Firepod Vs. ONYX 400F

  • Thread starter Thread starter ThaArtist
  • Start date Start date

Which is better?

  • Presonus Firepod

    Votes: 43 55.8%

  • Mackie ONYX 400F

    Votes: 34 44.2%
  • Total voters
    77
You know what? I use primairly an API/Brent Averill preamp for all the overdubs. After spending 5 (yes 5) hours hunting for a guitar sound for the new Inner Blue stuff, I switched to the Onyx preamps and found what we wanted (for the time being) almost instantly. Sometimes a preamp works, other times it doesnt. They are good clean preamps. Are they a Neve? No.
 
I've owned my firepod for a year now. The first two inputs stopped working the other day without warning. When they worked I tracked using all 8 channels and it sometimes skipped, just took some tweaking with the settings. The pre's work nice, I don't really have any complaints on their quality. The only thing is those two that stopped working... Otherwise its not a bad investment. I don't know anything about the other one tho.
 
I dont know anything about the firepod. Im using a Onyx 400F on my mac. There has been some problems, but since I swapped the unit with another 400F it has worked.
Since I plugged a GlyphQ 250GB external HD in my Mac g5's firewire 800 port I lose the 400F from time to time but this is merely more a mac hardware/firewire problem it seems like. I dont think the 400F can be held responsible for that.
With an AKG C 414 B-XL II plugged into the ONYX preamps I'm getting fantastic audiotracks. Long gone are the days of noisegating my vocaltracks. Its dead quiet.
I'm a happy 400F owner and wouldnt trade it, allthough I have had some starting problems.
 
I have a 400F that I got on tuesday and I've used it in one sessions and I love the thing. Tuesday I used the 400F with a rapper that hires me on occasion and it definetly beats out my Mbox 2. Tommarow I'm tracking for a rock band so I'll see how it holds up in comparison to my Mbox 2 but I get the feeling that I'll be satisfied with it.
 
It's also far more attractive then the MBox AND the Firepod. If you're into a nice looking rack with quality, affordable inputs, go for the 400f.

One thing to look out for in Sonar 4 Producer Edition (havent tried it in 5), however, is an interesting effect where the last tone played from a track is kept in some sort of irritating loop until you either rewind to the beginning or go into options > audio > advanced and make sure "play effect tails after stopping" is checked. That is one problem I've never had using any other interfaces with Sonar, and is easily fixable.
 
tubedude said:
Its a good box, better than the Presonus on every point.
Click to expand...

Well yes that may well be right. Except for the point about how many preamps come in each box.
400F = 4 preamps
firepod = 8 preamps

That's twice as many. 2 times as much. Which means the 400F ony has 1/2 as many preamps as the firepod. That's 50% the number of preamps in the 400F compared to the firepod. It's like if a sixpack is good enough, get the 400F. You want a dozen, well....
 
my firepod broke after 2 uses, but i still voted fo rit because i loved it when it worked.
 
Emusic said:
I dont think the 400F can be held responsible for that.
Click to expand...
Actually it was the 400F dying on me. Just delivered it. New one coming tuesday. That will be my third in about 2 months.
Despite that I havent given up. I have other Mackie gear that is 15 years old and running fine, so I take it I have been a tad unlucky.
I still have patience in the 400F. When it works its just so sweet with those Onyx preamps.
Well, well - new one tuesday.
 
yeah, apparently its a known issue with them. But, its too late for the refund, so I gotta stick by my guns
 
I like the 400f for it's flexibility in routing and the preamps. It still seems like Mackie is working out some issues though...

I'm getting pot noise when adjusting headphone gain (very loud and very irritating.)

I'm also getting a high pitched whine when connected to my Powerbook G4 although turning the power settings to "automatic" reduced the whine noise considerably.

-Jason
 
JasonB93117 said:
I'm also getting a high pitched whine when connected to my Powerbook G4 although turning the power settings to "automatic" reduced the whine noise considerably.
-Jason
Click to expand...
Isnt that whiine considered a buggy unit. I think they have a replacement/rwpair program for that dont they?
 
so i've been using the mackie onyx 1220, with the firewire card.
this is basically the 400F in mixer form, if i'm not mistaken.

I'd like to throw out there that I really like it, and have had minimal problems. the biggest being driver problems which I've managed to solve myself.
 
Essentially. It's the same Onyx pre's but it has an EQ section, Aux Sends, Pan control and some other goodies you don't get with the rack mount. But it's also more expensive.
 
I just got the Onyx 400f. After hearing the pres, I sold my Sytek as the Onyx sounded as good for what I need. No problems using it and Cubase so far, after a bit of a learning curve.

have tried the Firepod.
 
KamikazeKyle said:
Essentially. It's the same Onyx pre's but it has an EQ section, Aux Sends, Pan control and some other goodies you don't get with the rack mount. But it's also more expensive.
Click to expand...

ah yeah, but last winter it was $530 with a free firewire card at nearly every store, for a month or so...ha.

also, the EQ (and I think aux sends) DO NOT affect the firewire output to the computer. I'm pretty sure that after the pre, the signal is sent seperately to the firewire card, and to the rest of the board for monitoring.
 
1) i've seen a LOT of people on the mackie site complaining about issues with the 400f...i think they mostly were driver issues that had to do with high-pitch squealing from the inputs

2) i have an the onyx 1640, and yea, the preamps on it are damn nice - again, not a neve, but hell, i ended up dishing $1300 total for the mixer and firewire card, so you're talking less than $100/channel for the pres. i have several recordings posted on www.myspace.com/ironkladaudio all of which were made w/ the onyx

3) yes, the firewire send is directly after the gain knob...except for the main mix send, which comes just before the master fader, and has its own seperate level control
 
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