Thunderbolt to Firewire or Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2?

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Drone
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Thunderbolt to Firewire or Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2?

Post by Drone » Mon Apr 26, 2021 11:43 am

Long story short: New recording space, new laptop. new (to me) interface.

A friend is givingme his old Saffire Pro 26, and I wanted to use it with my new Laptop, so I could do recordings in a new practice space, which is not near my current gear (an M-Audio PCI card, and a Soundcraft 500).

The new laptop only has USB-C and Thunderbolt-C, the Saffire uses Firewire but has a Firewire to Thunderbolt-B dongle.

Am I better to get a Thunderbolt-C to Firewire dongle like the Apple for $30 or the Thunderbolt-C to Thunderbolt-B dongle for $50? I can't get enough information on the dongles to judge, I read things that say the Apple dongle is the only bi-directional dongle, which makes me assume the other $20-30 Thunderbolt dongles are uni-directional?

I also read the Apple Thunderbolt-C to Firewire dongle basically relies on software drivers, and I'm using a Linux laptop not a Mac.

All I want is to be able to multi-channel record in Linux, using Audacity, so I need the Saffire to be seen by linux somehow. Cheap is good, as expensive means I should probably just buy a newer interface.

For now, I've found an old laptop with Firewire and Linux in anticipation.
Last edited by Drone on Tue Apr 27, 2021 5:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How-to Dongle?

Post by digitaldrummer » Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:50 pm

the old laptop might be your only real option. I can't imagine Apple gear working on anything "open". And USB, FIrewire, and Thunderbolt are all completely different (and incompatible) protocols. I still have a firewire interface (Apollo 16) and that's one of the main reasons I still have a desktop (to accommodate the FW card)
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Re: How-to Dongle?

Post by Drone » Mon Apr 26, 2021 2:21 pm

My limited understanding was that Thunderbolt 3 is also USB-C, but not all USB-C are Thunderbolt 3? So I have USB-C ports which are also Thunderbolt-3 ports.

Hence my whole Thunderbolt 3 > 2 for Firewire thingy, as it's actually in the Saffire manual.
Screenshot_2021-04-26 saffire-pro-26-en pdf.png
Screenshot_2021-04-26 saffire-pro-26-en pdf.png (35.4 KiB) Viewed 4000 times
I'm starting to really hate computers, but the bright side is

a) I have a laptop with a Firewire port
b) My original studio box also has a Firewire port
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Re: How-to Dongle?

Post by vvv » Mon Apr 26, 2021 2:26 pm

To paraphrase Pantinkin in The Princess Bride, I reckon "dongle" doesn't mean what I think it meant. :twisted:
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Re: How-to Dongle?

Post by digitaldrummer » Mon Apr 26, 2021 3:12 pm

well, the physical connector for Thunderbolt and USB-C is the same and that's greatly confusing to everyone (boo-hiss computer industry!). But agree, that USB-C devices can work in a thunderbolt 3 port. And yes, my PC has USB-C ports, but they are not thunderbolt... (sigh). Sure would be nice if there were more standard "standards"... :lol:
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Re: How-to Dongle?

Post by Drone » Tue Apr 27, 2021 5:52 am

Having never seen that movie, can't really comment, but dongle has been around a long time, my earliest recollection was the kludge on the Sinclair QL when they first launched it, so that's 1984 (says Wikipedia).

Yeah, I guess I was hoping there were people here who had experience with hooking Firewire interfaces to Thunderbolt and the like, maybe I should see if I can edit the title to make it more meaningful.
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Re: How-to Dongle?

Post by analogika » Tue Apr 27, 2021 9:19 am

digitaldrummer wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:50 pm
the old laptop might be your only real option. I can't imagine Apple gear working on anything "open". And USB, FIrewire, and Thunderbolt are all completely different (and incompatible) protocols.
This is partially incorrect.

