Firewire vs. USB 2.0

Is there really a huge difference between the 2? I've heard that firewire is the way to go, but my PC doesnt have firewire. My friends with Macs keep telling me that recording with PC's isn't as good as with Macs...how much truth is there to this statement. My comp. has 1.6 Ghz intel, and 512 MB ram....I'm looking to buy the Digidesign M-Box or somehting similar...does anyone have any experience with the Mbox? what are ur thoughts?

Yes - Firewire has about twice the transfer rate of USB 2 - the cards are pretty cheap if you have a spare PCI slot in your PC.

I like the mbox, and Pro-tools, although it does run better on a Mac in my experience, and you don't get full functionality with the mbox, but at that price I guess you wouldn't expect to. I use a roland breakout DI at home, and that's USB and works fine.

As an observation, more RAM would probably help you out - 512 is kinda a functional minimum these days - you'll have a happier time using it if you've got more....

Just so I've said it, if you're looking at the mbox, have you checked out the focusrite sapphire?

If you decide to go with Mac, you'll have a whole lot easier time integrating all your different audio/video applications. For insance, all the iTunes, iPhoto, GarageBand stuff is included for free on every Mac and they all work together like one program. To get all that stuff separately on a PC would cost over $1000, plus you wouldn't be able to integrate any of it.

As far as using recording software goes... I'd choose a Mac any day over a PC. I've got both and I can tell ya for sure that I use the PC as little as possible. My Mac is about 9 years old now and is still running OS9 and it can outperform a brand new PC running Windows XP.

As far as Firewire vs. USB. In my experience, USB is extremely sloooow.
I bought an external usb drive and it won't even run my recording software.
Plus, copying files takes about 4 times as long.

Thanks for the advice so far, guys. The computer isn't changing...i've got a Dell laptop its only 1.5 years old and i am still doing the whole college thing. I'm not gonna be doing anything too professional with this; i just want something i can lay down different guitar, bass & drum parts and just have fun with. The Mac vs. PC debate is out of the question, but I would like to know a little more about a firewire card.

You'll typically find mixed opinions on the matter of Firewire vs. USB2.0. I have an HP laptop, with a 2.0GHz AMD processor, and 1GB of RAM. I use a PreSonus FireBox with it, which connects via Firewire (1394), and haven't had any issues with it. From what I've been told, Firewire is much more friendly on CPU usage, and USB tends to use much more CPU. This can be a big deal with a laptop, since they aren't very efficient on CPU usage, as opposed to a desktop, or a mac. However, if just simple recordings are what you want to do, I don't see any reason USB external soundcard wouldn't work.

Originally Posted by: PRSplayaYou'll typically find mixed opinions on the matter of Firewire vs. USB2.0. I have an HP laptop, with a 2.0GHz AMD processor, and 1GB of RAM. I use a PreSonus FireBox with it, which connects via Firewire (1394), and haven't had any issues with it. From what I've been told, Firewire is much more friendly on CPU usage, and USB tends to use much more CPU. This can be a big deal with a laptop, since they aren't very efficient on CPU usage, as opposed to a desktop, or a mac. However, if just simple recordings are what you want to do, I don't see any reason USB external soundcard wouldn't work.

The only thing that would concern me in that case, would be latency issues.
Probably not a concern in this case if he's just going to be recording audio. But at a future time if he wants to use a VST plug-in or midi, he might have problems.
The latency on my own sound card can get down to 23 or so, but even then, there's a slight delay between when you actually press the key, to when you hear the note. The only way I can avoid it is by using an external sound module where I can plug a midi device straight into it using the midi cable.
I use the external sound module to record and play (so I can hear it in real time), and then later go back and use the recorded midi to trigger the VST sounds by just exporting using whatever synth I have (sampletank or whatever).

The reason I mention it is that even if he doesn't use midi or VST synths, he might want to use built in plug-ins like reverb or Amplitube.
In that case, he might get a delayed sound if he uses USB. He'll be fine for exporting audio files 'printing effects to tape', but actually using them in real time might get bad.