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Posted by: ArchivalAudio Sun 6 Feb 2005, 21:41

wondering if anyone has actually used the new PreSonus FireBox? Its been available in Europe for a month now... and just became available here in the US. I am wondering if any has tried this unit out... I am strongly considering gettting one. I would like to hear any reviews of this new interface.

any opinions?
power consumption in the feild? etc.

thanx
-- Ian

Posted by: arvidtp Sun 6 Feb 2005, 22:37

i'd like to know too!

Posted by: lepetitmartien Mon 7 Feb 2005, 01:55

Available one month before in Europe? for the product of a US company?

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Mon 7 Feb 2005, 15:07

Crazy I know! when I sent an email regarding ship date of the Firebox to Presonus, here was what they said
"It's shipping only to Europe in December. It will begin shipping in the US in January."

so anyone got one yet?
-- Ian

Posted by: charlzz Tue 8 Feb 2005, 09:19

Yes, Guitar Center, Portland Oregon, had 3 Fireboxes last week!

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Tue 8 Feb 2005, 15:06

Yes...cool....thanx.... but does you or anyone you know actually know have any experience using them... I know I could also get one from my buddy Frank at Cascade Media in Portland OR... but I am still wondering if there are any user reviews?
since they have supposedly been out for over a month know in Europe.
anyone?

-- Ian

Posted by: GitGeezer Wed 9 Feb 2005, 08:10

I'm currently testing one now. Very preliminary results:

Apparently NO software drivers required (class compliant). I just plugged it in and it worked, but only after I forced re-sync with the Audio MIDI Setup utility.

NO documentation at all (paper or PDF) came with the unit. The little software mixer has no online help either.

MIDI and SP/DIF I/O is accomplished with a multi-cable plugged into a 9-pin D connector. I wasn't expecting the SP/DIF capability; it will be a nice surprise if it works.

Much more rugged physically than the M-Audio interfaces. The graduated pots are mounted securely to a metal case.

Two Firewire ports, enabling daisy-chaining an external Firewire drive for us laptop users. Trying to do a large file copy between the external and internal drives through the Firebox caused a black screen, however.

NOTE: the published minimum specs are for an 800Mhz G4. I'm using a 667Mhz G4 Powerbook (1GB RAM, 80GB FW400 external drive), I'll be trying to find out if this is a serious limitation.

If anyone else has one, please share your experiences.

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Thu 10 Feb 2005, 07:07

GitGeezer
thanx
for the post that is mixed news I guess...
are you in europe or the US....or elsewhere?
let us know of you successes or faliures
thanx
again
-- Ian

Posted by: GitGeezer Sun 13 Feb 2005, 09:43

Greetings, Ian...

I'm in the Northwest US (north Idaho).

So far I have been successful routing audio to powered monitors. The interface seems to sync more consistently if it is plugged in to the Firewire port (I'm not using the provided external power supply) before powering up my Mac. This is contrary to 'standard practice' regarding Firewire hard drives being plugged in AFTER powering up the computer.

No further direct experience yet, but I'll be testing latency by recording guitar tracks in Live 4.1 MIDI, and SP/DIF recording, stay tuned. This will include trying to get their software mixer application to do zero-latency (or close to it) direct monitoring.

The day after my previous post I checked the Presonus web site and there was a PDF manual available:

http://nav.440network.com/out.php?mmsc=forums&url=http://www.presonus.com/pdf/fireboxManual1.0.pdf

I have yet to find instructions for zero-latency monitoring similar to the hardware method used by other interfaces. Hopefully I'll figure it out.

GitGeezer

Posted by: arvidtp Sun 13 Feb 2005, 21:08

I await your review of the box! particularly how stable it is, and whether there is noticeable input monitoring latency when using the software mixer - and if recording SPDIF analog at the same time really works. Thanks a lot!

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Tue 15 Feb 2005, 05:18

Hey
Git cool
looking forward to more reviews
foun this in the PDF manual
kinda basic but... looks like 0 latentcy might not be possible
to quote the manual (could be windoz related)

Latency: – Sets the amount of delay time of your FIREBOX (1.5ms – 24ms). Latency
is the time it takes for the computer to process audio. Lower latency settings demand
more CPU resources. In the case of inconsistent audio, (i.e. drop outs, pops and
clicks, digital distortion, etc) we recommend that you increase this setting.


good luck
and let us all know how this thing works
thanx
again
-- Ian

Posted by: arvidtp Tue 15 Feb 2005, 05:30

that is probably talking about stuff that actually goes into the computer. Zero (or near zero) latency is only for monitoring directly through the box without going through the computer. many boxes accomplish this by just by sending analog in to the headphone out while still in analog.

The firebox, however, looks to have a digital mixer inside that is controlled by software on the computer - which should introduce at least a tiny bit of latency by definition, but hopefully only a tiny tiny bit - like in a digital mixing console, because it is dedicated hardware. In this case (for monitoring the input only of course), the audio never goes to the CPU.

Your statement from the manual, however, is absolutely true of every digital audio interface and computer - but for the audio that goes in gets processed and comes back out.

best,

Posted by: khvt Sat 19 Feb 2005, 15:46

Any more reviews on Firebox? Thanks.

Posted by: GitGeezer Thu 24 Feb 2005, 07:49

More Firebox experience:

Recording a stereo track (POD XT Live) and monitoring through the application (Live 4.1) resulted in unacceptable latency. Using the Firebox software mixer per their instructions worked much better, just be sure you like your incoming processed sound (I did, the POD XT Live is working well so far) because that's what you are recording. As you have discovered there is an online PDF manual. Note that the latency adjustments mentioned in the manual are for PC only. Note also that the recommended system for Macs are G4 800mhz or greater. Mine is a 667mhz G4 Powerbook so I'm living on the edge.

Be careful of bumping the Firewire cable during use. The Firebox can lose sync, usually requiring a reboot.

First major glitch: recording incoming SPDIF is not working. The software mixer can play it back, but no inputs show up in software. The Mac System Preferences Sound screen does show the incoming audio on it's meter, but it is "invisible" to any audio applications I've tried. I sent an email requesting help three days ago, so far no response from Presonus. If anyone else has some ideas (I saw the reference to SPDIF earlier in this thread) please let me know.

Gitgeezer

Posted by: bbmozee Tue 1 Mar 2005, 18:33

At long last, the missing link I've found. Ever since OS X came out my search for the promised land of elegant, rock-solid, inspired music creation on the Mac took me on many adventures (and plenty of mis-adventures!). Last night that musical holy grail came into view. My eMac G4 1.25GHz/Superdrive/80GB with external LaCie PORSCHE Firewire HD, Panther 10.3.8, Logic Pro 7, and now the new and "hottest" piece of the puzzle--a Prosonus FIREBOX, made beautiful music together. Hot, sweet and sexy--a dream come true. The FIREBOX has me totally stoked!

Here's the story so far. Been using the MBox and PT LE (and will continue to do so with my TiBook/667) but I have a new eMac now with the greatest music production program ever--Logic Pro 7--and need at least four simultaneous recording inputs to flesh out my original jazz compositions. I first tried the M-Audio FW410 but gave up on the flaky drivers, cheesy controls and uneven sound. Took it back and settled for a Tascam US-122. After updating to the 3.2.3 OS X driver all was stable but I was back to only 2 channel recording and the headphone amp was really weak (the direct monitoring and insert capability are nice and I'll be keeping it for my music students to use). I was twisting in the wind. Do I go way overkill with the MOTU 828 or Traveler, the Edirol FA1010 or Prosonus FirePod? Ouch! Don't need all that much and want to spend much less. Can't I just KISS? Thanks to the FIREBOX the final answer is YES!

Got mine yesterday at Guitar Center in Buffalo for 399. Brought it home and just to be sure downloaded the latest software for it from the Prosonus Web site. It appears to be the same as on the included CD (ver. 1). BTW, the box contained the printed manual, AC adapter, MIDI/SPDIF and Firewire cables. Plugged everything in, installed the software, repaired permissions, restarted. FIREBOX recognized! Just had to set up Sound control panel and Audio/MIDI prefs to lock things together (cool blue light on FIREBOX shows that all is groovin'). Launched Logic Pro 7, changed audio interface default to the FIREBOX and got working! It just sounded beautiful.

Thankyou Prosonus, Panther and Logic for making it all happen. At long last, it's time to play!

Posted by: khvt Tue 1 Mar 2005, 18:39

Hi bbmozee. Thanks for your post about the fabulousness of the firebox! I have the M-Audio 410 & have been looking around for awhile for a replacement. Did you also consider the Edirol fa-66? I'm having a hard time deciding between firebox & fa-66 - (same price same features)? And no real reviews that I can find so far. Anyway, thanks again & have FUN! khvt

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Wed 2 Mar 2005, 06:40

bbmozee

hey
great to hear such an enthusastic review!
I am evr closer to getting one... still waiting for ye olde tax return...
hope fully soon

So you are using Logic 7 ... and it is smooth with the Firebox sofar? do you ever use the CubaseLE... with it? if so how that working? well I would expect.
I would most likely be using it for in the field (live shows) recording either Just Mics (stereo pair) or mics + the PA soudboard feed. currently for DAT transfers I use Cubase So I am familiar with it, and I Use Peak for tracking and edits before going to JAM to burn... still on lod System 9 here, but also I am gonna get an ibook G4 soon as well ... so I'll be new to OSX.
can't wait for the fresh change.....my G3 enabled Mac clone is getting a bit slow these days.

keep us posted

Posted by: cookshack Wed 2 Mar 2005, 18:59

Are all of you guys still short on mic pres? Terratec PHASE 24 FW from JD Sound $249.00 USD.
Fully Balanced I/O, 192kHz AD/DA,SPDIF i/O and MIDI I/O, and includes the optional power supply and FWcable, and functional control panel. I'm not saying you don't want mic pres, I'm just saying that if you dont need two more then this is the answer.

Just for fun...I connected my drum triggers to midi in on Phase 24, using multichannel EXS in logic audio 6.3.1 on G4 PB 867mHz to trigger samples, output 3-4 on Phase 24 to outboard effects, back in through input 1-2 and record (audio) while monitoring playback on Output 1-2 on Phase 24. Didn't notice any drag!

I will post again once I've actually measured the latency on my system.

Posted by: bbmozee Wed 2 Mar 2005, 19:01

More on the fab FIREBOX:
Smooth and in the groove with Logic 7. Will use it with GarageBand soon. Don't have experience with Cubase LE but it's included if you need it. The fit and finish of the FIREBOX is first-rate. Should prove roadworthy. It will require at least OS X 10.3.7 (I'm on 10.3.8) and a 1GHz G4 with 512MB RAM to get results like mine.
I didn't wait for the Roland FA-66 as I've found US companies usually have better drivers ('cept M-Audio?) sooner. I can't believe how solid the v.1 drivers/software are. They mentioned that a lot was already built into OS X 10.3.7 and I don't doubt it. The latency is there but not disturbing with Logic 7 and I usually monitor thru a Mackie mixer anyway. I'm not sure of a way to adjust it on the Mac. So far, the FIREBOX just rocks!

Posted by: arvidtp Wed 2 Mar 2005, 21:18

sounds cool bbmozee

but you *can* turn the latency down to like 64 in logic (audio driver preferences), right? and does it work? - if maybe not very CPU efficient. The user should be able to control the latency, it is just how much your system can handle at that setting - unless you are using an Mbox and digidesign says "You must use a giant buffer of 512 or 1024 because WE SAY SO"

If i get something I would *need* it to perform well at very low latency - similar to the internal card in a perfect world...

and you're not having the sync (or lack thereof) troubles that others report?

thanks for posting your results - both of you - it is you guys who take the plunge first and then tell the rest the good and the bad who are taking the risk thanks

Posted by: GitGeezer Thu 3 Mar 2005, 07:14

a little more Firebox experience...

I got an email response from Presonus regarding the SPDIF issues but I haven't had time to try their suggestions. I had performed the setup steps correctly, but they have some specifics for Live 4.1 that I will try. I wanted to use Live for organizing the material that I'm attempting to capture from a Roland VS880 but I changed to a two track editor option to ease the system load. So far no SPDIF inputs are available. As soon as I test the Presonus suggestions I'll post the results and the instructions.

My previous comments were devoid of comments on the sound of the Firebox. I would take this as encouraging "no-news-is-good-news". The sound is transparant and uncolored, just what I was looking for.

More to come...
GG

Posted by: beltunabob Thu 3 Mar 2005, 16:17

JD sounds has a price now of $199 on the Terratec PHASE 24 FW.

Posted by: bbmozee Thu 3 Mar 2005, 21:31

I must admit that I haven't been able to make the SPDIF connection work between the FIREBOX and my MBOX. Any light shed on the SPDIF issue would be appreciated! Other than that, all is well.

Posted by: bbmozee Fri 4 Mar 2005, 17:14

FIREBOX clarification--I can get the MBOX SPDIF output into the FIREBOX but no luck getting that signal recorded into Logic 7 Pro. The other 4 inputs record beautifully. Time for PreSonus to come to the rescue!

Posted by: ullanta Sat 5 Mar 2005, 06:12

Hmmm... what are you trying to do in connecting the Mbox to the Firebox? Is this on a single computer? I don't think either the Mbox or the Firebox work standalone, so... unless you're using 2 computers, I don't undertstand the point.

If there is indeed a point, how are you synchronizing the clocks? Could that be your issue?

-Barry

Posted by: arvidtp Sat 5 Mar 2005, 06:31

This is the same setup i would like ideally too. The Mbox manual claims that whatever goes in (seems to suggest this includes the direct signal from the analog mic pres - does anyone know for sure?) goes out the digital SPDIF all the time. The ideal would be to plug the mbox in, but not have any app in the computer use it - just power it from USB, then have it send audio via SPDIF to the firebox as it comes in the inputs, yielding an interface with 6 analog ins instead of 4. This would be awesome - Those of us without a lot of fancy hardware really cant take advantage of SPDIF inputs otherwise (For instance I have never had use for the SPDIF on my Mbox).

But I agree - how would the clocks be synced? How is this usually done between SPDIF devices? but it seems bbmozee CAN get his mbox SPDIF into the firebox - which means its prolly not a sync issue, correct? because the firebox understands the signal. he just cant get the SPDIF channels to show up in software as recordable inputs - correct?