Thunderbolt INCORPORATES both USB and Firewire. USB 3.1 and Firewire are incompatible, but Thunderbolt is a superset of both that uses the USB-C connector. (AFAIK, USB 4 *is* effectively Thunderbolt, so this may just have become technically incorrect, but it is true for all previous incarnations of USB.)

The only way to go from Thunderbolt 3 to Firewire is a chain of Thunderbolt 3 —> Thunderbolt 2 adapter into Thunderbolt 2 —> Firewire adapter. There is no adapter directly from Thunderbolt 3 to Firewire.
You can also use a Thunderbolt Dock with Firewire ports, of course (I have a Belkin dock in use here), but I'm not aware of any TB3 docks that still have Firewire.

This chain of adapters will work fine, provided your interface is still supported on the OS you're running. I ran Metric Halo interfaces this way for a couple of years before upgrading them to the USB-based 3D boards.

A number of vendors have used work needed to adapt drivers for the transition to Big Sur to justify killing support for their interfaces, but this is a deliberate decision by the vendor and not a technical impossibility. Firewire interfaces will even work on Apple Silicon (RME do, AFAIK).

It seems pretty clear, though, that Firewire will be stripped out of the OS completely in one of the next major upgrades.

What this means for Linux, though…

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Re: Thunderbolt to Firewire or Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2?

Post by Drone » Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:16 am

Pardon my slowness, but your first sentence is that Thunderbolt is both USB and Firewire, to me that says, you just need the right cable.

But you later state, you need to do a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 conversion, then Thunderbolt 2 to Firewire conversion to get Firewire to work? And that statement is backed up by what my friend giving me the interface said, and the opinions of others I have (now) read online.

Then, to make my head hurt even more, I decide to go look for these docks you speak off, I have a dock that came with the new laptop, it has USB type DisplayPort and HDMI, an RJ-45 and a good ol' 3.5mm on it, and I found this cable, that purports to be USB to Firewire, and now I want to cry :shock:

https://www.newegg.com/p/0SB-038V-00AT9 ... T6WDCR6158
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Re: Thunderbolt to Firewire or Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2?

Post by digitaldrummer » Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:26 am

I would be very weary of that cable on Newegg (which actually comes from an independent seller). I've seen so many products on Newegg that claim to do certain things but when you actually use them, or try to... not so good (I suspect some of them are prototypes that some college student built for a project and now just trying to unload them...) $19 seems tempting but if it is real, then that means they incorporated some kind of converter into the cable itself (which is not unheard of - they do it for RS232) and If it works that would be really cool, but I wouldn't hold my breath. If they can integrate it, then usually there is a larger/unintegrated boxy looking device that comes first and I've never seen one.
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Re: Thunderbolt to Firewire or Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2?

Post by Nick Sevilla » Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:56 am

Hi,

1. Thunderbolt is NOT USB. They are different drivers and connections, for the most part.

Example:

I own a UAD Satellite Quad with Firewire 800 connectors. I needed to buy a Thunderbolt 2 to FireWire 800 adapter, and ALSO a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter.

After that, I CANNOT connect this to a USB C hub, since it is a DIFFERENT driver handling Thunderbolt. I have to connect directly to my Apple Macbook Pro, which then looks at the connections and it works ok. IT does this automatically.

Once a computer decides that its own USB C / Thunderbolt 3-4 connection is one or another, it CANNOT use a different format on that hardware connection. It is either USB-C OR Thunderbolt. Because it assigns a driver to that hardware port.

I currently also have a Juiced USB-C hub, which handles all USB-C drives and USB-A devices.

On my Macbook pro there are 4 ports in total:

1. Power. So it does not get interrupted by changing devices and whatnot.
2. Adapter to HDMI port to second display. This also has a USB and a power port, but I find that trying to use those can result in horsecrap happening with the power adapter, so it only uses the HDMI to a second display.
3. Juiced USB-C hub. Where Ethernet to USB-C adapter, two USB-C drives, and two USB-A hubs are connected to. Works well even with all that connected.
4. UAD Satellite FireWire 800 processor, connected via two adapters mentioned above. This needs to be by itself as well. Sometimes, if I am copying to or from another FW 800 hard drive, I can do it here, but I never use this with my DAW, only to copy stuff to / from a FW800 drive, then disconnect said drive, and proceed with DAW work.

