Asus and Gigabyte have now come out with MBs which have USB 3 connectors.

I hope we see USB 3 audio interfaces soon too.

Asus

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/WebPage/mb_091020_333/data/tech_091020_p55_333.htm

btw: what for? are you going to record 128 tracks at 24/96 simultaneously ?

the bandwidth of firewire or usb2 is pretty enough to transfer most real-day use audio streams...just take a look at how rme have pushed the performance of their ff400 uc...
what i want to say is that the data interface of an audiointerface is the lesss critical part nowadays - so usb3 will just be one of those "just buy me cos i am new" things :-)
 
certainly its GREAT for backup/storage but not practically relevant for audio

Yea, I was wandering the same thing. If USB 2.0 and firewire has plenty for 8 tracks at a time, are USB 3 audio interfaces needed by most people?

Interesting though....

I remember reading an article about a recording done at Abbey Road studios where there were 102 tracks recorded simultaneously. This was recorded from their desk into pro tools.

Surely they must have been using firewire!

Anyway as for the OP's question it will probably happen when you see computers with USB 3 ports. Will it be before the next Windows OS release? Who Knows !!!

Rod

garyyota


Yea, I was wandering the same thing. If USB 2.0 and firewire has plenty for 8 tracks at a time, are USB 3 audio interfaces needed by most people?

Interesting though....

well it can do much more - actually i have a konnekt48 here (fw unit) that i can easily record 18 tracks simultaneously at 44/96 -- and the bottleneck isnt firewire but just the fact that the interface just has 12analog ins + 8 adat(only one 8i/o port - so only 4 i/o at 96 via s/mux))  +spdif... 
 
i cant remember the bandwidth that a single 24/44 stream takes but its pretty low compared to what the specifications we are talking about are capable of...
 
so - no need at all for normal to heavy audio use for usb 3...
 
cheers

Rodar6


I remember reading an article about a recording done at Abbey Road studios where there were 102 tracks recorded simultaneously. This was recorded from their desk into pro tools.

Surely they must have been using firewire!

Anyway as for the OP's question it will probably happen when you see computers with USB 3 ports. Will it be before the next Windows OS release? Who Knows !!!

Rod

why firewire??? protools has its own dedicated audio interface going into the accel cards ... the more accel cards you have the more inputs are available - but those cards are pci or pci/e
in this case firewire would be the bottleneck - 102 tracks is too much ...but no issue for a protools hd system - you can even play it back with near 0latency if you load all the tracks with tdm plugs :-) AND you can then still record a vocalist in realtime running the monitoring system through the card ...its just another world

info@tomflair.com


btw: what for? are you going to record 128 tracks at 24/96 simultaneously ?

the bandwidth of firewire or usb2 is pretty enough to transfer most real-day use audio streams...just take a look at how rme have pushed the performance of their ff400 uc...
what i want to say is that the data interface of an audiointerface is the lesss critical part nowadays - so usb3 will just be one of those "just buy me cos i am new" things :-)
 
certainly its GREAT for backup/storage but not practically relevant for audio

In time it will become standard on all new MOBO anyway. Why not take advantage of the added power it will deliver.
Unless of course it finally put your Protools out of business: lol
I can think of having a device with an audio interface and fx's moldered together to deliver less costly processing as a start.

simpleman

info@tomflair.com


btw: what for? are you going to record 128 tracks at 24/96 simultaneously ?

the bandwidth of firewire or usb2 is pretty enough to transfer most real-day use audio streams...just take a look at how rme have pushed the performance of their ff400 uc...
what i want to say is that the data interface of an audiointerface is the lesss critical part nowadays - so usb3 will just be one of those "just buy me cos i am new" things :-)
 
certainly its GREAT for backup/storage but not practically relevant for audio

In time it will become standard on all new MOBO anyway. Why not take advantage of the added power it will deliver.
Unless of course it finally put your Protools out of business: lol
I can think of having a device with an audio interface and fx's moldered together to deliver less costly processing as a start.

 
i agree with you... but there are already all kind of interfaces that combine fx with audiointerface...(also the konnekt has onboard dsap with a few plugs, and so does the lexicon onyx and some others - btw. as soon as the audio is "in" the interface its not anymore a matter of usb/fw or whatever - just a matter of dsp power - i also agree that in theorie faster is always better - but in this case there is just very little need to raise the speed (for audio interfaces)
but im not interested in denying benefits of usb 3 - but i think the right context should be remembered :-)
 
btw: its not "my protools" ;-)
 

USB 3  will be a massive plus for digital audio.  Massive bandwidth and - based on early reports - sysytem latency almost on par with PCI-E  and  host-cpu load-impact so close zero it wont matter - all of this is due to the new usb-protocols introduced for USB 3   ........ however .......  I would avoid it like the plague until it is put nativley inside the chipset by Intel at the base-silicon level - this is due in the next 3 - 6 months.

All  current USB3 solutions are  "chipset-bolt-on" solutions to the motherboard -   none  of them are Intel-chipset-integrated at the silicon level - good news is though that the native Intel USB3 solutions are almost here.

Tim

USB3 will be great if it reduced midi latency.  Then I would love to have a midi interface on it.
I even wonder if a USB1 or USB2 midi interface may have less latency hooked up to a USB3 port?