Posted by: digimusic Sat 5 Mar 2005, 21:09

is there fire in the box???


i am in amsterdam and the firebox is coming end this month in the shops and then its decision-time to buy my first soundcard, or as we say in holland: lets saw some wood .got a fireboxquestion, hope one of u can anwser.
exactly howmuch latency are you experiencing with the firebox. zero? or a little? how much ms.. is it better compared to the m-box? i am planning to play sax and trumpet (so analogin-and analog out thrue the box should be zero latency right?)with the softsynths and beats in cubase on the background (well digital in -analog out also zero latency right?) still got my doubts about the software-mixer of the fireboxas compared to internal dedicated hardware mixing of my other option, the edirol fa 101 (sorry for souncard comparison number 1.019.001)

thanks for your time,
mark

Posted by: bbmozee Sat 5 Mar 2005, 21:13

Details re: Mbox-FireBox SPDIF connection.
1-I'm using this to get audio digitally from my laptop into my desktop computer.
2-The Mbox is connected to a TiBook 667/DVI and the FireBox is connected to an eMac 1.25/SuperDrive. OS X 10.3.8 on both. I've settled on 44100 kHz/24 bit I/O. The Mbox is setup for Analog I/O. This works because SPDIF out mirrors the analog out!
3-The FireBox is setup with Clock Source:FIREBOX SpdifIn (in the Audio MIDI panel).
4-So far, this setup can get mics, line, instument and even iTunes or ProTools LE playback into the FireBox via SPDIF. I'm able to monitor this via headphone and main outs on the FireBox (as long as the FireBox Mixer app is set to monitor "MIX" once sync is established).
5-The problem so far is that with the Clock Source set to SpdifIn, Logic 7 doesn't see the FireBox. With the source set to Mac, the four anaog inputs behave perfectly--but now the signal from the Mbox is lost. I've sent an e-mail to PreSonus regarding this and still await their response.
6-For now the SPDIF issues are all that remain. MIDI has performed flawlessly and considering that the Mbox cost me over a hundred bucks more for just 2 channels, I'm not going to bitch. But I still want that SPDIF! I'll keep y'all posted.

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Sat 5 Mar 2005, 21:51

wow
lotsa good info about the box here...
sorry I won't be much help... But I am glad that there is some posting going on
I do have one Idea that may help to determine if there is a fault with the SPDIF in on the FireBox here...

bbmozee
you may have already tried this?
do you have another unit to substitute for the SPDIF like a DAT or CD or DVD that will output SPDIF? that way you can send it into the FireBox and at least tell if you can get a signal.... providing that the SAME unit can also send a good siginal into the Mbox as well. well not meaing to connect or daisy chein them together just try one then the other simply to see if the firebox can get ANY digi in ... have you tried that yet?

also I know this may or may not help ...
many years ago now I had gotten (& still have) an EgoSys Waveterminal2496 , and kept having problems with it I thought it was cause of my machine met the minimun suggested but not the optimal suggested.... also the tech guys (who I emailed and spoke to by phone) did not even have a Mac in their lab to test any of the things they were telling me. Mac and windoz had a much different interface via the ASIO ... short story long: turns out the card, I struggled with for months.... getttin to work sometimes and clicking and popping others... was bad! they sent me a new replacement aferter trying hundreds of things and ...Volia! no more problems
the point is
make sure the SPDIF can or can not receive a signal from some other source first... a reliable source.
make sense?
sorry for the long winded ramblin'

hope that this may be of some use....

good luck!

-- Ian

Posted by: ullanta Sat 5 Mar 2005, 21:53

How is the clock set up on the Mbox side?

Posted by: bbmozee Mon 7 Mar 2005, 02:35

FireBox saga continued.
First of all I must mention that I've been able to use the FireBox (with FireBox Mixer MIX buttons selected) to monitor the SPDIF signals thru the MBox ONLY via ProTools LE 6.7 (perhaps previous versions work too). The Mbox was set to Analog I/O 44.1 kHz. It seems to automatically mirror analog out SPDIF! My ancient SONY DAT SPDIF out almost made it into Logic 7 (before i lost sync when I attempted to change from 41000 to 48 kHz on the fly in Logic to match the DAT).
The saga continues...

Posted by: bbmozee Mon 7 Mar 2005, 04:38

DAT to FireBox to eMac and Peak a success! Just had to compensate for 16 bit stereo 48kHz SpdifIn clocking. Now if only Logic Pro could do the same!

Posted by: GitGeezer Mon 7 Mar 2005, 07:47

Regarding my SPDIF problem...

I haven't had time to try the latest Presonus suggestions using Live to record, but my problem was that I was hearing SPDIF input through the Firebox (set to SpdifIn, 16/44100 clock matching the source) monitor output, but it was not available as recordable input to any application. I'm using a Roland VS880 as the SPDIF source. The VS880 has controls for clock speed, so I'll play with those. Glad to hear of success for bbmozee, it bodes well for the rest of us. And congrats to bbmozee on a very creative way to combine inputs from both boxes!

Gitgeezer

Posted by: bbmozee Mon 7 Mar 2005, 16:14

My experiences mirror GitGeezer's - only with Logic 7 Pro. FireBox monitors inputs fine but they are unavailable for recording. BTW thanks for the props re: MBox-FireBox SPDIF setup - but I've yet to realize 6 simultaneous inputs to record into Logic. I'm still waiting for PreSonus to respond. Otherwise, the FireBox has my full approval.

Posted by: GitGeezer Tue 8 Mar 2005, 05:32

Sorry to hear about the Logic 7 problem. I am just about to switch to Logic 7, hope it begins to cooperate. One of the big advantages to the Firebox should be the fact that it is "class compliant". This means that no software drivers are required. The bad news is that problems like our SPDIF issue can't be solved with driver updates.

I haven't had a chance to try this yet, but here are the instructions from Presonus for SPDIF:

The interesting part is the activation of all inputs and outputs from the Firebox. Could it be that SPDIF is only available on 5/6? No big deal if it works. I have become intrigued with Live 4.1 just when I learned that it is a resource hog on Macs. Oh well...

GitGeezer

Posted by: digimusic Thu 10 Mar 2005, 19:57

HI PEOPLE, I RECENTLY ASKED A Q ABOUT THE FIRBOX IN THIS THREAT BUT NO ANWSERS CAUSE YOU GUYS TO BUSY WITH SPDIF ETC. ANYWAY I CONTACTED PRESONUS ABOUT THE CPU DRAIN AND THE SOFTWAREMIXER, HERE'S THE EMAIL CORRESPONDING. HOPE THIS HELPFULL FOR MORE INFO ABOUT THE FIREBOX. (still not available in europe... ) IF U HAVE ANY INFO OR REMARKS ABOUT PRESONUS ANWSERS PLEASE ADD TO THIS THREAT, LET"S BUILD UP SOME INFO


(me)i want to use the fb to play some background blues and jazz. for this i want to letthe fb play a jazz beat and piano from cubase. so this is digital - thru the software mixer- and then analog ou, right?

presonus---That is correct.

and at the sametime play live a saxophone,trumpet and singing . so this is analog-digital (but not thru cubase but only thru the mixer right) -analag. right?

---That is correct too.

? is it all zero-latency / or so little it won't bother during live sessions and at the sametime recording it in one of amsterdams finest bars in the red light district..

---It is all zero-latency.

last question, i am using a toshiba m30 with a 1.6 centrino 512 mb, external hdd 7200 rpm, is the cpu drain the same as with the firepod? if so it is good because this comination was tested as a happy marriage.

---Yes, it should be the same or less CPU drain.

Posted by: bbmozee Fri 11 Mar 2005, 17:49

FireBox saga finale: I just discovered that the recent massive hit on my Mac OS X CPU (50-99% up from a nominal 1-30%) was due to the FireBox software. Removing the Control and Mixer apps returned things back to normal. System profile logs kept showing problems with both and clued me in. I never got a response from PreSonus from an earlier problem and now am of the opinion that the FireBox isn't quite ready for prime time on the Mac. It's a promising piece - but without SPDIF capability and the currently sloppy code I'll pass on this one for now.

End of story: Returned FireBox and ponied up for the popular and proven MOTU 828 Mk2. Life is sweet again!

Posted by: lepetitmartien Sat 12 Mar 2005, 03:30

Hi all, please, inform the guys at Presonus and let them know about this thread Maybe it'll help them put their act together so that the Firebox will be up to our expectancies.

If the box is good, it's a shame the software isn't up to it.

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Sat 12 Mar 2005, 19:37

lepetitmartien
thanx! for the suggestion
I had been think about sending this link
and I just did, I sent it to:
Chad Kelly - Customer Service Manager at Presonus

hopefully they can and will address these issues

-- Ian

Posted by: GitGeezer Tue 15 Mar 2005, 07:38

For bbmozee...

Which logs specifically did you discover the Firebox verbage in? I'm probably going to return mine, and I may need some supporting documentation to do it. Very unfortunate. Running the Mixer application is required, I believe, for latency-free monitoring during overdubs. But I was unable to overdub anything in Logic Express 7 due to very slow response resulting finally in a total shutdown of the interface. Probably a Firebox issue. And since there are no drivers to update, it's a hardware/firmware problem.

Posted by: bbmozee Tue 15 Mar 2005, 17:03

Git:
Check out Apple Menu>About This Mac>More Info...System Profile>Logs.
The deal-killer for me was the inability to record 6 tracks simultaneously (as advertised). Also, I had no use for Cubase LE since I have Logic Pro 7 and Pro Tools LE.
It's a shame--I really liked the powerful headphone amp and clean audio. I was able to return it and pony up for a MOTU 828 at Guitar Center, hassle-free. I'm very glad I did. The 828 has been a pleasure to set up and use--a true workhorse that has handled everything I can throw at it. Highly recommended (and a deal for the extra money because it really works!).

Posted by: vickbabu Wed 16 Mar 2005, 23:11

I was considering the firebox, aside from the fact that it is seriously backordered, this blows. Why are the requirements so high, the FW410 req. G3. I have an 867MhzG4 and no the DualG4 recomended, and plan on running Live, is there a interface that will work well in this $range.

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Tue 5 Apr 2005, 00:15

hey
Awhile Back I did contact PreSonus
they (Rick) Said that they were looking into the problems with Logic

and I did just order one of these...
but
Now I guess I'll have to wait
they said they were still waitin for ones to comeon fromJanuary!D'OH!

hopefully
I'll get one soon
-- Ian

Posted by: twits celso Wed 6 Apr 2005, 17:11

ArchivalAudio--where are you trying to get the 'Box from? I found my local Guitar Center was best--had one in stock when online places were saying "5 week delay" and when that first 'Box proved defective, they had another in stock when I brought it back.

It may be worth a few phone calls if you live close to some gear stores.

Posted by: khvt Thu 7 Apr 2005, 13:27

I bought mine from Sweetwater. So far I like it - the only annoying thing is that sometimes - okay, most of the time it doesn't sync right away. The FAQs say to go into Audio/Midi & change the sample rate to "something different" which sends a sync signal. I wish I didn't have to do that - I bought it primarily so I could plug it in right away & get to work! if anyone has a solution, please pass it on. Thanks.

Pbook 10.3.8, Tracktion

Posted by: twits celso Thu 7 Apr 2005, 15:06

Mine sometimes does that too, with same solution (you can also change "Clock Source," not that it's any less or more of a pain).Most of the time though, if I just leave it plugged in while my 'puter is asleep, it syncs again automatically when I get back to work, so I just leave it plugged in, though that's a waste of electricity.

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Fri 8 Apr 2005, 02:27

twits celso
hey
thanx
UnfortnatelyI live about an hour to any audioshop that wouldhave this... Portland is morelike an hour n a half away... I ordered it from Cascade Media in P'Town OR, I knowthe Owner and a Good taping buddy ofmine ,I've known for 14 years now,just started working there.... I contacted Rick at Presonus,who respondeddirect to me when questioned about why they had not gotten sipemnt of units due in january....they will be receiving them in the next week! so mine is soon to come.
Cascade media is great to do business with and have always stood behind what they sell.

if youeverwant a quick reply fromPresonus I found that Rick is the guy....
I am looking forward to gettingmy Firebox and runningit very soon!

thanx

how'severyones luvk running with cubase LE that came with it???

-- Ian

Posted by: twits celso Fri 8 Apr 2005, 15:14

I've never even gotten around to opening the Cubase package. I use Logic Express--it works well with that, and you can change the sync rate from within Logic, which is nice.

I'm curious too--anyone use Cubase LE? Does it offer any advantages over similar programs?

Posted by: zorbeix Wed 20 Apr 2005, 02:10

So does it means that it's the mixer who's hogging the system or the box itself (= the fact that it's pluggued to the comp)

Thx in adv.

Olivier

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Wed 20 Apr 2005, 05:13

I just got my Firebox yesterday...
so far only one mic pre seems to work... and I can not get it to be recognized in cubase..... more soon
kinda frustrated... when I did get to be able to change the driver to see the firebox...nothing happened...
more news soon

--Ian

Posted by: zorbeix Wed 20 Apr 2005, 05:21

"I just got my Firebox yesterday...
so far only one mic pre seems to work... and I can not get it to be recognized in cubase..... more soon
kinda frustrated... when I did get to be able to change the driver to see the firebox...nothing happened...
more news soon"


What're your system specs?

Olivier

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Thu 21 Apr 2005, 00:15

Olivier,

I'm running aG4 ibook 1.2Ghz /1.25GB RAM
should handle it
waiting for a reply from presonus
got my internal mic to work in cubase but not the firebox yet
another try later on

more again soon

-- Ian

Posted by: meta22 Thu 21 Apr 2005, 06:40

I've had a firebox for 2 weeks and it's been working great; I've had less problems with it than my M-Audio Firewire 410, which is a bit...touchy. I love the compactness of it as well!

G4 iBook 1ghz ram

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Thu 21 Apr 2005, 06:52

meta22
cool
tell me how you got it workin'


did you just set the audio midi set up and off you went?

thanx
--Ian

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Wed 27 Apr 2005, 14:18

ok...
so
I upgraded to OS 10.3.9...... mistake!
in the Audio Midi control you can not select the SPDIF in as the clock source!
I have hundreds of DAT's to transfer and have been emailing Presonus Tech support
they are working on fixing this glitch

I am not real sure thsi thsi choice was available in 10.3.8 but it may have been
I stupidly just did an auto upgrade!

so if you're gonna do it wait!

ok
-- Ian

Posted by: zorbeix Wed 27 Apr 2005, 16:15

It's all supposed to be a java problem for which Apple as released a fix that you can fix either on their site or by auto update.

