presonus firestudio or firestudio tube?

forrest_lindly

New member
New member looking for some help....

I have a home studio set up for VO work. I have a R0de NTK/Shure sm7b (depends on the project) going into a Grace m101. That goes into an MBox 2 mini. I also record my friend's band as a favor to him. I record as a 2 track going from my Mackie DFX into the mbox. Out of nowhere, I'm having a ton of work thrown at me by indie film producers for post-production work, as well as live recordings of bands and stand-up comedians. BTW, the film producers would like 5.1 for future projects (not extensive sound design, but enough to make it stand out from other local indies).

These new jobs (I think) require a new interface. I'm really looking at the firestudio and the firestudio tube. I'll also be getting Cubase 4 (I'm a student so I can get it cheap). I'm not sure which one to get. I really like the FS tube because it has 10 pres and 16 analog ins, and it has the limiters, but I'm afraid about 5.1 monitoring. It does have 6 outs, but two are main outs and 4 are line outs - it could get messy. Seems like it would be great for my music recording but not as good for film stuff. The FS seems like it's built with surround in mind, and the MSR seems handy. However, it has far fewer analog ins, it lacks the limiters, and i HATE that all the mic/DI ins are in the front.

I guess I wrote this entire novel of a post to ask two simple questions. Can I easily monitor 5.1 with the FS tube, and can I set up a limiter in Cubase 4 to run while I'm recording? If so, it seems like the tube is the way to go....
 
FS Tube

The FS Tube did not work for me with Vista 32 at all by the way. I would avoid that thing like the plague. I bought an RME Fireface 800 instead and I love it.
 
The FS Tube did not work for me with Vista 32 at all by the way. I would avoid that thing like the plague. I bought an RME Fireface 800 instead and I love it.

I hear ya. Unfortunately the fireface is a little out of my price range. I've heard a lot about driver problems with presonus gear. I am using a macbook pro though...Are the driver issues less of a problem on OS X?
 
I'm 90% certain that both units are DICE-II based, so driver problems are universal. Don't quote me, though. Wait for someone who really knows what they're talking about to confirm it.
 
Back
Top