Adding a Tube Pre to a Presonus Firepod?

[roadkillwill]

Hey There!
Finally ive gotten my hands on a room big enough to start setting up as my studio so now ive got to get my parts worked out, Im currently using a Presonus Firepod with Cubase SX with Powered Behringer Truth Monitors, along with a

Studio Projects B1 - Vocals, Drum Overheads, Guitar (Cab and Acoustic)
Audix D6 - Kick Drum
Audix D4 - Floor Tom
Audix D2 - Rack Tom
Audix I-5 - Snare and Guitar Cab

Im just wondering if it would be worth getting a tube preamp to use with the B1 for vocals other than the firepod, and also i havent had much time to use my firepod but on the back their are two 1/4" Inputs, would i use this for the tube preamp so it by passes the firepods preamp, Does anyone know if its possible to get a copy of Pro Tools to run without using an MBox?
Thanks alot!
William

[Daisy]

You need to get a tube pre.

Because tubes are warm, and solid state is cold. Just like analog is warm, and digital is cold and sterile.



And no, you can't use pro tools without their hardware. But you should definitely get pro tools. Because it sounds warm and punchy and alalogy. Just like tubes.

[Massive Master]

Coffee on the keyboard...

[Farview]

No, you should not get a tube preamp. I'm not sure about the firepod, but with alot of those interfaces, there is no way to bypass the preamp. The line inputs still go through the preamp, but they are run through a pad first.

Until you get into the $1500 range, you will not find a tube preamp worth the powder to blow it to hell. The truth is that most of the most sought after mic preamps are solid state. Neve, Great River, API, Trident, etc... are all solid state preamps. I can only think of a couple really nice tube mic preamps and they cost thousands of dollars.

don't fall for the marketing hype.

[kbenton]

No, you should not get a tube preamp. I'm not sure about the firepod, but with alot of those interfaces, there is no way to bypass the preamp. The line inputs still go through the preamp, but they are run through a pad first.

Until you get into the $1500 range, you will not find a tube preamp worth the powder to blow it to hell. The truth is that most of the most sought after mic preamps are solid state. Neve, Great River, API, Trident, etc... are all solid state preamps. I can only think of a couple really nice tube mic preamps and they cost thousands of dollars.

don't fall for the marketing hype.

Yes, you can absolutely bypass the preamps in the FirePod. Also- the FireStudio Tube has 8 preamps on the back in addition to the tube pres on the front, so even if you leave your FirePod out completely, you're not loosing anything.

As far as sound goes- you don't know until you try and compare I guess, but it's our biggest effort to make the best sounding stuff in a comfortable price range- here is a link to a sample we recorded with the FireStudio Tube. You can check it out for yourself.

Click here for sample of FireStudio Tube recording Liz Longley

Let me know if you have any specific questions on bypassing your FirePod.

Katelyn Benton
PreSonus Audio Electronics
kbenton@presonus.com

[JuliánFernández]

Katelyn, can you share some details of that particular session?
Every track was tracked with a FST? Which mics? Etc...

Thanks...

[kojdogg]

imho and depending on how much you can budget, you might want to think about one or a pair of new condensers first.

[kbenton]

Katelyn, can you share some details of that particular session?
Every track was tracked with a FST? Which mics? Etc...

Thanks...

You bet-

We recorded live at a clinic at Berklee College of Music using the FireStudio Tube with Cubase LE4 as the DAW. Liz is singing through a Neumann KMS105 on the first tube channel and her guitar is running direct into the second tube channel. I don't remember the exact setup we used on the kit- i think it was kick, snare, and one overhead, 3 of the 8 preamps on the back of the FireStudio Tube. The mics were Audix D Series.

[gross115]

hey why not? play around see what happens. there's a lot of pretty inexpensive tube preamps out there you can buy...presonus makes a bunch of them. Are they worth it? I don't know, haven't gotten one yet. But I've been thinking about picking one up just to see what I can get out of it. Maybe it won't be the classic amazing tube preamp you've always dreamed of...but maybe it'll do some really cool things you've never even thought of. Also could be a cool way to do DI on bass or guitars. Point is, when you're this early in the game and you're just starting out...you really don't know anything about what you're doing (to an extant of course, I'm sure a lot of people on hear have some knowledge of what's going on) but there's a ton to learn, and the most important thing I've learned over the last few years that I've been recording is that the best way to learn something is to do it. So what tube pre should you buy? I don't know. I'm actually in that same boat right now. I was thinking about an ART DMPA dual tube preamp.

As far a pro tools goes...i hate it with all of my heart and soul. I used LE for a while with the digi 002 board. I just can't stand the program, I found it aggravating, and just didn't like it, especially the fact that you can't even run the program without your interface connected, which was just incredibly annoying to me...or that it won't work without the interface they made, or how you need special this and that to make it work. It's a severe headache in my opinion. I'm using nuendo now, which is just a slightly fancier version of cubase, which i feel is also very good. Much easier to use, options galore, use it anyway you like. But that's just my opinion, I'm sure plenty of people have had plenty of success with protools.

[Weasel9992]

Hey There!
Finally ive gotten my hands on a room big enough to start setting up as my studio so now ive got to get my parts worked out, Im currently using a Presonus Firepod with Cubase SX with Powered Behringer Truth Monitors, along with a

Studio Projects B1 - Vocals, Drum Overheads, Guitar (Cab and Acoustic)
Audix D6 - Kick Drum
Audix D4 - Floor Tom
Audix D2 - Rack Tom
Audix I-5 - Snare and Guitar Cab

Im just wondering if it would be worth getting a tube preamp to use with the B1 for vocals other than the firepod, and also i havent had much time to use my firepod but on the back their are two 1/4" Inputs, would i use this for the tube preamp so it by passes the firepods preamp, Does anyone know if its possible to get a copy of Pro Tools to run without using an MBox?
Thanks alot!
William

There are a couple of inexpensive tube preamps worth their salt...my current favorite is the ART MPA Gold, but it pretty much requires a tube swap, which will add $60-$80 to the price. It's a great pre after that though...very flexible, lots of great sounds. It can be a little noisy at high gain levels.

Is there a reason why you think you *need* one though? If you're looking for "warm", I'd stay solid-state. Most of the great, warm preamps of yesteryear were transformer driven rather than tube driven. Just a thought.

Frank