Olivier

Posted by: Jonasji Wed 27 Apr 2005, 16:53

So ArchivalAudio or meta22 what is your verdic of the sound of the firebox (excluding the spdif problems)? I am just looking for a singe audio interface with a pre-amp for a mic and a midi interface that comes with it. So should I go for it or save another year for a Motu 828 mk II ;-)

-Jonas

Posted by: meta22 Wed 27 Apr 2005, 17:10

Well so far it sounds great--less cracking and poping in the audio-I've used it on my desktop and my iBook and it's been fine. (knock on wood)

Posted by: twits celso Wed 27 Apr 2005, 17:18

I've had one for about 6 weeks or so. The sound quality is good. I was just using an iMic or the built-ins before I got it; the difference is night and day.

From what I understand, the MOTU will sound better. But then again, it's twice as much $$, so that's not surprising. For $400, I'm pleased with the Firebox. I find it pretty stable. I have had some occasional situations in which, after my computer has been asleep, it either has trouble picking up the input sound of the Firebox (though the 'puter knows it's there), or, when I've been recording at 24/88 the entire system slows down, even if I quit Logic. But that still sounds a lot better than the M-Audio 410 stories I've read.

As for the clock change question in Audio/MIDI, yes you can do it in 10.3.8.

Hope this helps.

Posted by: Jubei Wed 27 Apr 2005, 21:04

Hey guys....so I just picked up a Firebox this past weekend. So far so good. The one problem i am having is not that big of a deal, but....here goes. When i simply hit the volume up/down keys on my computer keyboard, i get a strange pop and click sound. It does not happen all the time. I was using and imic as well, and never had that problem? I called presonus and the tech guy was very cool. He said it was not the box but some bug in the OS. He said i should just use the master knob on the front of the box...but that does not seem to be very convenient? Ever heard of this? (firebox or not?)

I have 30 days to really fool around and get into this thing. So far I am pretty happy. Still don't understand the deal with the software mixer? Is it better to have had this monitoring feature through hardware?

Sorry for the run on sentences! I'll post more when I can. - later

Posted by: Jonasji Wed 27 Apr 2005, 22:22

Well,
I guess every box has it problems. I had and Motu 828 before and it wasn't perfect but sounded really good. I have heard of the cracking noise of the firepod is that what you are noticing as well Jubei? Does it show up on your recorded audiofiles as well? People has said it does on the firepod.

Any one used it on a firewire chain?


Really appreciate your inputs and advice guys!


Jonas

Posted by: Jubei Wed 27 Apr 2005, 22:49

I don't think i have done enough recording to say for sure, but so far so good with the recorded audio files. I really like the sound of my vocals...nice mic pre's for this price. No this is just one of those "huh" little quirks that i guess come up. Can anyone else wih a Firebox tell me if they have heard this? Also do you still control your computers volume with the computer keyboard or the master volume knob on the box?

thanks.

Posted by: bobmusic Fri 29 Apr 2005, 22:51

I can`t change the clock source here at all, the fields are greyed out!
The only thing i can change here is the samplerate. Can anybody help!

My Mac: G4 500 Dual, OSX 10.3.9 with Logic 7

best regards
bobmusic

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Sat 30 Apr 2005, 22:09

BOBmusic
I made the same mistake in upgraging to 10.3.9
you might try the new control pannel.
I had the same problem an heres what butch from tech support said

You used to be able to change the 'clock source' for the FireBox to SPDIF
with the Audio MIDI Setup application, so that you can get the SPDIF input
to work.

However, OS10.3.9 has this feature overlooked this functionality.

OS10.3.9 does not currently support SPDIF functionality with the FireBox.

We are addressing this issue as fast as possible.


ther is now a fireboxcontrol 1.0.3 version, and on ityoucan selectthe spdif in... or at least I could but have not had the time to try it yet myself

go here http://nav.440network.com/out.php?mmsc=forums&url=http://www.presonus.com/firebox.html

then at the bottom here
Mac OS (10.3.8 or later) - Control Panel ver 1.0.3 - updated for Mac 10.3.8 or later

It might help....

might try it later on this weekendmyself
-- Ian

Posted by: munkifunki Sun 1 May 2005, 05:52

(((PLEASE HELP)))

i get constant pops and clicks during playback, and even when auditioning soundbites.
playing audio with itunes while DP is in background has same problem, however when
DP is closed, there's no problem.

the reason why it must be a firebox problem and not a DP problem is that my old
tascam USB interface worked great (just couldn't do 96kHz).

also, i've noticed that projects with almost no or no plugins don't have the crazy pops and
crackles.

***i've tried TWO fireboxes (my friend and i both bought one, and before he had a chance to get set up with his, i nabbed it to test the problem). SAME PROBLEM!

Posted by: Jubei Sun 1 May 2005, 14:27

Hey Munkfunki.....I hear you. I now have been using the the box for a week and starting to see to many little problems. The main one is when I record my vocal track, sometimes it sounds like someone is eating a bowl of rice crispies in my mic!

so far it seems random? I have raised and lowered the buffer settings and nothing. Could this be a firewire cable, mic cable or my mac? I will call presonus on monday(tomorrow) and see what they say. Otherwise it's going back.

Did you try raising your buffer settings? Fool around it may not be the firebox.

Posted by: bobmusic Sun 1 May 2005, 15:12

Thank you Ian!

I tried the new controlpanel 1.0.3 and after some hassle i now can record over spdif-input in Logic 7
before starting Logic, the clock must be set to internal and only change it to spdif after Logic has started. This is how it works here.
I will test the firebox more to see if the random crackel noises return and if sync remains stable.
I really like this unit and only hope, the software problems will be solved by presonus and apple.

I got a reply from presonus also and they don't recommend to use the Firebox with Tiger by now:

"We are still testing Tiger and we are not suggesting to upgrade at this time."

best regards
bobmusic

Posted by: chappy Mon 2 May 2005, 14:14

I'm going to guess that this is a clocking problem.
Check out your audio setup and make sure that no one is fighting for control of the input box. Clocking should be set to 'internal' unless you're using other digital devices. Check out your Audio/Midi setup before you give up.
peace,
chap

Posted by: Dreadman718 Mon 2 May 2005, 21:40

I purchased a Firebox two weeks ago and I can't say that I am that satisfied. Yes it's a great size, but I have had weirder issues. I am running a powerbook 1.67 ghz machine with a gig of memory. At first she would studder and then I increased buffer size. Then the popping and crackling. I went and lowered track outputs and adjusted master volum on Firebox. Then I noticed when using my Reaktor sessions certain sounds would break up..UNLESS I kept the reaktor sessions track selected during playback. I sent an email to support and this is what they said: Hi,

I am not sure...

I cannot troubleshoot LOGIC very much as I do not have a copy of it to test.

I can only suggest that you setup a similar project within Cubase LE and
compare the performance between the two.

Get back to me with your results.

Now why the HELL would I trouble shoot with Cubase LE if I'm a Logic 7.1 user?

And this was my reply:
No disrespect to you... I know your job is to support Presonus products, but I run Logic on my day to day. And I don't see how me testing Cubase LE will solve issues that are coming up with a program (Logic) that is being used by a good number of individuals. If anything I think that it would help to make your product more in demand if it were more of an across the board type interface. I work with Logic 7.1 and would like the Firebox to do the same. I thought the Firebox was an interface for ALL who would need an audio interface. Didn't realize it was product specific... I never would have bought it.
Needless to say I am not satisfied....

Posted by: bobmusic Mon 2 May 2005, 22:26

Hello!

Do you use Tiger already? Presonus don't recommend to upgrade at the moment.
So far, Firebox works fine here with Logic 7.0.1 & Panther. Even spdif-in works now with new controlpanel 1.0.3.

best regards
bobmusic

Posted by: iDraw Tue 10 May 2005, 00:04

it was great to find this particular forum about the firebox, I was beginning to think it was my personal struggle with SPDIF that was causing my problems in trying to get sound from my DAT into Logic 7 pro. I was having a similar experience of getting sound all the way to the firebox mixer software and right on through to my laptop (in the sound input preferences, I can see the sound and it mirrors the same spikes on my DAT display - so it's coming in) but I cannot get it to play or record in Logic or SoundTrack or any other audio software.

At first I was running 10.3.9 with the new presonus control panel (1.0.3) on my main powerbook drive and, on a separate drive, I had 10.3.7 installed with just the basics (Firebox Control Panel 1.0, LogicPro 7, nothing else). On both drives, the same SPDIF cutoff at the software happened with one difference. I would get a pulsating spike of sound (different from the sound coming in from the DAT - just a crackling surge like a radio frequency of some kind) which went on for about 2 minuted and then silence.

Since it was the weekend, I waited and called Presonus Tech Support and talked with a guy named Jonathon. Very nice chap who listened and didn't give me any run around. I told him all that I had tried and also related some of the posts made here and he agreed that something didn't sound right. He said that, with the old control panel (1.0) SPDIF should be working fine in 10.3.7-10.3.8. With the new control panel (1.0.3) the Firebox SPDIF should work in both 10.3.9 AND he also said that it should work in Tiger (which contradicts an earlier post I read). I do not have Tiger installed so I will take his word for it.

What he said he would do next is set up LogicPro 7 on several different systems and try and duplicate the issues I laid out. He said it would take a day or two but he would email me the results. I will post the reply here.

Posted by: khvt Wed 11 May 2005, 01:50

Hi - I've been reading this post since its inception...was looking forward to the firebox. Have been using it with Tracktion. I have to say I'm not thrilled with my recordings - even simple voice-overs. I'm not sure if it's the firebox or the software. Sold my Digi001 & 002 a year ago. Now I'm wondering if that was the right thing to do. There's lots of hiss & the gain seems to be up way too high all of the time. I'm interested in other opinions about firebox sound. Thank you.

Posted by: vickbabu Wed 25 May 2005, 13:03

I just recieved mine and experienced the same "rice crispies" sound from the mic. I figured it had to do with monitoring. Haven't used the presonus mixer for monitoring, but hope that works better than Live 4. The only thing that I am not comfortable with is the requirements, seem high.
That aside, its seems solid. I purchased mine from JD Sound and it came w/ a free AT2020 Condenser mic. For my single/two track recording and live shows I hope I won't have any complaints, even if reading forums has made me a bit paranoid.

Posted by: arvidtp Wed 25 May 2005, 13:39

Yep - Just ordered mine. I'll share my experiences when she gets here!

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Thu 26 May 2005, 01:33

soa quick reply here
I had many problems wioth the CubaseLE and the firebox
and especially the SPDUIF in
when Presonus mentioned that perhapsI got a bad unit
and suggested thet I swap it for a new unit from my retailer
who was Cascade Media in Portland OR
both Frank and Jeff there were very cool about it
and I had been CC'ing Jeff with my trialsand tribulations
so they shipped me a new on on friday and it worked fine
Still have yet totry the SPDIF inbut both preampins and Line insworked great with Cubase....
my error was I hed cubase set to record in only 16 bit!
but I did manage
to recordmy friends the Ginger Hustlers "ambient"2-Rode nt5's onstage (110° ORTF) and 2 Soundboard PA in 4-track on saturday
and on Sunday at the Willemette valley Folk Fest at the UofO
I recoeded both Taarka and New Monsoon..in the field .battery power
had some sleep issues with my ibook
and I "cheated" I powered the fireboxvia a 12v lead acid battery
to provided pantom power for the mics and cause less draw on my ibook battery

more soon

-- ian

Posted by: arvidtp Wed 1 Jun 2005, 01:36

Hi - just got my 'box today! I like it.

Installation was long, complicated and difficult I just took it out of the box, plugged in the firewire, and bam! - it worked!

I first used it with iTunes. Sounded really nice playing some radiohead and Miles Davis.

Then i used it with Logic. recordings sound nice, though I havent tried it with trumpet yet. real nice - got all 6 channels in at once including SPDIF from my Mbox! (its really cool that that works - it lets me get the full 6 channels in if i need them, though the Mbox channels, because they are going through the computer, may be delayed by about 1024 samples relative to the other channels. But one can always shift tracks later, as long as nothing latency critical goes though those channels during recording. To do this, i just run Rogue Amoeba's LineIn and patch the Mbox in to the Mbox out with the Digi coreaudio driver - then set the firebox's clock source to SPDIF.) latency/the buffer settings at which things start popping and crackling seem reasonable. Of course it probably could be better, but hey - its a WHOLE lot better than that darn Mbox! The potential here makes me want a G5 again

I have not tried the included Cubase LE - don't see a need to right now as I have Logic Pro, and Tracktion if for some reason i wanted a lower-end sequencer for something Maybe I'll give it to someone who is just starting out in computer music...

The MIDI works great, however it seems to have kicked my Midiman 1x1 off the bus so the computer doesnt see anything coming into it - but that may be solved with a restart since i was switching around USB cables around earlier on today.\

The mixer app is real nice. Only weird thing was once mixer app and firebox control used like the whole CPU when launching (the mixer stopped hogging after launch, but the control did not and had to be quit for me to do anything else useful). But this only happened in one situation and I'm not sure why. I then quit logic (which was running in the background with no session open) and restarted the mixer and control apps and they worked fine - no huge CPU drain.

Physically, the box is well built as everyone says - nice and metal - color matches my powerbook blue chrome knobs are hot, as are the blue LEDs. Non-recessed Firewire ports on the back look possible a little flimsy? but maybe not.

I am hopeful that this will work out! It is such a cool box so far. But I have yet to test it with my complex and CPU intense MaxMSP patches. So soon we will see its true mettle.

Posted by: arvidtp Thu 2 Jun 2005, 06:31

Firebox - DAY 2

Well, today I did some real work with the thing. It is great to have an audio interface that you dont have to hope works 50% of the time you press the record button. The firebox seems to just work. - so far.

No more crazy CPU drain with the control/mixer software again. Dunno what that was all about that one time. But I have noticed that the +12dB settings on the control panel only seem to take effect after a restart of the computer. Is this normal? seems odd. But that's not a major problem.

