Karaoke Forums

For a laptop Hoster System, is firewire, or USB a better way to get audio to your mixer? Talking karaoke shows here, not for home use. And how do you set yours up, and what interface are you using?

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Sweet Little Me In Karaokeland........

I don't use a laptop, but I did get a rather nice M-Audio internal sound card for my PC.  192 Audiophile.

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If you have a preamp control on your mixer to attenuate a little  you can also use the head phone out.

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I personally use a USB out for a Soundblaster MP3+ Device from Creative... but they're not made anymore. This was a direct RCA connection which was easy to hook into a mixer.

I've looked and looked for other alternatives. I'm not happy with the sound from a basic sound card (1/8" out), but that doesn't mean that there are good ones out there, such as Lonnie's suggestion.

For the average Laptop user, I don't know what to suggest anymore, now that Creative has discontinued this sucker. I ended up buying two off ebay... but I don't see them on there very often!

I use on my show laptop an extrenal USB pro sound card from EGO SYSTEMS
a GIGA PORT

http://www.floridamusicco.com/proddetai ... portag.htm

http://www.floridamusicco.com/proddetail~prod~ua1ex.htm the Edirol UA1EX looks spec wise like the Soundblaster option I use!

I 've not used it myself, but this has been recomended to me.
[/url]http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Behringer-UCONTROL-UCA202-USBAudio-Interface?sku=702540&src=00633

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Computers/Comp ... 141441.htm

this is what I use, its cheap unobtrusive and does the job well. I too have a sb external but since I picked up this so cheaply I dont bother taking the more expensive SB to gigs

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just got one myself.  I'm chompin at the bit to try it out.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ ... &src=00633

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Thanks for all the suggestions ...i will be ordering one of these. The price seems very reasonable. Thanks for the help

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Sweet Little Me In Karaokeland........

Back to your original question, I would have to say firewire rather than USB if you want consistent data tranfer. Firewire has a protocol that maintains steady stream of data over the bus. This means each device has a time period in which to transfer data and these time period is fixed. This is meant for something like video frames so that the bus does not drop any frames during the transfer. USB is asynchromous so if you have many devices, the bandwidth share between the devices are not equal. It's not likely but in case of lot of data being transferred on the bus, Firewire will give each device time to transfer data so you won't have dropped data.

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Ben, you are correct about Firewire being more consistent with data transfer from what I've read.  But do you happen to know if USB 2.0 is better at data transfer then USB 1.2?

Somebody please post a review of this Behringer USB audio interface after they've tried it out.  I'm curious about it myself.

Odie, USB 2.0 still does not offer isochronous tranfer function, which is why firewire transfers data at the same time window, providing consistent data transfer. However, USB 2.0 does offer faster transfer so it's less likely that the data will encounter interruptions than USB 1.1. I am not familiar with USB version 1.2, the official version prior to 2.0 was 1.1.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

Thanks Ben, I meant USB 1.1.  I just got my 1's and 2's mixed up! Nevermind...  LOL