Firepod owners discussion thread!

Hello,

I'm buying a firepod to replace my VF160. I've decided it's kind of redundant to capture the sounds only to burn them down to a wav file on the fostex and transfer them over to my desktop for mix/master/burn. I've decided to go with the firepod straight to Audition 1.5 to make it a more even process. For right now most recordings will be live two track overhead miking of my church choir. We will have events where we use closeup miking for the choir seperate mics for the accompaniment ensembles (strings/winds for Christmas) and a pair of ambient mics in the sanctuary. I've got a pretty good idea of how things will work once it comes but had one specific question. Back in the Turtle Beach days the only practical way I had to control input volume was the windows mixer. I know the firepod has trim pad built in but is there also a software end to control levels as well? I know it can be done in "multi-track" view in Audition but I was hoping at least for the two track stuff to keep it in wav mode to capture the sound and use some sort of auxiliary piece or plug in for monitoring volumes and peaks. The visual track monitoring in Adobe leaves a lot to be desired.....
anyone?

Just purchased one from FSD Music off eBay. They were 80.00 cheaper than musiciansfriend....same waranty etc...guess they're playing a spread on the free headphone amp.
 
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219777 said:
If you've already got your tracks down why do you need the firepod for the mix? What software platform are you using for mix/master?
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We're using Sonar 4. I've tried messing with the audio settings (playback master driver). I got it to work with the Audigy ZS but it's real jittery and slower. Most likely a result of the differing sampling rates. Any ideas?

EDIT: I tried it again an hour later and it found it. No more problems - somethings definately wierd, but it works now.
 
I guess I'm still confused. If all your waveform data has already been captured then power down the firepod and stick it in the closet. I've always thought mixing is a function of the software platform once you have all your tracks down.
 
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We recorded with the Firepod at 96khz into Sonar 4 directly. Now I'm mixing in Sonar 4 also. You have to choose a playback driver to hear it in Sonar 4, and the driver has to support the audio file statistics (ie. 96khz/24bit). The Audigy 2 ZS's maximum rate is 48khz, so I'm guessing I wasn't able to play back via those drivers because of that (since it says the audio driver's did not support the file type or something). I'm not really positive about any of this.
 
Yeah.....I guess I don't understand why the software is so fragmented...driver here..sampling rate there.....mismatch rates...that's part of the reason I made my comments about Audition......Why bother with X many different variables when you can capture, mix, add effects, and master in one. I found a mixer in Audition that should work for now....I still have a lot of exploring to do in there but anxious to get on it.
 
rweiss said:
We recorded with the Firepod at 96khz into Sonar 4 directly. Now I'm mixing in Sonar 4 also. You have to choose a playback driver to hear it in Sonar 4, and the driver has to support the audio file statistics (ie. 96khz/24bit). The Audigy 2 ZS's maximum rate is 48khz, so I'm guessing I wasn't able to play back via those drivers because of that (since it says the audio driver's did not support the file type or something). I'm not really positive about any of this.
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Out of curiosity, why did you record at 96khz? Seems plenty are recording at 44khz (including myself) with excellent results and 24/44khz should be fine for standard mulitrack music projects. This would helped you regarding mixing with the Audigy 2. Are you mixing on a different PC than one the Firepod could be hooked up to?
 
im woundering if i can use my Eurorack ub1832fx-pro mixer to control the volume of the firepod, im new to using mixers so i need some advice, it would just be easier to lower and turn up volume using the slider on the mixer when playing tunes, would i go Powerd monitors into mixer? then out to firepod , would there be quality loss in sound?

thankz again
r Otto [02o]
 
Atrocityexibit said:
is it possible to use a mixer to control levels on a firepod?
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You can control the software mixer with a..well, controller. But I don't see you needing to control the firepod levels...they have cool looking blue knobs already for you to play with. And it's always nice to play with some knobs.
 
suntzu1982 said:
You can control the software mixer with a..well, controller. But I don't see you needing to control the firepod levels...they have cool looking blue knobs already for you to play with. And it's always nice to play with some knobs.
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haha, I just realized that a minute ago. Excuse my stupidity.
 
Is anyone using another Preamp through the Firepod??... I'm thinking on getting either an RNP (which is not a hell of an upgrade fromt the pres on the Firepod... please correct me If I'm wrong) or the Brick... thanks in advance
 
As long as there's a thread on this beast, I thought I'd point folks to my experience in trying to get a FIREPOD repaired.

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=205713

Needless to say, any warranty repair that results in me contemplating hiring legal counsel is not a satisfactory customer experience. I have never sued anyone in my life and, harassment from spammers notwithstanding, have never even threatened legal action before.

I would never do business with these asshats again, and I intend to sell my FIREPOD as soon as I get it back (if it works) and purchase an interface from MOTU. Life's too short to put up with this shit.
 
nicolaad30 said:
Is anyone using another Preamp through the Firepod??... I'm thinking on getting either an RNP (which is not a hell of an upgrade fromt the pres on the Firepod... please correct me If I'm wrong) or the Brick... thanks in advance
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Would it be worth it to use another preamp with the firepod if it already has preamps? Wouldn't that be 2 preamps in the chain? Do people do that?
 
Monkey Allen said:
Would it be worth it to use another preamp with the firepod if it already has preamps? Wouldn't that be 2 preamps in the chain? Do people do that?
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The thing's got 6 line level inputs. (and two instrument inputs). So I guess, there's nothing wrong with using an external pre on either of those 6 channels...
 
Monkey Allen said:
Would it be worth it to use another preamp with the firepod if it already has preamps? Wouldn't that be 2 preamps in the chain? Do people do that?
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I use my M-Audio DMP-3 through the Firepod, as that preamp has a Hell of a lot more clean gain than the built-in pre's on the firepod. I also ran the output into one of the isntrument inputs by mistake, and it worked fine, as far as I can tell... *hmm*
 
irishfolker said:
There are also line level inputs on the back for channels 1 and 2, making 8 in all.
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Good to know, for when I want to back up the 8 channels of audio from the digital tape I have laying around. I diiiid seem to think I heard some distortion in my vocal recording test when going through channel one in the front (mic -> DMP3 -> "line-in" channel 1). I'll try the back jack now, thanks!
 
Back to the preamp useage - I have used the onboard preamps and for certain mics and gain needs they work fine. For mics or sources that need a lot of gain, the firepod pre's get noisy past 3 o'clock, as stated earlier. At that point I use my DMP-3 because it does in fact sound better to me, but it isn't entirely necessary. Something like an RNP might give you good results, if you really want to spend the money.
 
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