It tried the firebox with some demanding MaxMSP patches - it pops and clicks a little more (at a lower CPU use) than does the internal card - but not by very much. i guess this is to be expected of any interface in this price-range due to the larger # channels and being 24 bit maybe. But after a very little optimization of my patcher, I was able to get down to 128 samples buffer with no artifacts - a very respectable latency for performance - especially one sorta off-the-wall like that patch

And - the Firebox works well with Jack - I built a buffer-looper in MaxMSP (controlled by a tilt-gamepad), ran the audio from that out to Logic via Jack and recorded it there, while listening back to the rather hefty session i was recording it in and watching the movie it was sync'd to - and this at a 128 sample buffer (as specified in Jack for the firebox - a pretty good latency for the soft-instrument playing) - all without a hitch. I'm lovin it!

So far, i would recommend the firebox for anyone who wants a good quality, low cost box that can do most anything that u throw at it without complaint. I'm sure the RMEs and Metric Halos of the world are better and get lower latency/better CPU usage, but for the price I am very happy with what I have got and I am hoping this opinion will not change unfavorably any time soon.

The next tests (for tomorrow) are the portable battery recording test (how long can i go for? does it "just work"?) and maybe the long duration recording (how many hours straight can it go without a glitch? so far I have done 1/2 hour with no problem.)

peace!

Posted by: entfred Thu 2 Jun 2005, 14:23

Hi,

I just ordered a Mac Mini with extra memory, the Presonus Firebox,
and I plan on using Garageband. I am new to recording on a
Mac (currently using Fostex VF08) and had some questions:

1. I read some of the previous posts on the Presonus Firebox.
Is this latest Mac OS going to work ok with the Firebox or am I
going to have a lot of problems just getting the Firebox to work?

2. I guess the included recording software in the Firebox will not
work with the latest Apple OS?

3. Anyone use the Mac Mini with the Firebox?

4. Does Garage band work ok with the Firebox? I have some friends
who plug directly into their Mac when recording guitar into Garageband
and I am hoping the Firebox will eliminate most, if not all of the
latency.

Thanks for any tips in getting started on using the Firebox with
a Mac Mini. I should receive the Mac Mini within a few weeks.

entfred

Posted by: arvidtp Thu 2 Jun 2005, 20:11

hey - sounds cool entfred.

1. it should! the drivers are built right into the OS and firebox is class-compliant.

2. I hear cubase LE will run under 10.4, it just will not install under 10.4 yet cause the installer must be weird.

3. no, but it should work great

4. It should! not tried it yet. The Firebox will get latency (when going through the computer) about equal to the internal card (which is actaully really good for performance/monitoring when turned down to 128 or 64 samples buffer). But with the Firbox you can monitor a no-latency dry signal to your headphones (or main outputs) without going into the computer and back out which is what causes the latency. What i do usually is monitor that direct no-latency signal into my headphones, and put a reverb on the track i am recording to that is completely wet, so then I get to hear 0 latency dry signal along with some nice inspiring reverb while I am recording (or whatever effect u want to use). Then I turn the dry back up no the reverb after i have recorded (or get rid of it sometimes)

What you really get with the Firebox is MUCH better audio quality. I have been very happy with it so far in that regard. best of luck.

As for my 3rd day of fireboxing: Took it out into the woods and recorded 52 min mono audio on just the powerbook battery using one Phantom powered condenser mic. Played some trumpet out there - the recording quality was very nice. Not one hiccup. not bad i'd say. The battery went to 0% though, so i dont think you could get any longer recording with phantom power on, though i did have to turn the screen up to full brightness sometimes to see it in the sun, though most of the time the display backlight was switched off. Energy saver was set to highest performance. One might be able to get away with reduced CPU power for just like 2-track recording. That might allow for some slightly longer unplugged sessions.

Also I am using the firebox as my system alert sound out and I have experienced none of the glitches others have referred to.

The gain for the mic pres seems weird however - it seems like they are not hot enough when not boosted but 12dB, but are too hot when boosted... oh well whatever. I mean you can get a satisfactory setting either way, its just at one extreme end of the dial or the other where the gain seems right for most stuff. But this may not be bad at all. Or i may just not have enough experience with the box yet to know where i should set levels for things.

Posted by: hahaworld Fri 3 Jun 2005, 16:08

Firebox Rox!

I have officially left ProTools in the dust. They have been historically sluggish about supporting Mac OS updates, and their software will only work with their hardware as far as I can tell. I upgraded to Tiger and bought a Firebox, and yes, it works with GarageBand and Logic. Get one! It's a solid, reliable piece of equipment.

Posted by: entfred Fri 3 Jun 2005, 17:08

What is the quality of Logic compared to your previous ProTools?
Are you using Logic Pro?
I thought ProTools was the standard, though rather expensive?

I will be using a few Shure SM57s and have a cheap condenser
mic. Has anyone used a really expensive condenser mic with
Garage band on Firebox or some other preamp? Curious to what
it would sound like with really good hardware.

Does Logic provide a lot of advantages over Garageband?
It better for a thousand bucks!

I remember Pro Tools costing quite a bit, too, and that is just
for the scaled down consumer version.

Posted by: arvidtp Fri 3 Jun 2005, 22:37

Me too! goodbye pro tools with Mbox!

Man, Logic is more powerful than Pro Tools LE on many fronts including # audio tracks, MIDI stuff, notation, effects, processor efficiency, softsynths and overall flexibility. Also its more standards compliant and less buggy/fussy about your system setup because of that.

Pro Tools does do really well - really user friendly - on the strict audio editing part and is a standard for recording studio sessions because of that, which is why i am keeping mine around despite the fact I almost always use logic now.

And i'd say logic offers a lot that Garageband doesnt!

Posted by: SadPandas Thu 9 Jun 2005, 08:42

I have been using the firebox for about a week now and I really enjoy the sound and how easy it is to use. Im using it for simple tsks like recording my s.g. through the pod x.t. pro to work out some parts for some projects. The sound quality is fine for what im using it for and the design is nice. I have been wanting to update to tiger but have held out till i hear more people having success with it. Anyone still having problems with their units? Problematic units anyone ?

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Sun 12 Jun 2005, 19:27

Hi
my life has gotten busy...
My unit is or seems to ber funtctioning very good , excepttill have not tried the SPDFi option.... with my replacement unit.
I wanted to mention my battery experience, since
arvidtp said he only got about 45 minutes of recording powering 1 phantom powered mic with his powerbook and the firebox

I did want to say that when I recorded in the field my RODE NT5's Phantom powered, battery only, I got a about 3 hours of recording and my batery in my 12" ibook was at 26% when I stoped, one band played for about 50 minutes and the other about 2 hours ... in between I just closed my ibook up to put it into "sleep" mode which was for about 15 minutes. I was using cubase LE that came shipped with it, and had pre set up new projects for both bands while I was at home.
I should state that I did Power the Firebox with an external 12v Sealed Lead Acid 3.4 amp hour (powersonic) battery. this I had originally gotten for my Denecke AD-20 ? PS-s combo. This way the firebox is not being bus powered while the battery itself is quite heavy, it saves on laptop battery power.

that my latest
addition

question?
I am stiil new to laptop recording
when recording like this my ibook my screen went inot the sleep mode, it went black, at one point I freaked out and thought it had shut down, and tried to restart it, bad!
then I had to restart recording. this happened again, and I noticed I just had to use the trackpad to "wake" it up, and it seem like it was still recording , with no glitches. is that true?
I thought I had switched my ibook to Never sleep and never power down the Hard drive and screen saver off.
Can one record , glitch free, if the computer goes into sleep mode?

thanx
-- Ian

Posted by: arvidtp Mon 13 Jun 2005, 04:42

Thats a cool idea to power the firebox with a battery. Any special precautions you have to take when choosing/using a battery for something like this?

There are two modes of sleep: Display sleep and full sleep. Display sleep just shuts down your display, and everything else keeps running - theoretically fine for audio recording - except with some gear. Digidesign hardware/Pro Tools for instance will often crap out if display sleep activates. I have not tried display sleep with the Firbox-logic combo while recording - i am so conditioned from my Mbox to be afraid of sleep! but i assume the firebox should keep recording fine.

Full sleep shuts down everything except (to the best of my knowledge) the RAM, which is maintained in a static state. You cant record audio when this sleep goes on, as your Processor and HD are not running You can set the different timings in System Prefs > Energy Saver.

Some more comments about my Firebox experience:

I was wrong, the "firebox control" boost buttons do take effect immediately. Dunno if something was weird first time i tried. It has been giving me trouble lately with CPU usage however - sucking up like 7.5% of my CPU for no apparent reason while running in the background. But the good thing is you dont have to run the control utility all the time. You can just launch it to make the settings work and the quit it. Matter of fact i have it set to do that with an applescript whenever i log in. I hope Presonus can fix this little annoyance sometime in the future.

Also I got a loss of sync today after sleeping my powerbook with logic and Jack still running and connected to the firebox. Upon waking the firebox claimed to be in sync (blue LED) and played back fine, but input was crackly coming through the software. A trip to AudioMIDI setup with a change and change back of sample rate quickly fixed this though.

Other than that the box continues to function very well. Tried out the instrument inputs with my bass - sound great to my ears (the sound qualtiy, not the quality of the bass playing since i was playing it )

peace.

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Thu 16 Jun 2005, 07:17

arvidtp
thanx for you indepth info...always good posts!
as far as the battery thing....
SLA (sealedLead Acid) batteries are the way to go to power field units!
they are heavy= read FULLOF LEAD!
NO Memory!and can be charge at any point in the discharge process...
Precations?
well an inline fuse is always a good idea,
but if youlookat the back of the Firebox its states: "12 to 24 VDC (Volts Direct Current) or115 VAC (Volts Alternating Current) 10watts... the wall wart adaptor supplies 16 voltsAC ? go figure?
but anyway I have a POWERSONIC PS-1230 which is a 12Volt 3.4 Amphour Battery and a PowerSonic 12volt -300MA "float"charger model# PSC-12300A
the float is useful so as to not overcharge the battery, and when full voltage is reached it "floats"the charge there, not adding any extra voltage.
Power Sonic Batteries have a good reputation in the SLA catogory this is the batteries that Eco-Charge uses. Panasonic make good SLA batteries too,(i have a couple of these 6V SLA's leftover from my ol Sont D-7 DAT) but Powersonics chargers are very good too and reasonably priced.
I think I got mine both from Portable Power systems...
for my ol denecke 20bit AD20 and dual Phanton PS-2 a fewyear back....

using the SLA to power the firebox in the field help increase battery life in your laptop,as it is the same as plugging in the wall Wart that came with the unit...it is now NOT being powered via the 6-pin firewire but by the "external" power supply ...
I have not tested the Firebox with this SLA set up for duration, before degradation, but I do know
that using ths battery for the Denecke AD-20and the PS-2 Phantomsupply I caould get over 23 hour of operation Power my RODE NT5's (that appaerntly draw more current than most 48v phantom powwered mics!) before the battery dropped below normal operating voltage, which for the dencke PS-2 was like 8 volts.... I think?
the fire box is sure to be more of a power hog,but this way you can save the battery of you Power/ ibook
..

does that help?

I hope
thanx
-- Ian

Posted by: arvidtp Wed 22 Jun 2005, 06:01

thats cool.

Ok, so here;s the story. Getting a bit frustrated with the firebox for the 1st time. Trying to use it to perform with in MaxMSP. Seems like patches that the internal card can handle the firebox keeps popping and clicking on. I have to go from 128 samples buffer and signal vector size, to 256for both for it to work smoothly. and even then there is a click every few minutes (not bad, but there all the same). I keep getting these CPU spikes. activity monitor shows kernel_task spikes in CPU up to like 95% every once in a while while the firebox is plugged in. None when its not. Whats up? i heard something about this from someone else. They said Presonus or maybe apple claimed it was normal and should not affect operation. But it does - my pops are usually synced with such spikes, occurring about every 15 sec when at 128 samples buffer. It cant be normal for firewire audio interfaces. I dont like it for normal operation of the computer either (when crunching big files, who wants an unused audio interface hogging CPU? arrrrg

I still get pops every once in while when on 256 samps even though MaxMSP reports my CPU usage as down to about 34%!(activity monitor showed much higher, around 60-90% for MaxMSP) My internal card runs with no discernible clicks/pops at up to about 55-60% processor load in Max at 128 samps buffer normally. Its these darn CPU spikes belonging to the system that happen every once in a while with the Firebox plugged in. I tried everything i could think of to turn off, not turn on, restarted several times...

So then i tried Logic 6.4 - adding spacedesigners until it choked - i got to i think 5 and logic reported nearly maxed CPU (music have been 90-100%, but there's no numerical display in logic) but the firebox did not click or pop at all, at 128 samples buffer. What the heck? Of course it clicked (choked) when i added the 6th, but the 5th was definitely showing 90-100% usage with no pops. Is there a difference in the way that MaxMSP and Logic access a coreaudio device that makes this disparity in popping/clicking? Or is Logic's CPU meter just wussy? But no... the 6th space designer REALLY choked the machine (unresponsive for about 15 sec) so that could not be it...

This is starting to anger me - its like i can only use half the processor power i did before in MaxMSP if i still want decent latency using the Firebox. Would a MOTU or something like that be better? and RME? Cause i could (very reluctantly) i think still return the firebox until the end of the week... I really like it with logic ad stuff, but its not really cutting it in Max right now and I dont know why.

Anyone have any ideas?

Posted by: entfred Wed 22 Jun 2005, 12:23

I tried changing the "optimization" settings, as shown below, but
the right click did not work. Has anyone tried this? I am using a
Microsoft Mouse.

FIREBOX CONTROL PANEL ADVANCED SETTINGS:
You can “Right Click” on the FIREBOX control panel icon to select between three
different computer optimization settings. These settings optimize the buffers and audio
streaming settings based on the speed of your processor. If you are experiencing
audio drop outs, it is recommended that you select a lower CPU setting.

I got some pops at first with the firebox hooked up to the Mac Mini,
but then they mysteriously went away.

I was able to record some guitar tracks using Garageband and
it seems to sound fine. I think the 1GB Ram in the Mac was
well worth the extra $$.

