New gear needed for new firewire-less macbooks

paulo6891

How's it going?!

I'm pretty new to all of this, and I don't really know what I'm talking about so feel free to point it out, but don't expect much of a reaction.

So, I own an Apogee Duet, sounds great, but since I bought one of the new macbooks, I can no longer use it. I have access to my bro's old macbook around once a week, so that is an option, but it's hardly ideal, is it?!

So I probably need new equipment.

One option would be to buy a USB 2.0 interface, but the market isn't exactly full of them, and most would be a backwards step from the duet, or so I imagine.

Another option would be to buy a mixer and use that, but 99.9999999% of the time I would only record 1-2 mics. May I ask, what would the sound quality be like if I was to either connect an analogue mixer to the macbook using a USB/XLR adapter. Also, would it be possible to use the s/pdif output of a mixer and put it through the s/pdif input of the computer, and would that have any negative effects on the sound quality?

The last option, and one which intrigues me, would be to buy external pres and converters. This is where my knowledge fails me. I imagine that your chain would be something like mic > preamp > converter. The only thing is however, how do you get the sound from the converter. Do you either connect the s/pdif out of the converter to the s/pdif in of the macbook (what would sound quality be like) or would you have to use an interface? (and if so, is it possible to bypass the interfaces pres + converters)

Also, if you know, what kind of money would you have to spend on pres and converters so that they would be on par with those of the Apogee Duet?

For those that are interested, it's a 2.4Ghz macbook with 4Gb ram. It would be a shame to waste it.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks a lot for your time.

Paul

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myspace.com/My Small Adventure

PaulBrewer

Paul,
I think we've had a similar query before. The solution appears to be in that a Macbook Pro's Firewire 800 port can talk to your Duet's 400 port.

What you need is this

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fw_adapter.html

or similar.

I've not tried one myself but it looks foolproof.

paulo6891 wrote: »

How's it going?!

I'm pretty new to all of this, and I don't really know what I'm talking about so feel free to point it out, but don't expect much of a reaction.

So, I own an Apogee Duet, sounds great, but since I bought one of the new macbooks, I can no longer use it. I have access to my bro's old macbook around once a week, so that is an option, but it's hardly ideal, is it?!

So I probably need new equipment.

One option would be to buy a USB 2.0 interface, but the market isn't exactly full of them, and most would be a backwards step from the duet, or so I imagine.

Another option would be to buy a mixer and use that, but 99.9999999% of the time I would only record 1-2 mics. May I ask, what would the sound quality be like if I was to either connect an analogue mixer to the macbook using a USB/XLR adapter. Also, would it be possible to use the s/pdif output of a mixer and put it through the s/pdif input of the computer, and would that have any negative effects on the sound quality?

The last option, and one which intrigues me, would be to buy external pres and converters. This is where my knowledge fails me. I imagine that your chain would be something like mic > preamp > converter. The only thing is however, how do you get the sound from the converter. Do you either connect the s/pdif out of the converter to the s/pdif in of the macbook (what would sound quality be like) or would you have to use an interface? (and if so, is it possible to bypass the interfaces pres + converters)

Also, if you know, what kind of money would you have to spend on pres and converters so that they would be on par with those of the Apogee Duet?

For those that are interested, it's a 2.4Ghz macbook with 4Gb ram. It would be a shame to waste it.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks a lot for your time.

Paul

---

myspace.com/My Small Adventure

paulo6891

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the reply, and thanks for the myspace add also, I was just looking through the studio pictures there, very impressive.

Unfortunately, it's not the macbook pro that I have, I only wanted the 13 inch screen, since I'll probably be connecting it to a larger monitor for mixing anyway.

I know there are USB/firewire adapters out there, but according to Apogee they wont work for the duet. For future reference, the 400/800 adapter will work for the duet.

It's a shame though that the new (non-pro) macbooks have neither.

A poor move by Apple...

It seems as though I'll need new gear...

PaulBrewer

paulo6891 wrote: »

It's a shame though that the new (non-pro) macbooks have neither.
.

Ah ...