Does fw400 work with 32+ channels of 96k audio? That equals 64+ channels at 48k...

5gb of memory(?) is on the very low side in my opinion and your computer may struggle to keep up.

If you are doing all 54 channels x 96khz x 24bits bidirectional, that's equivalent to 83mbps each way. As FW is good for 400mbps - that should be well within spec (and I have happily streamed HD video on firewire for years).

A decent hard dish should be good for 3-10mBYTESps so should also be able to keep up.

I can understand if the two slower machines stuttered, but it is the fact that the VUs just go wierd?

Not sure about that calculation, and also remember that with the audio sample data channel identifiers and perhaps checksums or other management data needs to be sent.

With the classic FireStudio family the FW400 limit is 52x52 channels. This may give a clue for calculating the overhead on a 24-bit sample... Then take into account that by IEEE1394 design from the full FW400 bus capacity (393.216 Mbps) only 80% is available for synchronous/audio data. The other 20% is reserved for asynchronous data (used for e.g. the RM remote control data).

alaistairdeacon wrote(and I have happily streamed HD video on firewire for years).

Keep in mind that video streaming is only one stream that you put down onto your disk while multichannel audio is put down as separate streams/files. This put a stress on your disk. SSD's should cope with this much better.

54 channels x 96000 samples/sec x 24 bits/sample = 124,416,000 bps each direction. That equates to 14.83MB/s.

Thanks for all the info....but it seems a more software bug/wierd artefact. Does anyione else get this happening on their setup

From what I have heard, you can get away with 400 for control, but if you want to record at higher rates, you will need to move up to 800.

alaistairdeacon wroteIs there any guidance to all the options for Safe Mode 1-3 (seems to default to safe mode 1), block sizes etc etc.

I was wondering the same thing.

Yeah - a bit more description on these other "options" may be useful.

I seem to be able to record at 96k on my main studio machine OK on S400.

I guess when I'm recording shows - I'll just stick to 48k so I have all my f/x etc. Its only a live show after all and use my old laptop.

When it comes to Safe mode and block size options, it depends on your needs. These affect latency, but for me doing live sound recording without processing anything through the computer, I set these to the highest possible numbers, Safe Mode3, biggest block size (was it 2048?) because this makes things easiest on the computer processor and I typically record 18 channels from 4 to 12 hours non-stop.

When in the studio recording an entire band at once you may do the same thing.

When punching in, as long as you monitor the audio through the board, meaning you can route the prerecorded audio to the board and you can here the punch in using the board and it's FX and EQ (FAT channel), you may do the same thing.

But if you prefer not to use the board FX and/or fat channel, and would rather route the audio for a punch in through the daw, add FX, EQ, mix in with the rest of the channels, and monitor all that while doing the punch in, then you have to bring the block size and safe modes down as far as you can with the computer you have to lower the latency to a point that when performing you can't tell there is latency, you need a kick butt computer for this to be optimal.

Another example, and the only time I have to change these settings to lower latency, is when I connect a MIDI keyboard up to StudioOne to use VST instruments, I must lower the latency as far as I can so that when I hit the note on the keyboard, i hear the note instantly, my older computer can just barely pull this off successfully, but I can't set the options to there lowest latency settings or it will start to click and pop , so that IS what to look out for! But lucky for me I can pull it off and it's fun to do!

Steve