I still like using my Fostex VF08 better than a computer for
recording, but I am hoping the higher sampling rate will
ultimately give me better recording quality on the Mac, once I
get the hang of this.

Has anybody compared to quality of the Mac/Firebox recording combo
with a stand alone hard disk or Ram based recording box? From what
I read, you pay a lot for good digital to analog converters.

Posted by: twits celso Wed 22 Jun 2005, 14:52

The "right click" settings for the Firebox are PC only, not for Mac.

My Firebox sometimes hogs CPU also, but I've found that it's actually usually the Firebox Mixer software that's doing it, not the Box itself.

Posted by: khvt Wed 22 Jun 2005, 14:57

Twits,

How do you then change the software mixer to be less hoggish?

khvt

Posted by: arvidtp Wed 22 Jun 2005, 16:55

the mixer does not seem to be the problem with me. It seems the same with or without it running. I wish the mixer was the cause, then you could just quit it... and maybe Presonus could fix it in some future update... but alas the mixer seems to not be the issue for me.

but is shall do some more testing today.

Posted by: tbirdwilson Sun 10 Jul 2005, 14:58

Greets

I've just tried out my Firebox for the first time. No doubt the plug and play factor on OS X is a beautiful thing. But, I'm experiencing the same odd pops and clicks as others have mentioned in these posts. I also got the "rice crispy" sound using the firebox mixer software, which really sketched me out.

I've not a had a chance to experiment with varying buffer changes yet, but I'm wondering if those who've gotten regular pops and clicks have found solutions?

Cheers,

Tbird

Powerbook G4 867, 640MB RAM, Presonus Firebox, Cubase LE, 160GB Lacie D2

Posted by: arvidtp Sun 10 Jul 2005, 17:19

OK tbird, you're in luck - here's some more of my experiences - mostly good:

Recorded some more outdoors unplugged - frog sounds at a pond. Very nice. Firebox worked great. When i got back though i thought it had crapped out cause when i listened it was all "rice crispy". Turns out it was the 'box not syncing once i got back home during playback. A trip to AudioMIDI setup to change the sample rate to 48000 then back to 44100 fixed that and made me much releaved that my recording session was not in vain.

For performances - yes i was getting lots of clicks in MaxMSP - but these were dramatically reduced when i fired up Process Wizard (great little menu extra) and niced (increased the priority of) MaxMSP all the way and decreased that of the Dock to rock-bottom. If i do this every time i perform with the firebox, it works wonders. Max is therefore more important to the machine than the CPU spikes the firebox causes. Logic does not seem to have to be told that it is most important - i think it acts the same either way, but i have not experimented that much with nicing logic, as realitme performance is not quite as critical there.

I just last night played a concert at a gallery in Provincetown with two other musicians - used my firebox at 256 samples buffer to run my electronically augmented trumpet in MaxMSP and bring in 4 channels of audio in with effects, where some of the channels were played back for realtime effects and recorded and others were just used for the 6 channel recording. We played for 39 min while also recording, and i never noticed any pops or clicks while playing or in the recording (have just done 1st listen through/mix). Because i was pushing the CPU on my powerbook, there prolly were a few clicks during the performance, but they werent noticeable in our cacophony. If they were, they were few and far between. I was very happy with the performance of my firebox. Would NEVER go back to my Mbox, although i did use it for an extra mic preamp last night - just to feed analog to the firebox's 4th input - it was not sending any audio to the computer. It works well like that The mbox might also work nicely as a doorstop with those little penguin wings... no no arvid... remember.....some people still use pro tools....you have to be compatible with them...... haha ok no more inner monologue... hope this post helps!

Posted by: primeclub Thu 28 Jul 2005, 14:41

i know this is a mac forum, but does anybody check the firebox with pc?
just wonder about latency/performance/ect.

and does someone compare it to the edirol fa-66 (same price & features)?

thanks

Posted by: vsmith1 Fri 29 Jul 2005, 10:54

I've noticed that the Firebox changes the processor load, as observed in Activity Monitor, on the kernel_task from about 5% to about 25-30% when the Firebox is plugged in. Just when plugged in - irrespective of what is plugged in any of the ports on the Firebox.

Is this normal? I am running a PowerBook 12" 867MHz G4 and I'm worried about overloading my PB.

Thanks
Vince

Posted by: entfred Fri 29 Jul 2005, 13:51

Further Experiences with Mac Mini and Presonus Firebox

I have gotten a lot of use out of the Presonus Firebox with my Mac Mini.
Garageband works flawlessly except for when I get several tracks going,
the Mac Mini hard drive is too wimpy to handle it and you get this pop
up message from Garageband stating the the disk can't keep up with
the program (I forgot the text of the message).
It doesn't happen all the time, but every so often. But, if you are
recording, say, drums, guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals, you will
probably be ok. I don't know the exact no. of tracks that causes
the Mini Mac hard drive to choke, but this proves that the Mini Mac
is probably not meant for a hard core home studio.

I had these cheesy
disco loops and a drum beat going at the same time, added a guitar
track and a bass track using a keyboard. So, for
just experimenting (doing nothing serious), it sounds like even a 1.25 Mac
Mini is adequate to use for Garageband with the Firebox if you have 1GB
RAM. I suspect that less memory could cause Garageband to choke.

I also have Mini Moog V running and it works good, except the program
appears to have a blip in it every so often, like the Mac Mini is choking
on the processing of the program. But, not really sure what is causing
this. Has anyone used Mini Moog V on the Mac Mini or a Mac lap top?

Again, for experimenting, the Mac Mini works fine with Mini Moog V.
If I was going to be doing some "serious" recording, I would get one
of the high end Macs.

Next thing for me to try is to use Cubase, since I have only used
Garageband. I need to use Cubase because Mini Moog V will not
interface with Garageband, that I know of.

Posted by: brendan Fri 29 Jul 2005, 16:08

If you like GarageBand, you don't necessarily need to switch to Cubase...

You could save a lot of money by simply buying a http://nav.440network.com/out.php?mmsc=forums&url=http://www.fxpansion.com/product-auadapter-main.php for your VST Mini Moog V program, and keep using GarageBand.

Posted by: vsmith1 Fri 19 Aug 2005, 21:15

Yes I've also run the Firebox with a Windows XP machine - Athlon with 512MB memory - seems very nice.

I don't have anything to compare it with,other than the AudioPhile 2496 PCI card. And then that's not a good comparision.

Vince

Posted by: arvidtp Sat 20 Aug 2005, 00:26

try using jack or soundflower (both free) to get to sound of the standalone Minimoog (god bless Moog) direct into Garageband. You could record a MIDI intrument track in garageband an use that free MIDI out plugin for garageband - I think it is called midiO - to send MIDI to the Minimoog program over an internal bus (internal or IAC busses can be created in AudioMIDI Setup on the MIDI panel) Soundflower is easier probably, but i prefer jack - more options, work more consistently in my experience.

This is the kind of thing i do between logic and MaxMSP - a similar concept to rewire, but more flexible.

As for the blip, you can try increasing the buffer size (of course that also increases latency, but this is the tradeoff we all have to play with).

Posted by: vsmith1 Sun 28 Aug 2005, 20:44

I have resolved my issues with the Firebox - I sold my 12" PB 867MHz and bought a 1.67GHz 15" PB!

This behaves much better now, and will probably improve even more once my RAM upgrade arrives.

All I can say is that the minimum spec for my purposes was not a 3 year old PowerBook.

YMMV
Vince

Posted by: Yebot Mon 29 Aug 2005, 17:03

Any chance anyone has tested the Firebox on an older G4 Powermac such as a the Quicksilver/733 ?

Performance?

Posted by: paulnajar Wed 7 Sep 2005, 02:29

Hi All.

I've just joined. I found you guys via a google of Firebox reviews. I'm currently loking at getting one myself - mainly to play my 12" 1GHZ powerbook 768MB ram as a live synth rack running Logic Pro 7.1. And if I'm really lucky (read low enough latency) I'll be able to plug in a mic and do some live vocoding using Evoc20. I've read this thread all the way from the beginning and it all seems pretty doable. Just a few questions for the group.

About the most demanding thing I do is play an EXS24 full with about a gigabyte of VSL string samples through a space designer. Logic's CPU meter looks to run about 75% when I do this. I've been using the PB without an interface and have been happy playing Logic's instruments at 128 sample buffer. Is it reasonable to think I can still work at the same buffer using the FireBox?

Can Logic address the 10 FireBox physical outputs freely from within Logic itself?

Now a few Q's about the FireBox mixer.

I downloaded the mixer SW and it appears that there are only one stereo pair from the audio program (Logic in my case) to the FireBox mixer. Is this correct or have I missed something?

Does the FireBox mixer application allow me to set up different levels of it's physical inputs to it's different physical outputs?

Is the FireBox midi working well?

It's been very hard to find real world information on the FireBox. Thanks in advance for your help.

Kind regards

Posted by: arvidtp Wed 7 Sep 2005, 03:24

you might want to turn the buffer up a notch to 256 for that on the Firebox, cause it is a little less efficient than the built-in card - but that is understandable, as the computer is sending audio out at a higher bit-rate to more channels.

Yeah - you just set the output of a track to the output(s) u want it to come out of. But there are really only 8 - the two for the headphone will mirror another set of two (usually the main outs, you cant send stuff specifucally to the headphones out and not anywhere else) and two of the remaining 8 outs are SPDIF keep in mind. But that's still 3 pairs of analog outs.

The Mixer: The switch for the stero pair just allows you to send what would normally go to outs 1&2 to any other pair - for use with software like iTunes that has no way to configure which outputs to use and therefore just always sends to outs 1&2. Logic etc accesses the other outputs directly.

Yeah - the mixer will let you set levels for the near-zero latency monitoring that happens directly in the box. It will not let you attenuate input levels, however. This is done with knobs for inputs 1&2 and inside logic or whatever software for other inputs. Plus the firebox control panel software lets you boost any input by +12dB (within the hardware).

MIDI has been working great for me on my firebox. Never had any problems with it.

I think you will like the firebox. I also like the idea of buying from a smaller company like presonus, rather than some m-audio/digidesign/avid conglomerate. best of luck.

Posted by: rickenbacker Wed 7 Sep 2005, 13:22

Yeah, what he said. Particularly the last bit about PreSonus. I think the little guys try harder, simply because they don't have the marketing millions to put a glossy spin on an otherwise pretty crappy product, like some companies I could mention. Instead, they have to make a knockout product and hope that its quality wins through. The FireBox is definitely a quality product.

Posted by: paulnajar Fri 9 Sep 2005, 01:09

Thanks for the replies chaps.

I actually got to try out the M-Audio Firewire 410 and the MOTU Traveller yeaterday. Both installed very easily. I booted logic and loadeds my live synth rack song with the audio buffer set to 128 and started to play my keyboard.

Well the MOTU Traveller performed beautifully and sounded great. No clicks or popos either. With my big string sample instrument through the Space designer that I mentioned in my original post the audio meter was at about 80% - a little bit higher than with the built in audio outputs.

The 410 did not do so well. It's sound was muddy and less defined and there wsere clicks and opos all ove rthe place. Even when I upped the buffer the 256 samples there were still a few clicks.

I'm yet to try the FireBox and I know the Traveller is significantly more expensive but it certinally did perform well. I don't need all the in's & outs of course. I can only hope the FireBox performs as well.

I'll keep you posted

Regards

Posted by: MoonDark Fri 16 Sep 2005, 16:03

Anyone using the FireBox with Mac oS tiger 10.4.2 ??? I would love to hear about that

Posted by: twits celso Fri 16 Sep 2005, 16:55

I am. And I've had a few problems. Sometimes it gets very crackly, even if recording at 44.1. I have to try changing settings back and forth in Audio/MIDI or even restarting to get rid of it. This didn't use to happen in 10.3.8.

Not sure what the deal is, but it's quite annoying at times. I have always managed to get it to go away, however--eventually.

Posted by: grassbro Sat 17 Sep 2005, 06:24

I have been using it (brand new one) for a week and only in Final Cut, it cracks a lot...

Posted by: arvidtp Sat 17 Sep 2005, 06:44

Thats weird.

what do you guys have your buffer sizes set to? Mine works great, but again, i'm not using tiger. But I used mine with Final Cut 4.5 on a computer running Panther and it worked just fine, except FCP (like some other software) only sees one mono output for the firebox, not stereo, in the prefernces. Despite that, it played back fine and in stereo.

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Thu 29 Sep 2005, 08:08

Hey
so anyone can you answer this?
sorry if any of these questions have been answered else where,or seem redundant.
I was recording a friend w 3 tracks and had 2 mics and one DI from a guitar.
one vocal, mic one guitar mic, and one Di guitar.
so it was very weird I got these strange digi buzzes and "devil"sounds (her words not mine) when trying to record and have the monitor selected in cubaseLe (bundled with it). I beleive these were similar sounds as tbirdwilson repported on July 10. once we turned off the monitor enable button it (mostly) recorded fine however we could not see the "actual" levels,just the wave form being written.
I am still vey new to OSX less than a year...
I have been a Mac OS 6 & 7 & 8 & 9 user for a while
and was using OS 9 for a few years....
I know we used to be abelto allocate more memory to a progam in OS 8 & 9 by using the get info command [apple]+ [I] but now in OSX there is now way to allocate the memory gain,or is there?

I alsohad this weird thing happen when I recorded Los Lobos in Albany OR
the samesortof glitchy noisesbut only in the right channel,digi noise,when I move the fire boxfromverticleto horizontal (fomin my back pack to on mu back pack) and also turned the gain down on channels 1& 2 (lower than I would have normally have my record levels set) the glitcheyness seemed to disapear???? may be?
pwer haps the hard drive in my ibook is too slow? (i think it'sonly 4500rpm,as opposed to my 7200rpm external firewire drive)
I have also notice when using the SPDIF in as the sync,I get some sort of strange digi noise too....

any ideas?


is there a better program?
is anyone using garage band withthe Firebox?
any luck?

thanx
again
you all are always so helpful!