Cheers.
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Re: Thunderbolt to Firewire or Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2?

Post by floeter » Tue Apr 27, 2021 2:35 pm

I'm "doing the double dongle" to use a motu 828 mkii over USB-C, works great! Spent more on dongles than the device.

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Re: Thunderbolt to Firewire or Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2?

Post by analogika » Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:46 pm

floeter wrote:
Tue Apr 27, 2021 2:35 pm
I'm "doing the double dongle" to use a motu 828 mkii over USB-C, works great! Spent more on dongles than the device.
To clarify:
You’re using it via FireWire from Thunderbolt 3.

It’s important not to confuse the connector with the protocol.

If you were using it through USB, a simple USB-C to USB-B cable would suffice.

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Re: Thunderbolt to Firewire or Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2?

Post by analogika » Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:55 pm

Drone wrote:
Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:16 am
Pardon my slowness, but your first sentence is that Thunderbolt is both USB and Firewire, to me that says, you just need the right cable.
Thunderbolt ports carry both USB and FireWire, and I believe DisplayPort and hdmi as well. I’m not deep into the technical details, but AFAIK, usb works by plugging in the right cable; anything else needs some sort of active conversion.
But you later state, you need to do a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 conversion, then Thunderbolt 2 to Firewire conversion to get Firewire to work? And that statement is backed up by what my friend giving me the interface said, and the opinions of others I have (now) read online.

This is correct. There is no simple cable that will extract/convert the FireWire signal from Thunderbolt.
Then, to make my head hurt even more, I decide to go look for these docks you speak off, I have a dock that came with the new laptop, it has USB type DisplayPort and HDMI, an RJ-45 and a good ol' 3.5mm on it, and I found this cable, that purports to be USB to Firewire, and now I want to cry :shock:

https://www.newegg.com/p/0SB-038V-00AT9 ... T6WDCR6158
There have been “line lump” cable solutions that purported to work, unidirectionally, for importing DV footage from a DV (FireWire/i.Link) camera via USB, in the early ’00s.

I have never heard of any of them working properly for DV footage, let alone at all for anything else.

The device needed to convert from FireWire to USB is essentially a computer.

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Re: Thunderbolt to Firewire or Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2?

Post by Drone » Wed Apr 28, 2021 6:58 am

analogika wrote:
Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:55 pm
Drone wrote:
Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:16 am
Pardon my slowness, but your first sentence is that Thunderbolt is both USB and Firewire, to me that says, you just need the right cable.
Thunderbolt ports carry both USB and FireWire, and I believe DisplayPort and hdmi as well. I’m not deep into the technical details, but AFAIK, usb works by plugging in the right cable; anything else needs some sort of active conversion.
But how can we say it carries it, if it requires conversion? I mean it's like saying an unbalanced out, is also a balanced out, if you use a converter. It's true that you can get a pseudo balanced signal, but I wouldn't consider it a balanced output.

Is a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 converter doing anything more than just changing the connector, is it also altering the signals involved? Likewise for the Thunderbolt 2 to Firewire device.

I'm just trying to get it all straight.

Y'all have already confirmed that the only way to connect new laptop to old interface, is a double dongling it, but it all sounds so ludicrous, just nobody has bothered to make a Thunderbolt 3 to Firewire interface. Yet everybody still claims, oh yeah, Thunderbolt 3 is Firewire!!
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Re: Thunderbolt to Firewire or Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2?

Post by Jarvis » Wed May 05, 2021 6:27 am

floeter wrote:
Tue Apr 27, 2021 2:35 pm
I'm "doing the double dongle" to use a motu 828 mkii over USB-C, works great! Spent more on dongles than the device.
I’m using the same interface w/ these two adaptors. Works

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MQ ... UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SQ ... UTF8&psc=1
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