Presonus Firebox Reviews?, Anyone actually use this yet? Options

[arvidtp]

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?

[arvidtp]

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.

[UP Multimedia]

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

[Pulgar]

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...

[Pulgar]

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

NOTE: Active instruments are those that have an internal preamp or a line level output. Active instruments should be plugged into a line input (3 or 4) rather
than into an instrument input. In other words, don’t plug an active instrument into the combo jacks on channels 1 or 2. 

Sounds like a NO to me.

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

cheers...

[Pulgar]

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...

[SadPandas]

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

[Pulgar]

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...

[SadPandas]

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 this 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!

This post has been edited by SadPandas: Thu 30 Mar 2006, 23:36

[miscellany]

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