One of the first questions a home studio owner has to decide on is whether to go with a USB or a Fireware based soundcard. This article intends to provide a brief overview of both solutions.
A good compromise? Both USB and Firewire connections at the back of MOTU UltraLite-mk3 Hybrid
Let's see what Wikipedia brings up for USB:
"USB development began in 1994 by a group of seven companies:Compaq, DEC, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Nortel. USB was intended to make it fundamentally easier to connect external devices to PCs by replacing the multitude of connectors at the back of PCs, addressing the usability issues of existing interfaces, and simplifying software configuration of all devices connected to USB, as well as permitting greater bandwidths for external devices. The first silicon for USB was made by Intel in 1995."
Different version of USB:
- 1996: USB 1.0, data transfer speed 1.5 Mbit/sec
- 1998: USB 1.1, data transfer speed 12 Mbit/sec
- 2000: USB 2.0, data transfer speed 480 Mbit/sec
- 2010: USB 3.0, data transfer speed 5000 Mbit/sec
It is worth noting that USB 3.0 did not really spread around in external sound card devices and as such, will not be discussed here in details
The other side of the halfpenny coin, Firewire:
"FireWire is Apple's name for the IEEE 1394 High Speed Serial Bus. Development was initiated by Apple in 1986, major contributions were also made by Texas Instruments, Sony and IBM. The system is commonly used for connection of digital video cameras, but is also popular in professional audio systems. Firewire 400 was introduced in 1995 and has a data transfer speed rate of 400 mbit/sec, according to specifications."
So, according to specification sheets, USB 2.0 has a higher data transfer rate than Firewire connections. However, based on my own experience and echoed by thousands on every forum on the internet, data transfers over FireWire interfaces always outperform USB 2.0 connections. How come?
The reason behind this is very simple. I have never seen a USB 2.0 device that would have achieved the theoretical speed rate of 480 mbit/sec. In my own experience, 200-270 mbit/sec speed is the maximum you can get out of an average USB data device.
After this quick and very basic introduction to the differences between USB and Firewire connections, let's see the same picture from a home recording point of view.

Firewire, on the other hand, is able to work more independently, and has the ability to take over a huge amount of work from the processor of you machine, thus freeing up system resources for you.
When you look around on the market, you will find a lot more USB based audio interfaces than FireWire ones.
- Devices with an USB audio interface on thomann.de: 190 results
- Devices with Firewire audio interface on thomann.de: 91 results
Some people say the reason is to do with licensing. Marketing a Firewire connection based device requires you to pay a relatively high license fee (~2 USD) after every single piece produced. Also, many argue that USB devices are simpler to create as compatibility and driver issues are easier to avoid if you can expect the CPU to do the work instead of the main device.
Based on all the above, there is no single answer to the 'USB vs Firewire souncard' question and unless
a, you have a need for a 16+ simultaneous track recording capabilityb, you are restricted by not having a firewire connectionc, you are on a low budget
the decision will most likely be made on non-connection based specifications of the various sounds cards you have our eyes on.
Leave a comment (4)
Hey,
I have a question regarding your article
Let's say I record a guitar, and I'm using the software for added effects like reverb,echo,delay and even some amp and cab simulation
Will firewire perform better than usb because, as you said it takes some load of the CPU?
The testing environment should be the same, of course :)
Every software based, real-time processing effects (eg. applied to the recording chain that is prior to recording) will use processor resources. This is regardless whether you use an USB, a Firewire or an internal sound card
Indeed, that is true
But having somewhat limited resources will a firewire sound card be a better choice for the CPU? or the difference is so small that it doesn't matter?
And speaking of resources, will the current Macbook Pro, with Intel i5 CPU (3rd generation) and 4GB of RAM be enough for home recording?
Thank you
Unless you have a very old machine, the difference between firewire and usb should be noticable mostly when you are recording 8-10 or more tracks at once, but then you will need to think about disk writing limitations as well.
As for your current setup, it should be plenty for almost any usage, but it obviously depends mostly on the sequencing software you are using.
As a comparison, more than 12 years ago, I was recording and mixing 6-8 mono tracks on a pentium I 166mhz machine. Software requirements were a lot lower at that time ....
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