Alternatives for MIDI Cables

[sonicthreadz]

I'm about to build a new home rig and there's an issue; I want to get a new Mac Pro but it's a PCI-Express-only interface. There just aren't any PCI-Express sound cards out there that I feel confident buying yet (I think I found only one while looking around.) I will be needing to hook a Giga PC up to the Mac. I thought about going the FireWire route but I'm not sure about latency issues between the two systems. Is there a more effective way to hook the two computers together if I'm using Digital Performer? I know that Steinberg has its "VST System Link" but I don't see any way to do this sort of thing with DP.

Is anyone running a dual-system setup (Mac as the sequencer-host and PC as the Giga machine) that is using a Firewire setup or an alternative method of routing the MIDI and audio, like over a network connection or something? Any input would be fantastic, thanks!

[dwdonehoo]

PC and Mac:
http://www.musiclab.com/products/rpl_info.htm

For all Windiow setup:
http://www.fx-max.com/fxt/

[Will Loconto]

MIDIOverLan works great in place of MIDI cables in my setup. I have a G5 as my main DAW, with several PCs running different VIs (GS3, Kontakt 2, V-Stack). It's rock solid with no trouble.

[sonicthreadz]

Excellent; this looks perfect. My only further question would be, would I be better off piping the audio back from the PC to the Mac via the Mac's built-in optical inputs, or purchasing a firewire interface for that (in a lot of cases I like to dump the Giga audio back into the main DAW for further processing/tweaking.) I'm worried that using the onboard core audio of the Mac would be taxing on system performance versus getting an external interface.

Thanks for your wonderful suggestions!

[sonicthreadz]

Aha nevermind. I found a cool solution in a FireWire control surface that also functions as a full audio interface. This looks like the cool route to go, especially since I love being a minimalist.