I used to run Sonar 7 back on an old PC with an Emu internal interface card that won't even work in my new PC. I've been away from recording for a while and figured I needed to get back at it. I upgraded to Sonar X3 on this PC, but I'm having an issue with my Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 firewire interface. I bought it a while back when it was on sale and I never really got it working well. It's confusing as hell and it also makes a ton of noise, or at least is picking up a lot of interference from something. I tried different cables but it didn't help.
 
So, I think I'll dump this one and try something else. I just need a couple of Mic/Instrument inputs and a couple of outputs, as well as MIDI in/out and a headphone output. Nothing too exciting. I'm not overly impressed with Focusrite based on this product (or maybe my lack of knowledge of the product!). 
 
I have one Firewire port and several USB ports, including a USB 3.0 port. I think I'd probably rather do USB but I don't care too much as long as I find something that works well and doesn't require a ridiculous amount of time to setup.
 
Any recommendations?
 
Thanks!

Well there have been well documented issues with firewire and windows 8 if that is what you have. They can usually be resolved though so have a Google of firewire legacy drivers before buying a new card. Someone on here may give you more info too.

If you need a new soundcard the Steinberg u r 22 sounds like it might fit all your requirements

What is your budget? Check out the RME range because I have been using their interfaces for years and they still work.  Currently I am using the Fireface 400 and the UFX and they are rock solid.

I'm running a Focusrite Saffire PRO26IO from 2007 under Firewire and it works perfectly.
 
Try and sort out your Pro 14 before spending any more money!

I'm always for solving current issues too. If you can't, RME is definitely a good way to go.

If you never got your present setup working properly, it's likely that your FireWire connection on your PC is the culprit. There are only a handful of FireWire connectors that work well for audio.

You can probably troubleshoot your current setup which will require giving us info on your current FireWire connection etc.

For me firewire was too much cpu wasted on just keeping audio up.
Brand new machine 2010 - and could not get it down below 8%(20% one core).
And latency I could not get below 162 samples for WDM, or 192 for ASIO(Focusrite Pro 40).
 
But experimenting for three months this is how I got it working:
a) legacy windows drivers, was it 1094 or something firewire is called.
b) turn off in bios - core parking and dynamic overclocking.
c) see to that firewire cable is not bent but have really relaxed connection to interface
This is really the culprit as I see it - really old connector interface(from 90's or so).
Really long circuit board fingers, kind of, and a tiny bend on cable - and you are in for trouble.
d) cards I tested was TI and VIA - and they behaved ok both
 
Today I would go USB for external interfaces.

@lfm: Actually, you are the first person that sees the same issue I see with my Saffire pro 40. I have one core always running between 4-8% when I switch on the saffire pro 40. I have mentioned this to Focusrite, and they say they cannot replicate. It is a problem with the driver from Focusrite, as I don't have the same problem with my Motif XF Firewire card (other issues happen with that one though...) going to the same firewire chipset.
Regarding latency, I can go to 64 samples on the Saffire, but comfortably work with 96 samples. Both on Asio.
 
I have a TI chipset for my firewire card.
 
One remark: Legacy FW drivers do not exist for Windows 8.
 
@OP: I would indeed see if you cannot solve the issue with your saffire, as I do believe they are good cards. If you really want another card, I also have the scarlett 18i6 which is also quite good, but latency is a bit high because of hidden buffers. It is also quite strange how it shows the buffers...  Another option, which I haven't tried, but would like to are the Roland *capture audio interfaces. A friend of mine has one, and he's happy with it.

c5_convertible
@lfm: Actually, you are the first person that sees the same issue I see with my Saffire pro 40. I have one core always running between 4-8% when I switch on the saffire pro 40. I have mentioned this to Focusrite, and they say they cannot replicate. It is a problem with the driver from Focusrite, as I don't have the same problem with my Motif XF Firewire card (other issues happen with that one though...) going to the same firewire chipset.
Regarding latency, I can go to 64 samples on the Saffire, but comfortably work with 96 samples. Both on Asio.
 

I talked to Focusrite at the time - and they just released drivers that were supposed to run with stock firewire drivers in Windows 7. Heard if they had ability to reduce the number of ins/outs that you actually use, or something like that - but no such settings. It had 4500 context switches/second - which is a lot compared to normal app switches threads about 50 times/second(20ms timeslice).
 
I felt something is very wrong with this. Either motherboard or drivers.
And I had one evening of troubleshooting lost - just finding the cable was just a bit bent between table and wall - and that was enough for audio to come and go as it wanted.
 
I had a fresh Sonar Studio 8.5 install and ran a tutorial project with about 11 tracks or so. That was only audio so that went well with 128 samples. But inserting any VST instrument i crackled and had to go up one step which was 192 for ASIO. Card reported very different latency on ins and outs - and how Sonar insert samples into stream from VST instruments was my conclusion - but don't know that.
 
I also ran a TC Electronics Impact Twin - and same cpu. For me it started with 60% on one cpu core, and then doing bios+driver settings mentioned it went down to 20% one core. And IT drivers seemed shaky - clicking monitor on an input I got BSOD with that.
 
Overall - firewire is ancient technology to me. New computer and having to make so many compromises - no, not for me.
 
USB is embraced and improved by every generation computers.
But it will take wild horses to get me to use anything but internal cards even next gen - unless laptop and needing an external. Absolutely zero issues with soundcard.

Bristol_Jonesey
I'm running a Focusrite Saffire PRO26IO from 2007 under Firewire and it works perfectly.
 
Try and sort out your Pro 14 before spending any more money!

I'm not even sure what else to do. I remember getting audio working a bit when using X1 several months ago, back when I first got the Pro 14, but I never figured out the noise issue and it's unbearable. It seemed to improve slightly by using a different audio cables but it's still pretty annoying. I need to figure out the internal routing of audio using this card. The settings I had for X1 are not working for X3. I had Mix Control open and it had signal, but no audio was coming out of my monitors. It's very frustrating. I'm tempted to get a different product just so I don't have to deal with this type of routing.
 
As far as budget, I'm looking for the $200-400 range. I want something that works reliably and relatively simply, but I'm not too particular about the details as long as I have a couple ins and outs and MIDI.
 
Thanks!
John