Firewire Interface Options

D

deadletter

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Hi folks!

I am looking for an interface with at least 8 preamps so I can record everything (including drums without the need for a seperate mixer etc) and I initially favoured the Tascam US1641 USB 2.0 Audio/MIDI Interface due to price and usb simplicity, but after reading around the forum here I now realise my noob errors and so I'm now looking for a Firewire Interface...

The main question is which one!? The following is my current shortlist and the best price I could find at the time of writing...

PreSonus FireStudio Project - £339

PreSonus FireStudio 2626 - £499 (what's the difference between these 2?)

Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 - £379

MOTU 8PRE - £394

M-Audio ProFire 2626 - £359

Lexicon Ionix FW810s - £434

Any thoughts on which is the best option?

I am hoping to use these with a pc laptop and to start off with a simple DAW such as Cubase LE4/Reaper/Ableton Live Lite. In searching for a laptop to use with the interface I am finding it hard to see even a mention of if the laptop has a firewire port (never mind who it is made by - I hear it's best to go with Texus Instruments) so I'm struggling on this front also. I am hoping to spend less than £600 on the laptop if possible, and was thinking Windows 7 but is the best OS to go for? Do you get many Windows 7 (IE New) laptops with Firewire ports for sale in the UK, and if so where from!?

Enough questions for now methinks! Any help is greatly appreciated!
 
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At the moment I'm edging towards the MOTU 8PRE as I gather that MOTU are better for latency than PreSonus etc...

Does anybody out there that has used both have any opinion?

My next nightmare is trying to find a cheap laptop that will work with it...
 
I use a Presonus FP 10 with a Dell Laptop running Windows 7. I bought a bog standard Firwire PCI-E card from Maplins. While I was reading how to get my FP working with Windows 7 (if you go down this route message me and I'll send you the link, as when I was doing this they had no drivers from Win7) I found that many people had problems with firewire cards at FP10's. Presonus reccommend a £70 one, but mine was £20. I occasionally loose all inputting ability (only seems to happen when I've not stopped all unnessary background processes etc), but all I have to do is put my comp to sleep for 10 seconds and it comes back.

It may sound like an issue, but it is that infrequent it's really not.

Just thought it was best you know this before buying anything from Presonus. The product itself is sound and I'm very happy with it.
 
12milluz said:
I'm stuck between the MOTU 8pre and firestudio. What's your setup with the firestudio?
Click to expand...

I use a Firestudio with a Digimax FS, SIIG firewire card, Windows XP Pro SP3 with zero problems. Before that I used two Firepods with zero problems.

Presonus does recommend certain firewire cards on their website. You might check that out if you decide to go that route.
 
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