I just wish I could select multiple outsin the mixer like NO radio buttons.
why can't I have outs 1 & 2 + the Spdif out going together,so I have two output feeds of the same mix or even alternative mixes? that would be super cool!

later
-- Ian

Posted by: grassbro Thu 29 Sep 2005, 15:12

:edit:

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Sun 9 Oct 2005, 23:06

Ok
I thinkI answered my own problem...
got the digi sync to work
I was used to using my EgoSys WaveTerminal 2496 which has a builtin "on the fly" sample rate converter!
the firebox does not!
so when transfering a DAT younot only need to besure that the adio midi set up is set to the correct Khz (in one case 48k) and that when using Cubase that the project is set to 16 bit 48khz...
so...
I have yet to try this but it is possibly where the problems are in weird noises...???
if Cubase is not set to 24 bit,say its project set up is only set at 16bit then the firebox which is only 24 bit woun't record right in cubase...make sense?
anyone??
I know when I had problems I was actually tryinhg to sync to the firebox
but my cubase project wasset at 16 bit...a bitstream mis match. is thsi true?
so should I assume when using the firebox I always have to have cubase set to record in 24bit,unless using the SPDIF in sysnc to a 16 bit source?

I think this is right
any input?

thanx
but I now have successfully ued my fiirebox to transfer some old 16bit 48khz DAT masters with no glitches! whoooohooooo!

thanx
-- Ian

Posted by: groovey Sun 16 Oct 2005, 22:26

I just finally got myself a FireBox and my my I do like this thing... Been fooling around with it for two days now using my iBook G4/800 and everything seems to be well. And the audio comes out in such a nice quality! Why did I wait for so long... This thread has been quite useful. Thank you all.

Posted by: honhim Tue 18 Oct 2005, 17:26

Hi guys, I am new to firebox. I would really like to know if it can direct output 5.1 when playback DVD. What software for mounting the channel? It seems can seperate out pairs of channel but not for all 3 pairs at the same time. Thanks.

Regards,
honhim

Posted by: paulnajar Wed 19 Oct 2005, 00:45

Youn can only address the FireBox direct outs from the host program if it supports that. For DVD playback across 6 channels the dvd player software has to decode the AC3 or DTS stream first (very rare) and then send each channel to the various outputs. Addressing multiple outs is easy. On the Mac OSX I know of no dvd player SW that decodes the 5.1 streams. Perhaps Windows is different....

Posted by: honhim Wed 19 Oct 2005, 17:17

Thanks, I have tried in window. there is signal send to each of the channels. However, i have no idea to play all the channel at the same time. The firebox mixer is restricted to output 2 channels only, any other suggestions ?

Posted by: miaba Mon 21 Nov 2005, 21:52

Another firebox question: this unit is advertised to have two mic-pres and two line-ins. does this mean 4 tracks of simultanious recording or two?

Posted by: groovey Mon 21 Nov 2005, 22:02

It should mean 6, as it also has s/pdif i/o. Haven't tried that one yet, but those four you meant surely work without any problems at all.

Posted by: rickenbacker Tue 22 Nov 2005, 13:28

As it says on the PreSonus website: six inputs, 10 outputs simultaneously.

Posted by: Hearandnow Wed 23 Nov 2005, 15:41

I have one. It took me a lot longer than I expected to get a feel for it. I am running Logic Exress and the Cubase SE version that comes with the Firebox on a 2 GHz Dual G5 with OSX 10.4.3. The biggest problem I have come across so far is the need for a dedicated preamp. I run pretty hot electronic field production mics (Sennheiser 416T, Sennheiser Evolution Wireless, AKG C1000S) and I have to do pretty much everything in my power to beef up the signal. The Firebox comes with a plugin preamp called the Firebox Control that gives you 12db of gain boost, but it's a pretty noisy plugin. Overall I am pretty happy with the simple functionality of the Firebox, but internal preamps would have been worth another 100 bucks. Fortunately most of my use of the Firebox will be accepting a line out to a PSC DV Promix 3 field mixer which has a notoriously hot line out.
Hope this helps a little.

Ben Campbell
High Noon Productions
www.YourNextVideo.com

Posted by: rickenbacker Wed 23 Nov 2005, 16:38

The preamps in the FireBox are OK, but nothing will beat a dedicated mic preamp. Consider spending either twice the price of the FireBox on a much higher spec all-in-one interface or spend the same price of the FireBox on an external preamp. I personally use the FMR Audio Really Nice Preamp and it blows the bundled preamps away on my old MOTU 828 and the FireBox. I only use inputs 3 and 4 on my FireBox now, taking the output from the RNP. I also have a JoeMeek VC3, which again is probably a better-quality preamp than those in the FireBox.

Not that there's ANYTHING suspect about the FireBox preamps - they're perfectly decent. Can't beat a dedicated "straight wire with gain" type standalone analogue preamp, though.

Posted by: miaba Wed 23 Nov 2005, 23:04

Has anyone found a way to route i-tunes through the firebox's main outs?

Posted by: rickenbacker Thu 24 Nov 2005, 12:27

Audio MIDI Setup will take care of that. Set Default Output to PreSonus FireBox.

Posted by: miaba Fri 25 Nov 2005, 15:41

I'm realizing presonus' "6 in simultaneous inputs" don't mean anything for firewire users. Line inputs are wired to their respected outs and do not travel through fire wire. This means if you already have a midi usb connector, and have no need for spif, this box is only good for two mic pre's.

Posted by: rickenbacker Sat 26 Nov 2005, 19:17

I'm not entirely sure what you're driving at here, but the FireBox has four analogue inputs. Yes, only two of them have mic preamps, but there's still two spare analogue inputs round the back. If you have another mic preamp, for instance, you can run the outs of that into 3 and 4 on the FireBox. Voila - four mic lines in. Plus two digital.

Posted by: miaba Mon 28 Nov 2005, 20:49

What i was getting at with that last post was my inability, or lack of knowledge, to get the analogue line inputs to track seperately or at all through the firewire cable into logic. Have you done this?

Posted by: rickenbacker Mon 28 Nov 2005, 21:24

Do you mean record a unique analogue signal on inputs 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the FireBox? Like, one singer, one acoustic guitar, one piano and one flute? Wouldn't selecting the respective inputs in Logic on each specific track do this for you? So you'd go the vocal track in Logic and select input 1 in that channel strip, go to the guitar track and select input 2 and so on. I believe that should work, but I'm happy to be proved wrong.

Posted by: arvidtp Mon 28 Nov 2005, 22:04

Thats how I do it!

Posted by: homebilly Wed 30 Nov 2005, 03:50

so i have 2 fireboxes and i forgot my powersupply for both.,

can anybody please read me what is written on the powersupply so i can buy a
new one while i'm out of the country?

i need the info like (as much as possible)

voltage
- inside
+ outside or vice versa

that kind of stuff.
i emailed presonus but they said to look for a 16v AC adapter and i can't find one
and i know that it will work with a DC adapter.



I love my 2 FBs. they are sturdy, sound great and work fantastic with a Mac. My problem
is with the flakey firewire ports on the new iMac (isight)

I have the 2 boxes midied together over 2 macs and one is outputting into the other
so i can run Digital Performer on my main Mac and Kontakt 2 playing BIG libraries
on the othert Mac and hear it back on the DP Mac

Posted by: grassbro Wed 30 Nov 2005, 20:12

on the AC:

Model:A41510C
AC ADAPTER
CLASS 2 TRANSFORMER
INPUT: 120VAC 60Hz 23W
OUTPUT: 16VAC 1000mA

Posted by: miaba Thu 1 Dec 2005, 00:14

Rickenbacker, when i highlight record on all odd numbered tracks i get input from mic input one of firebox but not from any of the line inputs. I am new to logic and haven't had much time to "dig around under the hood" so maybe i have things routed incorrectly. As you said, I'd be happy to be proven wrong because I sure would like to get the most out of this hot little box

Posted by: homebilly Thu 1 Dec 2005, 00:42

thanks Grassbro

i was hoping that it was a 12v dc transformer

i have some help coming from Presonus.

BTW i have 2 boxes taliking to each other with SPDIF
wit no problems

digital performer one one mac triggering kontakt 2 on another
with K2 coming back into DP via SPDIF on an aux fader.

works great

just remember that outputs 7 & 8 are SPDIF
and inputs 5 & 6 are SPDIF

ron

Posted by: arvidtp Thu 1 Dec 2005, 05:10

Did i miss something - are u running them off computers with 4-pin firewire ports? Or do the firewire ports on iMac not give correct power? You know that the firebox is bus powered from any 6-pin firewire port (all the ones on macs to my knowledge have always been 6-pin - many PC laptops have 4-pin firewire), right?

best,

Posted by: johnnyboy Thu 1 Dec 2005, 09:41

I've had the firebox now for about 2 weeks, I've found it to be satisfactory for my needs. I have a IMac G5 512 RAM (going to upgrade to 1 Gig), I'm using to with a midi keyboard, guitar, and vocals. Some of the things on it were a little hard to get used to at first, but once I got the hang of it, it works pretty good. Mine came with the manual gitgeezer linked to, but it really isn't clear about the use of the software mixer. This program really allows you to get rid of the latency problems, once you get all the settings right. I'm using garage band right now, wanting to move up to logic, but it works fine with garage band. vocal and guitar pre amps are nice, the guitar preamp seems to be a little quiet, but better than the us 122 I had before. the wiring harness that comes with it is really handy, has a midi in and out, so you can chain, with s/pdif and all, it has all the basic stuff to just plug it in and play. I had one problem when I first connected with the syncing, I had to call tech support but they were really quick with the answer. I'm just an amateur at this, so I don't know if you're looking for a review that comes from a pro, but thats my input

Posted by: rickenbacker Thu 1 Dec 2005, 12:05

Miaba - so you want to record on tracks 1, 3 and 5, say. In Logic, each track has a channel strip, right? This is the vertical strip that appears at the bottom left-hand side of the Arrange page (the main view in Logic). Each time you select a track, this view should change to reflect the selected track. However, you can also click the Record buttons of a track using the R button on the track name itself - the numbered horizontal boxes that the wave form is associated with. If you did this, the channel strip sometimes doesn't change. One of Logic's little idyosyncracies…

Anyway, with the FireBox, input 1 and 2 are the mix inputs and inputs 3 and 4 are the line inputs. So if in any track's channel strip you select input 1 as the input, you'll be getting a signal from the FireBox's first mic preamp. If you select input 3, you'll be getting a signal from the FireBox's first line in jack.

If you want to select any input at any time (and this is true of any interface with Logic, not just the FireBox), you've got to do this from the relevant channel strip for the track you wish to record on. Recording on Audio Track 9? Click it's box so it goes light grey, head down to the channel strip and under the I/O legend, use the click+hold box to bring up a pop-up selection of all the inputs and outputs your interface offers.

In this case, you'll be offered six possibilities. 1 and 2 are the mic preamps, 3 and 4 the line ins and 5 and 6 the digital. Pick whichever one you want. Similarly, the box below contains your interface's output options - four stereo pairs with the FireBox. The Bus option in Output refers to Logic's internal mixer - you might, for instance, want to send all the drum tracks or vocal tracks to a single bus for group treatment or better overall level control.

That's all there is to it. Sincere apologies if any of this was blindingly obvious to you, but it seems to me that this is the answer you need. I just tested it myself and it worked - audio was recorded simultaneously from input 1 and input 3 in Logic.

Posted by: miaba Thu 1 Dec 2005, 22:14

rickenbacker- many thanks, this was just the info i've been searching for!
With a little more experimentaion I may have more answers than questions, but for now I will busy enjoying all of these new posssibilities.
To anyone else I'm happy to say for the price, compactibility, quality, and flexibility, the firebox is as hot as the name implies. Thanks again!

Posted by: homebilly Sun 4 Dec 2005, 11:20

i'm running them off of 6 pin FW from the back of the iMac. they are at best flakey and tempermental.
so run fine as long as i don't need to add any other FW device. if i do i have to unplug the firebox and
use that cable to run the HD. at that point it's a crap shoot whether the FB will work again without resetting the FW
ports on the iMac.


Grassbro is it you that built the battery pack for the Firebox?

other than that the boxes worrk GREAT! not like that POS Mbox.

ron

Posted by: johnnyboy Mon 5 Dec 2005, 00:24

yeah, I have some complaints with the Imac firewire port, I have the newest one too, and it can be tempermental with the firebox, sometimes I have to unplug and plug it back in to get it to sync with the Imac

Posted by: homebilly Mon 5 Dec 2005, 09:30

johnnyboy, this is what i found on the apple site for
resetting the FW ports

Shut down your computer, unplug everything

Let it rest for 15 mins.

Plug the powercord back in, monitor, USB keyboard/mouse.

Start up the computer.

When full booted, plug in all external devices.

Posted by: homebilly Fri 9 Dec 2005, 11:14

the FB plugged into a powered belkin FW hub has seemed to do the trick.
no more problems in about a week related to the iMac FW bus

Posted by: arvidtp Mon 6 Mar 2006, 21:52

Hi all!

I just bought a new firewire 800 drive for my powerbook from OWC (Mercury elite aluminum 250GB FW800/400) and now the firebox keeps dropping out of sync after starting up or waking up the machine when the external FW800 drive is on and plugged in. What pain in the arse!

Whenever the drive tries to access itself for the first time, the firebox will pop and the light will go red and the lose sync. Sometimes resetting the sample rate in AMS will fix it, but sometimes its needs to be unplugged and replugged. If the drive is switched off, nothing goes wrong. Similarly, it is only the 1st time after startup or wakeup the drive accesses or writes data that causes the firebox the drop out - before that it is always fine.

Once unplugged and replugged, the firebox will be fine until I either sleep or shut down the computer. Then its same problem all over again. I never had this problem before I got the drive.

I know that both the FW 800 and 400 ports on the powerbook are on the same bus , so i tried powering the firebox from the AC adapter - but no change. I have not yet tried different combinations of the drive and the firebox in daisy chaining, but that would be crummy because then I lose the speed of Firewire 800 for the drive, and i could have paid something like $50 less for it but maybe with the firewire ports on the powerbook being on the same bus, I am already loosing the extra FW 800 speed?? I hope not.

I'm going to try different daisychainings and also try and see if it happens in Tiger. i'm running panther for most stuff, but have tiger on my external drive [thanks to that little but devastating bug between logic 6.4 and tiger! rrrrrr].

Anyone have any suggestions?

Posted by: arvidtp Tue 7 Mar 2006, 19:34

Ok - more info about my problem above... - it seems to work fine if the drive is daisy chained through the firebox --- with FW400 all the way through.

