano91

Thanks for the replies!

Unfortunately a new machine isn't an option for me at the moment. I will check comparability via presonus website and if it's just the sound card then I will follow your advice in regards to the FW400 card.

Just want to get it up and running again for as cheap as possible - a new guitar is on the horizon you see!

The crackling isn't the monitors, it just seems to be any sound going through the interface and is sometimes fixed by turning it off, restarting studio one and turning it back on. Not sure why.

PolarityMan

I would try to borrow someone elses first, the chipset makes a huge difference to stability for firewire so no matter what interface you get you might not get it working if the chipset is a dud.

If you really want a recommendation for an interface though I can sey good things about focusrite's saffire range.

spark240

My HP was only £150...loaded Studio One. hooked up the Presonus mixer and all good..pretty cheap I thought. 

dano91

Do you think this will sort out the problem?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B002UOLZ5S