PreSonus Firepod ? anyone ?

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_RiseInside_

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This is my first post. Be gentle :P

PreSonus Firepod. So i have been checking this interface.

I am planning on buying a portable computer to record bands and stuff. It is FireWire and has 8 pre-amps. pretty nice. It also has a nice converter ( akm AK5384 - 4-channel ADC 107dB SNR, differential inputs ). I have listened some mp3 samples of firepod recorded live and in studio songs. I enjoyed the sound pretty much. Is has a great street price: around 700 €. It fits my budget really well.

So does anyone in this forum has it ? It would be nice to have some input on it :)

thankx in advance

Ricardo

:) :) :)
 
I've also been looking into the firepod, but havent' had much luck in finding people to talk about it.
 
looking to (and waiting ;) ) haven't heard or read a bad thing yet... it's on my wishlist
 
Firepod review

Hi -- I have the Firepod and will be happy to share my impression of it. I am a drummer and just starting digital recording, so forgive me if my comments are a little newbie.

Got the Firepod in August -- the first at my store -- with the intent of recording acoustic drums. I needed 8 inputs and wanted a firewire connection, and the Firepod fit the bill. Installation was easy -- you have to install 3 drivers, Cubase LE if you want (I did), and set your latency settings from 2 ms and up, and CPU processing power on low, medium and high. I selected 2 ms and high CPU.

Recording is very straightforward. Plug in your mics or instruments, turn on the phantom power if you need it, dial up the appropriate channel just short of clipping (there are clip lights on each of the 8 channels) and bring up your recording software. The level knobs and labels on the Firepod are a little small, so I would recommend mounting the unit high so you can operate it straight on.

The Firepod has "zero latency" monitoring. I think this means you are hearing your signal as it goes thru the Firepod, vs. waiting for it to route thru your program and back out. I could be wrong on that point -- if I am, please jump in someone. In any event, you select (via a knob) the mix of pre-recorded sound and "live" sound. I lay down gtr. and other instrument loops in Cubase, then play it back and record live drums as additional tracks via the Firepod. I use the mix knob to give me live drum sound and enough volume from the Cubase tracks so I can play along.

I have had no driver issues, no lock-ups, no issues at all really. It works just as designed. Laptop users, I have read on this board it is wise to get an external 7200 rpm or higher hard drive since your laptop drive will only spin at 4800 rpm and not be able to write data fast enough as you are recording, resulting in the dreaded pops and clicks. I just got a LaCie D2 Extreme and will be tracking this weekend to try it out. I am acutally going to try and hang the hard drive off the Firepod via the 2nd firewire input on the Firepod --we'll see how that works.

That's all for now -- please let me know if you have any specific questions on the Firepod and I'll try and answer them.

Keith
 
kindofblue said:
I've also been looking into the firepod, but havent' had much luck in finding people to talk about it.
Click to expand...

I've been eyeballing this product for a good while now. I might get it around the end of the year. I really want to be able to link multiple ones together (have 16ins would be perfect for mic pres at that price!) when they come out with the drivers for them.

But anyways...this review goes pretty in-depth
http://www.hyperactivemusic.com/MSProFiles/FirepodReview/firepodreview.htm
 
Is it possibel to plug the guitar into 1 and then out (via 3,4,5) to multiple amps, micing that back into the firepod?

just curious , would save me another 100 bucks
 
i got my firepod about a month ago but i've only been able to use it twice. it was definitely an upgrade from my tascam us122. i wanted the firepod because it has 8 mic pres. my other option was the motu828 but it doesnt have 8 pres. i would have had to buy a seperate set of mic pres in order to use it. so far i haven't had any problems with my firepod. the converters work pretty well. i was recording 5 channels at once and it seemed to handle it fine. i'm gonna keep pushing it though. i don't know if i'll ever need 16 channels (then again i once thought a 40mb hardrive was HUGE) but its good to know its possible to daisy chain the firepods. i just got myself a firewire harddrive also so i'm gonna hook that up.

i'm liking my firepod very much and look forward to using it more.
 
I have the Firepod too. I like it a lot. I record onto an iBook G4 and it does max out pretty quick, so I would suggest getting a faster drive. The sound quality is pristine. I love it!
 
Wavlingth and mishagolin:

What are the specs on your computers?
 
1.07 Ghz PowerPC G4
768 MB DDR SDRAM

I've been using the Cubase LE software that ships with the Firepod. I'm going to test drive Logic to see if it can handle more since it is optimised for macs.
 
Wavlingth said:
I've been using the Cubase LE software that ships with the Firepod. I'm going to test drive Logic to see if it can handle more since it is optimised for macs.
Click to expand...

Please post your comments on that. I was thinking about that route.
 
thehouseofshawn said:
Wavlingth and mishagolin:

What are the specs on your computers?
Click to expand...

sorry it took so long. i've been busy building some acoustic treatments.

Windows XP
2.8 GHz P4
512 MB RAM (picking up another 512 today)
Cubase SL2
 
firepod..ive heard good things...but does anyone know about the delta 44...i did some searchiing...not much on the forum...i was thinking put 4 mics on the drums....run into the mixer (using as a pre amp) use indiv line outs into the 4 channels of the delta 44 and build from there...does this souns right...dump into sonar?
 
aurorakooba said:
firepod..ive heard good things...but does anyone know about the delta 44...i did some searchiing...not much on the forum...i was thinking put 4 mics on the drums....run into the mixer (using as a pre amp) use indiv line outs into the 4 channels of the delta 44 and build from there...does this souns right...dump into sonar?
Click to expand...