Maybe its something about having both 400 and 800 on the same bus (because its bad also when the drive is the first the chain with FW800 connecting to the powerbook). So I lose FW800 speed. Oh well - i could have saved $30 and bought a FW 400 drive, but hey, maybe the FW800 connection will come in handy in the future, or when i use the drive to do video the university's G5s. Just glad I've gotten it all to work in some fashion.

And one less connection I have to take out of the side of my 'book whenever i pack it up.

Posted by: UP Multimedia Wed 8 Mar 2006, 14:47

Smart $30.00 investment... Would have only used it on beer or something... Ooops... Better be careful don't want to start the Alcohol 'Protest' again... I don't remember who it was but I have named him, "Alcohol Free Whine"... Oh no I didn't?!

King

Posted by: Pulgar Sat 18 Mar 2006, 07:03

I very nerarly pulled the trigger on the Firebox today(it's very cute), but held back on one issue, and i'm hoping someone here can advise......

Scenario:

If I route 2 channels from the F.rite green->RNC to line inputs 3 and 4 respectively, can the combo input jacks on the front of the F.box(either of them) comfortably accept an unbalanced input from my Joe Meek channel strip, or ART tube pack without overloading?
I'm quite happy with these four channels of pre, and was concerned that I wouldn't be able to route them all through the Firebox simulatneously. The guy at the store couldn't advise, and they have no return policy unless faulty. MOTU is double the cost(although it seems the more 'pro' option), and the equivalent Metric Halo is around $2500 Aus. which is a hell of a lot for a first taste. Then there's the Firepod, same price as the MOTU.

Anyway, if anybody has tried this, could you please let me know how you got on?

cheers...

Posted by: Pulgar Sat 18 Mar 2006, 07:13

I may have answered my own question after visiting the PS website and perousing the Manual...

Sounds like a NO to me.

I'm still interested in anybody's experiences though.....

cheers...

Posted by: Pulgar Sat 25 Mar 2006, 23:55

BTW, (sorry to keep feeding this thread) has anyone with a Firebox simultaneously used the Mic. ins, Line-ins and SPDIF-ins to record 6 channels at once ?

cheers...

Posted by: SadPandas Thu 30 Mar 2006, 19:54

arvidtp,
Im super bummed at your findings with the firewire800 drive and the firebox. I was hoping to use the 800 drive to write to while using the firebox hoping the 800 speed would be faster than using my enternal 100gig 5400rpm drive on my powerbook. boooo. anyway, i guess i could, like you, use the 400 when doing the musics and the 800 when using final cut. Have you gotten ay further with the drive situation or are you still at 400?
p

Posted by: Pulgar Thu 30 Mar 2006, 23:27

I'll jump in here, I eventually went and got the Firebox and have been using it with my LaCie 250g FW800 drive......and so far, so good ! (touch wood)
The Firebox is running off the bus power of the FW 400, and the Ext. drive plugged into the 800. No sync problems at all, seems to be running as it should.
I can't really say that I feel a sense of awesome bus speed or anything, it just works as I expect it to. I'm using Garage band so far, I've heard it's a CPU hog but that seems happy enough too. I haven't recorded with more than 3 mics. at once yet, I'll try at least 4 this weekend. BTW, for those that may have their own Pre's that they wish to use, I've found that I CAN run an unbalanced line into the front combo jacks. Getting very good results too.
I'm starting to think though that a G4/G5 tower in the studio would be something to head towards. By the time you un-plug and bag up your Laptop, accessories, harddrive, pre amps mics and all the cables ( and mine's mostly rack-mounted), and then set it all back up again,the 'portability' diminishes. The one cool think about my harddrive (fostex D160) system is that there was ALWAYS a mic. patched in...when inspiriation struck i merely flipped the power switch and hit the red button- there's a lot to be said for that.

Time will tell, but so far so good.....

cheers...

Posted by: SadPandas Thu 30 Mar 2006, 23:35

Pulgar,
Thanks so much for the wuick reply, that is exactly the set up i would like to do as well. the firebox in the 400 and the external drive to the 800 port. I have been looking at http://nav.440network.com/out.php?mmsc=forums&url=http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-DRIVE.cfm from Graid to use as my external. Any other suggestions? Thanks again Pulgar for the info. i was a bit bummed when i read that arvidtp was having problems getting this to work. I use the Cubase LE that came with the Firebox and i really do enjoy using it. Its really simple and stable (wood knockings abound). We use Digital Performer in our studio and did our last record with Pro Tools HD. My little powerbook setup is for my little home set up and i use the pod xt pro to do simple guitar structures for suongs and flushing out ideas.... long winded? me? anyway, thanks!

Posted by: miscellany Fri 31 Mar 2006, 13:55

Hi,

I am having noise issues with my new firebox, but have nothing to use as a "benchmark" to compare this noise to, except my old Roland UA-30.

I am trying to determine if my firebox noise is normal or someething wrong. I have swapped the unit at the dealer, but things still sound noisy to me. (I am using a g4 ibook 1.2ghz, os 10.4.5)

can anybody tell me..

1. how noisy is the headphone amp. If i am not monitoring anything, the noise floor comes in at 12 oclock, and gets very noisy very quickly from there.

headphone amp aside

2. if I have the headphones set to one quarter (nine oclock)) and monitor a track in cubase LE, (or listen to to inputs directly through MAx/MSP) there is noise (hiss with high pitch on top,) at a just acceptable (though still unexpected) level. Now if I turn the +12 gain on in the firebox control, this noise is unacceptably load. The noise is identical for line in (3+4) and mic in (1+2)

3. this noise records to track

4. is the +12 gain on the firebox control noisy by nature? Is the noise I am hearing in general something that is inherent in the firebox?

I used to use a roland ua-30 and had almost no noise floor under similar conditions

It seems from the various threads on the firebox there are some people who seem to get this noise and others who have not??

any advice is appreciated

turning "NAP"off helps only a little with the high pitch noise on top, not with the hiss at all. This is also the second firebox I have tried, having swapped the first at my dealer.

thanks for an informative thread, and for any advice
andrew

Posted by: grassbro Fri 31 Mar 2006, 15:32

I'm using the firebox for 5 months now, and it's great. Answering miscellany above: Yes, if i don' have any input, the noise on the phones starts at about 2 o'clock, but if I have a normal input level, i would damage my ears at that point. the level is too loud there.

Now, if i plug a pair of Neumann's KM 184, the mics noise come in, plus the cables and the box pres noise... Depending on the level of the source, that noise gets completely covered.

What i can tell for sure is that the Firebox selfnoise is lower than those mics (each one costing 3x the box).

Using a very good mic pre the sound gets better, but in warmth, not really in noise.

The only difficulty I really have to deal with this setup is accoustics.
that's never cheep.

I hope that clarifies a bit the noise issue.

Posted by: emgcarra Sat 1 Apr 2006, 17:30

Hey fellas... That kind of noise start at US$ 500.00 and goes down under...
That´s the difference between those devices and a "pro quality", "very expensive" fancy device, such as Apogee, Milenia, Focusw.....and the like
So, we have to live with it or upgrade....or go back to an out-of-the-room studio facility....I mean, that´s what I ´ve learned...

Posted by: SadPandas Sat 1 Apr 2006, 23:52

I wonder if that new MOTU 'Ultrtalite' i think its called has the same noise issues... I have a strtange hum from my firebox as well butt i just tthought it was the old wiring in tthe house as well as everythting thats plugged into the sockets in the room i record in... ohh well, its justt for scratch ideas and sttuff so im not too bothered by it.

pna
ads

Posted by: SadPandas Sun 2 Apr 2006, 09:17

I can't edit the above post so, ill just explain to you that lately, my 't' key on my keyboard is way too sensitive as of late so when i post something quickly sometimes i get things like this "tt". Its double and triple 't'ing me!

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Tue 16 May 2006, 06:47

ok
so pops n clicks (like a vinyl lp)
DO I NEED A new larger faster, Hard drive?
I have been recording wtih my Firebox for about 1 year now...
I usually use the Cubase LE that was bundled with it
on my iBook G4 1.2Ghz 1.25GB Ram the small 30GB HD is partitioned into 2 roughly halfs, the main drive with software and OSX
System Version: Mac OS X 10.3.9 (7W98)
Kernel Version: Darwin 7.9.0

I have been somtime getting pops and crackles
I do not know if it is a softweare proiblem or hardware,or onthought
is
the HardDricve is too slow? could this be
I am thinking of getting a 60or 80Gb 7200rpm HD installed,and once again partitionting this

before I record on location I clean partion 2 so there is over 10 gb to write to
I use techtool pro 4 to check both partitions for issues and optimize both fox any problems and then also run diskwarrior to fix directories then even use Disc Utility to repair permissions

then I ma ready to go
I have also used my external firewire OWC neptune 160GB 7200 rpm HD to record to
with the firebox both infront and at the end fo the firewire chain

I have had varied sussesses,and some not so sucesses...
usually I record 24/44.1
Iwhen just uing the 2 mic pres, most often it works
and when I use 2 mics and 2 line ins to record 4 channels
it often gets pops,but this has happened with the 2 channels too

any Ideas?
orsuggestions?

the real question is steping up to a 7200rpm internal HD gonna help?

thanx so much
-- Ian
PS I wish there was a way for ME to cotrol the line ins,whan I do not have control of the signal, without having to use the Firebox control or mixer,which while recording causes CUbas to stop recording... usually this is bacaus ethe was not chance to sound check
and ther is either clippingor
very low levels/signalon the line ins...
any other suggestions?

Posted by: arvidtp Tue 16 May 2006, 08:37

no - a faster hard drive does not sound like something that would help(i have a similar speed machine and always record to the internal drive, even 6 chan at a time). The firebox does have the problem of occasionally making lots of clicks and pops, in which case you go into audioMIDI Setup and switch the sample rate to something else, then switch it back again - problem solved. It happens to be about one every 2 weeks, but I move my gear around a lot and unplug and plug-in the firebox often.

How many inputs you use should not have much to do with it, because I think the interface is always streaming the data from all 6 ins to the computer, no matter which you are using to record at any one time, even if that data is all zeros.

More intermittent clicks and pops can happen when your Processor is working too hard - which can happen easily on a G4 laptop if you are using a lot of realtime effects or processes, or have other processing intense programs running in the background.

Also I dont know how reliable Cubase is - have not used it. But i assume it is reliable. For all of my location recording I use a custom little app i made in MaxMSP that launches in a jiffy (from a key command in Quicksilver), records up to 8 tracks at any sample or bit rate with the click of one button, and has always worked. That is unless i need to overdub - then the monster logic it is.

I'm actually thinking of making a better, nicer version of that little recording app and posting it on my website - give Boomrecorder or whatever that similar program is that costs so much a run for its money with a free MaxMSP app...

About controlling the levels on the line-ins: if you cant do a sound check, bring the signal level in at a really low level - lower than you think. The firebox is a pretty quiet interface, and if u record at 24 bit, you have A LOT of gain u can apply before getting digital artifacts by reducing your effective bitdepth below 16 bits. Its 2^24 amplitude possibilities - thats 16777216 - and CDs only store 65536. If my calculations are correct, you should be able to raise the gain of a 24-bit signal by 256 times before you are getting to only 16 effective bits of data. Thats 768dB! (i think) - of course the noise floor of the firebox is not THAT good, but give yourself some room is what i say. Someone tell me if my calculations are incorrect - I'm not looking any of this up After thinking about that out a while ago I have always used 24 bit . The file size is only 1.5x, but the data precision is 256x! Isn't it beautiful? hahahaaa - ok i'm too tired.

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Fri 19 May 2006, 18:42

arvidtp
thanx
but if I go into AudioMidi Setup and change the sample rate is this something I have to do evey time?
the pops and clicks I speak of are not heard while mionitoring thru the headphoines...
while I have experienced major clicks and digi noize ,more what I would describe as zaps! thsi was fixed by using the AM setup to change the smaple rate like you mentioned...
I usually record bands live on location at shows,I have no control of when they start and stop, occasionally I will also be the sound engineer,though thisis quite rare
often I can not sound check the micpres are never a problem for me, as I can adjust and generally know whenrfe they should be set, as for the other ins every soundbord is different with difernet leverls and different outs, no control there...

any how I can not tell when recording if I get poos of clicks until later...
any suggestions?
also if some one or other recording device is patched out of the maine line outs they get a clean (no pops or clicks)... this is whay I thought it could be the HD speed?

Is ther a way to have the out put go to both SPDIF and Main Line outs, ineffect getting a didg out and an analog out? I have not firureged out any way to do this, its one or the other,is this true?

is there any software that would stiull keep recordinhg int the background , when going to chanage the Audio midi set up, FireBoc Control or the Firebox mixer?



thanx for any input
peace
-- Ian

Posted by: arvidtp Sun 22 Oct 2006, 02:48

No - just when the firebox goes spastic and u get the 'rice krispies sound'! More intermittent clicks sounds like something to do with high CPU usage. Check Activity Monitor.

>> the pops and clicks I speak of are not heard while mionitoring thru the headphoines...

Probably because u are monitoring direct inside the box (with the firebox mixer software) so that is not going into the computer yet, so it will never have pops. Pops are a computer thing generally.

>> any how I can not tell when recording if I get poos of clicks until later...
any suggestions?

Yes! Mute the monitoring of all your inputs in the Firebox Mixer software (so u do not hear it through headphones) then turn on the monitoring of the tracks u are recording in your DAW - then there is a little bit of delay (based on your buffer settings) and you are listening through the computer and whatever you hear there should be exactly what is going to disk. Also, make sure the clicks and pops actually are recorded - ie play the same section over and over and make sure its always in the same place, or open the actual audio file in another app like quicktime player and play the same part back to check...

>> also if some one or other recording device is patched out of the maine line outs they get a clean (no pops or clicks)... this is whay I thought it could be the HD speed?

No - that is probably again because this output is from the Firebox's internal mixer, not the computer. Most DAWs anyway will post an error when the hard-drive is too slow, not just have dropouts. I know Logic and Pro Tools both do that.

>> Is ther a way to have the out put go to both SPDIF and Main Line outs, ineffect getting a didg out and an analog out? I have not firureged out any way to do this, its one or the other,is this true?

