What the ?????

[tradosaurus]

I just bought a 24 bit presonus firebox and hooked up the microphone and firewire.

How do I get the microphone to work in n-tracks? I've gone through the FAQ in n-tracks but am not having any luck.

Anyone have a presonus firebox with n-track?

[tradosaurus]

This may be an obvious question but should I hook up my speakers to the PreSonus Firebox? I go to File/settings/preferences and click on Audio Devices.

I have the option to pick the Presonus Firebox for either Audio playback or Audio Recording but right now I don't have my speakers wired in to the Presonus.

[crankz1]

I don't have a Presonus .... but yeah, I think I'd use it as the output (connect monitors to it). Specially if this is an upgrade over whatever soundcard you where using.

As far as the input you are wishing to use ....
Does it show in the window for "select I/O channels" (found under the hammer in the Playback VU)?
If so, is it selected?
Of course, it would also need to be selected as the input source for the track you are recording.
Other than that, is there a mixer/control panel for the Firebox that may require some routing selections?

Just throwin out ideas here.

[tradosaurus]

Ok. I unplugged the wire to the internal sound and plugged it into the Presonus firebox.

I then set the preferences in N-track to reflect the audio and recording to be the presonus.

I can now see movement on the recording VU meter when I talk into the microphone but I can't hear any sound?

What gives?

[crankz1]

How exactly do you have your speakers connected to the Presonus?
What cabling/adapters are you using?
Have you played around with the Mixer Applet for the Firebox (this should allow for direct monitoring and software playback routing)?

Using direct monitoring of the Firebox would be the best option, but have you tried engaging the "Live" button in n-Track?

It's my guess that you just need to do some configuring of the Mixer applet for the Firebox and/or sort out any cabling issues you may have for your speakers.

[tradosaurus]

Yes, I believe your right.

I called Presonus help and they said to buy the 1/4" to RCA wire to connect the Presonus to the powered speaker system.

Right now I was using a the wire (RCA l/r to 1/8" mono) to the presonus which was not give me a l/r input to the presonus.

I plugged the headphones in the firebox and played Windows Media player and I could hear sound.

[tradosaurus]

Ok. I am using 1/4" to RCA wires from my monitors to the Presonus Firebox.

I still can't get anything from the Microphone.

N-track is giving me a error message that says:

"Error opening wave device.
Make sure that the sampling frequency and the output format set in the dialog box that appears clicking on the setting button on the Playback vumeter are supported by the soundcard

If your using WDM drivers (selected in the Preferences/Waves dialog box) make sure that your not using the Microsoft MIDI synth that inhibits the use of the WDM device that the synth outputs to. "

I am using the trial version of N-track. I have my sampling frequency set at 44,100 Hz. My Audio Playback device selected is "WDM Presonus Firebox Out Main 1/2" and my Audio Recording Device is selected as "Presonus Firebox Spdif In L/R"

What am I missing?

[tradosaurus]

Ok. Called Presonus again and found out that I didn't have the gain on the microphone set high enough. I thought half way would have been fine but I cranked it up to about 85%.

Now if I could only understand how to set the mixer controls to balance the background music to my microphone.

[crankz1]

Sounds like your starting to figure it out.

As far as the n-Track error .... you'll pry need to play around with the bit depth settings under the hammer for the VU's. There are three choices for 24 bit. 24, 24 unpacked and 24 unpacked left justified.
While I don't know which one you should use, I'll bet one of them should get you sorted with the error.
However, it also seems to me that the trail demo of n-Track might have some restrictions on 24 bit operation. In this case you ought to be able to toy around with the demo in 16 bit.