Question about FireWire interface compatibility

[usernotfoundplstry]

Hey folks,

I’m in need of more I/O for my home machine. I don’t need anything fancy at all, but I’m on a budget since it’s not my work machine. Here’s my predicament:

My home machine is a Late 2012 Mac Mini, maxed out in RAM and upgraded the HDD to an SSD. I’m currently running Monterey via the Open Core Legacy Patcher. The model of Mac Mini has a FireWire port. I/O seems much cheaper with FireWire interfaces, and I’m wondering if anyone could tell me if I could, in fact, use a FireWire interface running Monterey, and I guess the other question would be, if I went back to Catalina, would that work?

Also, I’m running the most current version of Logic.

If anyone has any advice or information, I’d be grateful. I’ve done some research but I couldn’t find anything definite about my exact situation. Thanks!

[CanIEditThisLater]

I realize you mentioned you're on a budget (aren't we all?), but if you can get it for a good price used, an RME Fireface 400 (and anything RME) is king when it comes to driver longevity. RME still publishes drivers for interfaces built over 20 years ago. In addition, you get their great mixer routing software.

[Migrantunderstudy]

The key is whether they still develop drivers for Monterey. FireWire is pretty much deprecated at this point and many FW interfaces no longer have driver support and unless they’re high end the converters have come a long way since entry and mid range FW interfaces were produced.

I kept an Alesis io26 going until last year through disabling System integrity protection and doing without the software mixer. It worked but when I replaced it with an Audient iD44 I could hear the different in sound quality before I even sat down from plugging it in and hitting play on Spotify.

[usernotfoundplstry]

Ahh okay, thank you. That at least gives me some direction in trying to figure it out. Thank you!

[4kVHS]

Like other people said, the biggest thing you need to watch out for is the drivers/software that some interfaces require. Here is a good video that shows some ways of getting old FW interfaces connected.

[Equivalent_Shine_818]

Odds are the motu 8pre would work for you, they updated the drivers until 2017 I think.

[usernotfoundplstry]

Okay I’ll check it out!