Yes - but you must use your DAW or some other software to route the audio within the computer from the inputs to outputs 7 and 8 (ie some bus sends to an aux output track or something within your DAW). Again - there will be a little bit of monitoring delay in this because u are going through the computer.


>> is there any software that would stiull keep recordinhg int the background , when going to chanage the Audio midi set up, FireBoc Control or the Firebox mixer?

Dont know - would have to test. In my experience clicks that i hear due to CPU overload generally do not appear in recorded audio because the audio stream is written to disk as a higher priority than the playback audio being computed.

Posted by: hahaworld Sun 22 Oct 2006, 03:09

Hi, emgcarra!

Which of the high end audio firewire interfaces do you recommend the most? I'm 'bout ready to fling my Firebox as far as I can sling it. I've sent it back to them three times now to fix the short in the volume knob, and they've sent it back three times telling me nothing's wrong with it. Thanks for your advice!

HaHaWorld

Posted by: groovey Sun 22 Oct 2006, 11:46

Sorry to hear you're having such nasty problems. So far I'm pretty satisfied. My friend has the RME Fireface 800 and is most pleased with it. I guess the mic pre's are also on a bit different level than the FB's. The one interface I'm interested to be bying next, is the MOTU Ultralite. Seems quite sweet to me with a pretty decent price tag too.

Posted by: hahaworld Mon 23 Oct 2006, 05:30

Thanks for the input, my friend! I appreciate the advice.

HaHaWorld

Posted by: groovey Tue 24 Oct 2006, 17:09

If you meant my post, by all means you're welcome! It's nice to be of any help...

I guess the things that are worth paying for are exactly the mic pre's and the A/D converters, which seem to have quite a big say when dealing with digital recordings. I guess that's exactly where RME and MOTU shine. Good luck!

Posted by: rickenbacker Thu 26 Oct 2006, 10:46

And where Metric Halo shines even brighter

Posted by: groovey Thu 26 Oct 2006, 10:59

Guess I don't have to ask what interface you are on. Really wish I could try such out. Apogee's products might also keep it's sides in this run.

Posted by: mechcon Fri 27 Oct 2006, 14:00

I'm actually going to pick up a firebox tomorrow, and I got a powerbook g4 1.67ghz w/ os 10.4.8, 2gb ram, and I mainly use Reason 3.0.5 and Live 6.0.1

and I'll tell you how it goes

Posted by: mechcon Sat 28 Oct 2006, 06:26

Alrighty... its all plugged in, and sadly... I find that Reason and Live seems to be a bit slower.. and I dont know what I did different except dropping the sample rate from 512 (which i used on the built-in audio) to 256..

Posted by: hahaworld Sat 28 Oct 2006, 13:21

DON'T DO IT!

The Firebox has given me lots of grief on my Quad G5. The volume knob keeps shorting out, and very often I have to re-enable Core Audio because it quits communicating with my Mac. I don't recommend the Firebox at all. Read some of the other posts here and go with MOTU or some other more reliable and higher-end interface.

Cheers!
HaHaWorld

Posted by: mechcon Sat 28 Oct 2006, 19:37

Ive used it for a solid hour, and I've no problems with mine seriously, I think its the daisy-chaining issue, where I've got a firewire hdd, connected to my powerbook, and the firebox is daisychained to the hard drive.. im gonna put usb on the drive, an firewire directly to the firebox and see how i go!

thanks for the warning though

Posted by: don says mac Wed 22 Nov 2006, 17:32

hey,

i'm looking at getting either a firebox or the wee presonus inspire... I think the Inspire will handle whatever I need, but just looking for some advice...

Should I be worried about unbalanced outputs? (Planning on getting KRK RP6's as monitors).

Whatabout daisy-chaining Inspire (or Firebox) to an external FW drive into my MBP?

Anything other quality issues I should be worried about with the Inspire?

Thanks,
Dan

Posted by: mechcon Wed 22 Nov 2006, 21:03

oh before you get a firebox, since you have a macbook pro, you may want to check THIS out, and other folks should too, VERY MAJOR ISSUE!!!

http://nav.440network.com/out.php?mmsc=forums&url=http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=488869&tstart=75

Posted by: don says mac Thu 23 Nov 2006, 16:54

Thanks,

Very interesting... I wonder if the same problem exists with the Inspire.

Posted by: mechcon Thu 23 Nov 2006, 21:04

email presonus and find out

Posted by: don says mac Thu 23 Nov 2006, 23:38

yup, already did so...

Posted by: mechcon Thu 23 Nov 2006, 23:45

let me know about the response as I have a presonus firebox, and contemplating moving to a macbook pro next year!

Posted by: don says mac Tue 28 Nov 2006, 03:03

Presonus never got back in touch with me, but i saw an amazing deal for an Inspire on Craigslist, so I picked it up... works amazing... no need to plug it in either. Powers up fine with the just the firewire...

Posted by: mechcon Tue 28 Nov 2006, 08:59

so what your saying is, you plugged in an inspire into a macbook pro, with no additional power required? awesome! sadly the firebox can't do that, but i'd love to hear people that have had success stories

Posted by: don says mac Tue 28 Nov 2006, 17:10

yup...

didn't have to download anything or install anything, just drag & drop the Presonus app to the desktop... syst prefs & logic pro immediately recognizes it...

Posted by: mechcon Thu 30 Nov 2006, 02:50

excellent! too bad about the firebox then i guess

Posted by: arvidtp Thu 30 Nov 2006, 10:38

Yeah - I'll say... doesnt make me want to do the laptop upgrade I was considering for sometime in the coming year...

Posted by: KingBarbarossa Thu 25 Jan 2007, 01:01

Here my experience with the Firebox:

The first one would not sync on my G5, so I got a new one. This one did, however, I had no sound unless I started the mixer panel and quit it again each time after booting my computer. I wrote to the support about it and they said this was normal...

A short while ago then the Firebox died with smoke coming out the back. It was in use for about 6 months.

A short review, I am afraid, but the Firebox was more of a "Fire-Hazard" to me than an audio interface.

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Sun 27 May 2007, 19:54

I have retired
my Presonus Firebox... may try to sell it or use it as a book end...

I got a MOTU Ultralite, and recorded my first show with it last nite... [Reeble Jar, Blackalicious, and Spearhead at the Cuthbert Amptheatre, Eugene OR] it was great!

it was and has been relativly error free, aside from some original install issues...
but it is solid
and I runs in the background, no glitching even when running Airport, firefox, Azueus w/ multiple bitt torrents up loading and downloading. without using CHUD and nap off
so far it is everything the firebox has not been for me.

no glitchyness...


more later

peace thru music

Posted by: mechcon Sun 27 May 2007, 22:57

I have now a macbook pro, and yeah, I knew the problem would occur on it too with my presonus firebox. till I can afford to get a motu, i'll wait it out, as the firebox is still a damn good interface, its just the only squabble is the initial power-up via firewire only.

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Fri 8 Jun 2007, 05:39

since the Ultralite did not exist when I got my Firebox
I needed to wait
but wished I waited
since the Ultralite is hand down
so much more error free
and easy to use
no turning off Nap w/CHUD
no nothing it just records
and plays in the background

solid

so sorry I wasted 2 + years with my firebox
I believe that Presonus grear works well with windoz PC's
but my experience with MACs and them has proven less than favorable

soon I will try to do a comparison of likes and dislikes
but it is bound to be biased toward the MOTU
sine it works great!

peace
thru music

Posted by: billoetjen Wed 17 Oct 2007, 21:25

Anybody have unusual trouble recording live electric bass through a Firebox?
I'm using an Inspire and I get awful clipping/overdive at even low levels. Thinking of switching to Firebox.

Lemme know.

Bill Oetjen

[EDIT LPM: please do not write your emails in clear in the forums, it's stated in the rules. We don't give up your email, don't give it to spammers! Use the SAFE email link next to the poster's message on the left under his name]

Posted by: mortalengines Thu 18 Oct 2007, 10:22

Before you switch over to a new interface. I gotta ask this question. Are you using the Hi-Z input on your inspire? Does the inspire have a Hi Z input? If not, then you may want to just go out and find a D/I box to run your bass through before going into the inspire. D/I's range anywhere from 50 to 80 dollars US (and maybe cheaper, but you want a good relible one). That would be much cheaper than buying a new interface.


www.myspace.com/mortal_engines

Posted by: Mac Daddy Fri 19 Oct 2007, 06:25

mortalengines. You are right about D/I. It is much better sounding than "Miking" a Bass. I know the "Purest" will have a dozen reasons why a bass sounds better "Miked" but you must take into account how much sound control does the room have, what type of amp, microphone, hum? You eliminate these problems with D/I. Line 6 has excellent Tools for Guitar and Bass. I love the "Live" sound, but not on Recordings unless it has been Recorded at the highest level of control. Bass "Dominates". Period. Bass shake the Elements, imagine what it can do to our little DAW?!

D/I is a good rule in general, you can shape the sound better with software, it's impossible to match the live Bass or Guitar "Live" sound into a computer. Well, nothing is "impossible", but, it takes a "Sonic Engineer with an awsome set-up to Record Bass, properly. You really have a better chance D/I.

Posted by: arvidtp Fri 7 Dec 2007, 02:27

I'm considering getting a MOTU ultralite to replace my firebox (i could still SPDIF-sync and aggregate the two interfaces to make one big interface - so I'm not throwing away the firebox)

So, I have good and bad news about the firebox. I just did a test with it vs. a MOTU traveller that my friend has. I tested preamps and CPU usage:

Preamps:
The MOTU preamps are much quieter. No question. I used a pair of damn nice Danish Pro Audio omni mics (that unfortunately i dont own - their owner said they were ~$1500 a piece) placed right next to each other (they are tiny and fit together on one mic stand), one plugged in the the firebox preamp 1, one into the traveller preamp 1. We recorded drums, acoustic guitar and speech.

It was difficult to hear a difference between the preamps when sound was loud, but when amplifying quiet guitar plucks or chimes from the drumset, you really notice the difference, at least in noise. I cant say much about the sonic quality otherwise, except to say that it was otherwise comparable. First I calibrated the preamps so both gave approximately the same signal level by playing a tone on speakers. Then I normalized sections of the recorded audio of the drums and guitar so that the peak (whatever sound was being used) was the same. The MOTU preamp had much less background noise than that of the firebox. The noise in the firebox preamp sounded very harsh too. Not like tape hiss.


CPU usage:
Well, apple has apparently (in OS 10.4.11) improved their firewire audio drivers, but not completely fixed them.

Now the firebox no longer makes big CPU spikes every 6-10 seconds and in general uses onyl superficially more CPU than the MOTU. But every once in a while - like every 3min, the firebox does still create a big, like 6 sec long CPU spike. I'm skeptical whether this is really caused by the firebox... but I did not see it with the traveller or no interface plugged in. I'm going to continue monitoring the CPU.

I tested idle CPU usage with no audio apps running, and also with a single-track logic pro 8 session loaded, but not playing. I also tested high CPU usage by running an instrument I built in Max/MSP with both interfaces. I used the same buffer size (256 samp, in MaxMSP and Logic) and vector size (256 samp, in MaxMSP) for each interface.

These spikes are in the kernel - the red in activity monitor's CPU history window - not the user space (green) which leads me to believe that they are from the firebox, not from anything I or my user processes are doing.

I didnt get a chance to do the reverb plugins test, so another, real-world test should be done.

Conclusion:
Apple firewire audio driver (and hence firebox) CPU usage is improved in 10.4.11, but not fixed, Preamps on the firebox don't measure up to MOTUs'.

Posted by: ArchivalAudio Fri 7 Dec 2007, 05:25

well
I love my MOTU Ultra lite
hands down much better than the firebox

I am considering getting my Ultralite's
Mic Pres Modded
by Busman Audio
he's found on Taperssection dot com

Chris is a great guy
he does mic and mic pre-mods to a variety of gear

the pres are already better than the ones in the firebox
could use some better op amps

I am glad I got a MOTU Ultralite
still running OSX 10.9

I may part with my firebox cheap...

Posted by: arvidtp Sat 5 Jan 2008, 01:19

I'm with you - just got my Ultralite a few days ago

Used it for a gig the 2nd day I had it and it was flawless. I can run DSP live that I could not with the Firebox - for my band I've been wanting to run a basic session in Logic with reverb (for our vocalist), delay (for my trumpet) and a an EXS24 sampler, at the same time as a rather demanding patch I wrote in Max/MSP for the wireless wind controller I built. With the firebox, I could not get them both to run at once at a reasonable latency without without MaxMSP freezing up and crapping out...

But now with the ultralite, I can suddenly do it on the exact same computer! Congrats MOTU, you rock.

Pres are nice and quiter than the firebox. Also I can turn the main outs all the way up, and jack my amplifier way up, and hardly hear any noise in my speakers! The output is so quiet. And no more whine from Processor Nap - no more need to run a script to turn it off all the time.

The attention to detail in the interface is astounding - from the flash memory with presets for the internal mixer that can be saved either from the computer or the front panel and recalled with or without a computer, to the ability to record back mix 1, which can include the computer's output.

A killer feature for me is the ability to clock-sync through coreaudio - the MOTU can grab its clock from ANY coreaudio interface connected to your mac, without connecting via S/PDIF or any other physical connection! This is awesome for aggregate devices, as you are no longer relying on always imperfect jitter compensation code - the devices are synced. I've tried this for about 8 minutes - no clicks or pops, vs. clicks/pops after about 3 1/2 min when aggregating the same audio interfaces running under their own clocks.

This rocks when the MOTU is aggregated with Cycling'74's Soundflower virtual audio device. I created a new aggregate device of MOTU + Soundflower (16 ch), set the agg. dev's clock to soundflower, then synced the MOTU's clock to soundflower's. This basically adds 16 additional channels of virtual software-to-software I/O to the MOTU interfafce for sending audio back and forth between, say, Max/MSP and Logic! And it works flawlessly (so far) - no clicks or pops, minimal CPU overhead. Make sure to sync to the correct soundflower, as the MOTU clock menu does not specify which is the 2 channel version and which is the 16... so I chose the 2nd one because on my system the 16 chan one appears 2nd in the audioMIDI setup menu. And make sure to A) remember that the corresponding soundflower ins and outs will be offset by 2, B) Not make feedback loops with soundflower