hi does anyone know how i can record optical inputs from my m-audio firewire 410? all i want to do is get a basic stereo recording, and dont mind if it encodes it as mp3 or whatever. on garageband it wont let me choose optical as my input, only lines 1-4 which is no use. is there any cheap freewares that would do the job? cheers for any advice. sion

You would have to connect to a device with optical SPDIF outputs. the only devices I've seen with optical outs are some DAT machines, CD players, DVD players.

There are some effects boxes and preamps that use coaxial SPDIF.

thanks gdoubleyou, i have a minidisc deck with optical outputs. what i meant was that i am unable to select the "optical in" on the firewire to record from with any of the software i have at present on my mac, and was wondering if its just because im doing something wrong or if there is some freeware sofware that will do it or just blanket record any sound coming through my firewire 410

Did your interface come with control panel software? if it did check the settings, also take a look at the Audio/Midi setup utility, found in the utilities folder, inside the Applications folder.