You could do this...but if you go the route of the Firepod you can skip the mixer and use the supposed (don't have one myself so I can't say) class-A mic pres and dump those into sonar using it's virtual desk. Especially if all you're doing is drums...it's not hard to navigate on screen.
 
So... you only need one FireWire port for this right?

Anyone know if it will run well on...

Windows XP
2.2 Ghz AMD Athlon XP 3300+
512 MB RAM
 
thehouseofshawn said:
Please post your comments on that. I was thinking about that route.
Click to expand...

OK, I've used Logic Express for a couple of days with good results. I haven't found its limits yet. So far it seems to be less of a resource hog than Cubase LE, and a far superior program. Granted Cubase LE doesn't have all the features of SX, so I don't mean to badmouth Cubase. I did get good results from it. I feel more comfortable using Logic on my mac since Apple has such a high standard of coding. (the Waves Diamond bundle won't even authorize without being forced) I have some friends that use Pro, and I'm amazed at what it will do, and how easily. I definitely will purchase a copy of Pro when I have the $$$. I do prefer the graphic interface of Cubase over Logic though: not for the aesthetics, but for the ease of use. The plugins in Logic all look way too cheesy and futuristic too IMHO, but the sound is stellar; which is what matters.

So, I'd conclude that Cubase LE is a very solid program, and will work fine if you don't want to drop the extra cash right away, and your comp is fast enough. The processing and effects limitations are notable if you plan on doing a lot of tweaking.

Logic Express is a smooth and powerful program. With the added peace of mind that it is optimized for macs and maintains an extremely high coding standard. The Logic setup process is way more involved, but it's worth it because you can customize it to the way you work. You can save nine different screen sets that you can access at the touch of a button. I like the way you can access all of your external devices from the menus too.

I may be partial to Logic since I have some friends who use it, and they were a good resource for info on all of its features. I was sort of flying blind with Cubase, so it wasn't as easy to really get cranking.

It can't hurt to try Cubase since it ships for free with the firepod, but it is fairly limited. I imagine an upgrade would be necessary pretty soon.
 
Disposable said:
So... you only need one FireWire port for this right?

Anyone know if it will run well on...

Windows XP
2.2 Ghz AMD Athlon XP 3300+
512 MB RAM
Click to expand...

From other comments and reviews I've seen on here; it seems like anything above the requirements would do fine. And I'm sure that will perform well. I think it really has much to do with what you're wanting to do with plugins and such... I hear they really bog down the CPU. I'd recommend mixing them later and not at the same time of writing them when possible.

But maybe it is just an appealing factor; I mean for the price of the firepod and my Powebook G4, I'm sure it will do well recording 'dry' tracks of mic'ed instruments and amps going into it. In fact, maybe with the mac the Logic would be better...it's just the 600 - 1000 dollar price tag will make me want a wait a bit, but with integration with GarageBand and Appleloops / ACID I'm sure I could do that well... Not to mention the ability in the future to create nodes with Logic :D
 
Wavlingth said:
OK, I've used Logic Express for a couple of days with good results. I haven't found its limits yet. So far it seems to be less of a resource hog than Cubase LE, and a far superior program. Granted Cubase LE doesn't have all the features of SX, so I don't mean to badmouth Cubase. I did get good results from it. I feel more comfortable using Logic on my mac since Apple has such a high standard of coding. (the Waves Diamond bundle won't even authorize without being forced) I have some friends that use Pro, and I'm amazed at what it will do, and how easily. I definitely will purchase a copy of Pro when I have the $$$. I do prefer the graphic interface of Cubase over Logic though: not for the aesthetics, but for the ease of use. The plugins in Logic all look way too cheesy and futuristic too IMHO, but the sound is stellar; which is what matters.

So, I'd conclude that Cubase LE is a very solid program, and will work fine if you don't want to drop the extra cash right away, and your comp is fast enough. The processing and effects limitations are notable if you plan on doing a lot of tweaking.

Logic Express is a smooth and powerful program. With the added peace of mind that it is optimized for macs and maintains an extremely high coding standard. The Logic setup process is way more involved, but it's worth it because you can customize it to the way you work. You can save nine different screen sets that you can access at the touch of a button. I like the way you can access all of your external devices from the menus too.

I may be partial to Logic since I have some friends who use it, and they were a good resource for info on all of its features. I was sort of flying blind with Cubase, so it wasn't as easy to really get cranking.

It can't hurt to try Cubase since it ships for free with the firepod, but it is fairly limited. I imagine an upgrade would be necessary pretty soon.
Click to expand...

I just went out and bought my powerbook over the weekend so I've been getting all my files on here and I absolutely love it. But maybe it's just me. It seems like the younger generations are really taking to the Macs compared to the PCs and some of the problems they might have; I love the graphics on here; and the automatic memory allocation of CPU resources, so I'm sure it looks goofy...but it's almost sexy to me. Lol.
I will use Cubase since it comes with it, but later down the road I'm sure I'll switch to Logic.
But thanks for the mini-review!!!!
Props for you.
 
disposable. your pc is plenty powerfull for a slew of tracks.
unless you want to run a gajillion plug ins.
you should easily do 48 tracks.
if you download diskbench from prorec.com it will help me comment on your system and how good your hard drives are if you post the test results.
you have a very good processor.
 
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