RayDAT or Fireface?

[Bill Park]

I own a Fireface. But I never use the front panel stuff, I've got Mytek converters, and I could gain a rack space by moving to the RayDAT.

Any opinions as to what YOU think is best and why? Downsides to such a switch?

I'm really happy with the Fireface, it is pretty much invisible. Like TotalMix and DigiCheck. But it appears that I could sell the Fireface, buy a RayDAT, and still end up a few bucks ahead. I got the Fireface originally because I was doing both remotes and work in my writing room. But these days I'm pretty much eliminated remotes from my radar screen and soon I'll be moving to a new state, won't know anyone, won't have any contacts, and it will be just me recording myself.

any thoughts are welcom.

[Bob L]

You will find many discussions here as to the possible disadvantages of a firewire soundcard solution...

I personally would recommend the RAYDat just to get away from dependency on Microsoft's firewire drivers and the complete mess they made of the firewire speed settings since SP2... which apparently was not fixed in SP 3 and still not fixed according to reports in Windows 7...

I personally have downloaded a half dozen different versions of the Microsoft firewire patch fix and have never gotten any results... ever...

Oh well... we each have a different experience surrounding this issue... but no matter what... realize there are huge issues and concerns surrounding the use of firewire for low latency audio use.... just look around the net at the different audio forums.

Bob L

[AcousticGlue]

Since the Layla 24 uses IEEE but has the old pinned type connector to the interface of internal sound card, this works very well. I think the issue is in using MS drivers on a built in IEEE interface. If you buy a Firewire card and use the drivers from a vendor-there may be better luck?

[Bob L]

The vendor drivers still are forced to go thru Microsoft's drivers to access the firewire port.

Bob L

[Bill Park]

I personally would recommend the RAYDat .... realize there are huge issues and concerns surrounding the use of firewire for low latency audio use....

Bob L

Bob,

Yes, a previous post of yours pointed me towards the RayDAT. My business use has been live recording, remixing, and mastering. None required low latency. As I'm retiring and expect to be doing more tracking on my own, latency may become an issue. But I don't know how much of one.

Meanwhile, I guess that I am looking more at features, gotchas, 'oh, I used to be able to do THIS!' kinda thing. I like the cleaner setup of the RayDAT. In terms of the Fireface, I won't need the ability to take the interface and a laptop to a live gig, I don't need the front end preamps or either converter sets. Both have MIDI, SPDIF, Tostlink, TotalMix, DigiCheck...

Looking for holes in my plan.

[IraSeigel]

Bob,

Yes, a previous post of yours pointed me towards the RayDAT. My business use has been live recording, remixing, and mastering. None required low latency. As I'm retiring and expect to be doing more tracking on my own, latency may become an issue. But I don't know how much of one.

Meanwhile, I guess that I am looking more at features, gotchas, 'oh, I used to be able to do THIS!' kinda thing. I like the cleaner setup of the RayDAT. In terms of the Fireface, I won't need the ability to take the interface and a laptop to a live gig, I don't need the front end preamps or either converter sets. Both have MIDI, SPDIF, Tostlink, TotalMix, DigiCheck...

Looking for holes in my plan.

Bill, if I recall, you have some high end pres in your collection. It sounds like something like a Digiface (or Multiface) as an interface for your pres would fill the bill. Also, I read an article about USB3 yesterday, which should be showing up on motherboards very soon. If your timeframe is still a little way out yet, perhaps you could wait to see what comes up in the way of a USB interface, such as the Fireface UC, but for USB3.

Ira