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

[arvidtp]

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.

This post has been edited by arvidtp: Wed 22 Jun 2005, 16:56

[tbirdwilson]

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

[arvidtp]

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!

[primeclub]

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

[vsmith1]

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

[entfred]

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.

[brendan]

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.

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

You could save a lot of money by simply buying a VST-to-AU Wrapper for your VST Mini Moog V program, and keep using GarageBand.

[vsmith1]

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

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

[arvidtp]

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).

[vsmith1]

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

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