J
JBT18
New member
I've narrowed down my interface choices to these two. Which is better?
Tascam FW-1804
Presonus Firepod
Tascam FW-1804
Presonus Firepod
C
cawhite12
New member
How ironic that you ask this, because I may be one of the only people on here (quite possibly the only one) that has actually owned both of these. I currently own an RME Fireface 800, and that is a MEGA step up from the Presonus and the Tascam, it's also a MEGA jump in price as well, but I'll stick to the subject at hand, so here goes:
Pre-Amps:
I would have to give the edge to the Firepod on this one (though only a slight edge). They seemed to be slightly more open to my ears, and the Tascam's, though definitely not bad by any means, just seemed a little more boxed in.
Overall Features:
The Tascam wins this one hands down. It only has 4 preamps, BUT... It has ADAT which gives you 8 more digital channels and it also has 4 standard TRS line ins that let you bypass preamps. The Firepod only has 2 places that can bypass the preamps, which are the inserts on channels 1 and 2. This may not be a big deal now, but as you start upgrading your chain, you might start wishing that you didn't have to go through the Firepod's pres all the time. Another thing that the Tascam was better at was input monitoring. It had its own DSP mixer, although very simple, allowed you to mix and monitor the input signals without affecting the recording levels. Could be handy if your working with someone who needs a specific headphone mix or something. But that brings up a BIG (in my opinion) disadvantage to the Tascam, in that it only has 2 analog outs. Most of the time, that probably wouldn't be a big deal, but I found myself needing to have separate mixes for different folks, and had to do some strange routing through the ADAT out, which brings me to the next topic, driver stability. (Oh, and the Tascam has 4 Midi Ins and 2 Midi Outs. That really wasn't a big deal for me)
Driver Stability:
In my experience with both, the Presonus was a more hassle-free install. And now that they have the new drivers and firmware updated, I'm sure that it is more stable than ever. Once I got the Tascam going, it was pretty solid, but it still had it's quirks. First off, the Tascam is more picky about the chipset of your firewire card. I owned the Firepod first and had it running on a firewire card that was a VIA chipset with no problems, but with the Tascam, it wouldn't stay in sync with itself, so I switched to a card with a Texas Instruments chipset, and it was fine after that. Every now and then however, it would have a sync issue in the middle of doing some type of work, like when I was trying to route signals using the ADAT outs. It seemed to not like some bandwidth hogging tasks, and would get out of sync at times. The only other sync problems I had under more normal use was maybe 3 times in the 5 months that I owned it, and I used the device almost everyday. Those incindents seemed like they were totally random though.
Converters:
On this subject, it's pretty much a toss up in my opinion. I didn't really notice any difference in the conversion when switching from the Firepod to the 1804, but I definitely noticed a difference when going to the RME. So, on this side, I would say that either one would fit the bill here.
Conclusion:
With the Firepod, you get 10 inputs (8 analog, 2 digital), you can only bypass 2 preamps, but the preamps on the unit are very useable, and you can daisy chain up to 3 units together for more inputs. In my opinion, the drivers in the Firepod are a little more stable. Plus it all fits in a single rack mount unit.
With the Tascam, you get 18 inputs (8 analog, 10 digital [including ADAT]), and you get only 4 preamps, but you also get 4 line ins to use better outboard pres with instead of just 2. Having the ADAT is nice, since there are some nice 8 channel pre-amps that have ADAT out to use with it. The 1804 is alot more "feature-rich" so to speak in that it has better input monitoring, extra MIDI I/O, etc... However, I felt like the Tascam wasn't as 'stable' as the Firepod, since I would get sync issues sometimes. And even though they were very very few, I remember it happened once when a guy was recording a wicked solo over a track, and it came out of sync and we had to do it again, since that caused a gap in the audio for that moment. He did it again and it sounded fantastic, but not every musician is as nice about crap like that. In the defense of the Tascam however, there are plenty of people who have used it without a hitch whatsoever, so it might have been some little thing with my system. And the guy I sold it to is having no issues with it either as far as I know.
So... After all that blabber I hope you found something useful in all that. I guess if I had to pick now, I would probably go with the Firepod 'by a nose'. They are both very nice units, but now that the Firepod supports multiple units, it has now done a little more to up it's feature anty. Plus, as long as you have a kickin computer, you can turn on input monitoring in your software and go that route. It just takes alot more CPU power to run that while recording at the same time. Good luck, and let us know what you decide.
Pre-Amps:
I would have to give the edge to the Firepod on this one (though only a slight edge). They seemed to be slightly more open to my ears, and the Tascam's, though definitely not bad by any means, just seemed a little more boxed in.
Overall Features:
The Tascam wins this one hands down. It only has 4 preamps, BUT... It has ADAT which gives you 8 more digital channels and it also has 4 standard TRS line ins that let you bypass preamps. The Firepod only has 2 places that can bypass the preamps, which are the inserts on channels 1 and 2. This may not be a big deal now, but as you start upgrading your chain, you might start wishing that you didn't have to go through the Firepod's pres all the time. Another thing that the Tascam was better at was input monitoring. It had its own DSP mixer, although very simple, allowed you to mix and monitor the input signals without affecting the recording levels. Could be handy if your working with someone who needs a specific headphone mix or something. But that brings up a BIG (in my opinion) disadvantage to the Tascam, in that it only has 2 analog outs. Most of the time, that probably wouldn't be a big deal, but I found myself needing to have separate mixes for different folks, and had to do some strange routing through the ADAT out, which brings me to the next topic, driver stability. (Oh, and the Tascam has 4 Midi Ins and 2 Midi Outs. That really wasn't a big deal for me)
Driver Stability:
In my experience with both, the Presonus was a more hassle-free install. And now that they have the new drivers and firmware updated, I'm sure that it is more stable than ever. Once I got the Tascam going, it was pretty solid, but it still had it's quirks. First off, the Tascam is more picky about the chipset of your firewire card. I owned the Firepod first and had it running on a firewire card that was a VIA chipset with no problems, but with the Tascam, it wouldn't stay in sync with itself, so I switched to a card with a Texas Instruments chipset, and it was fine after that. Every now and then however, it would have a sync issue in the middle of doing some type of work, like when I was trying to route signals using the ADAT outs. It seemed to not like some bandwidth hogging tasks, and would get out of sync at times. The only other sync problems I had under more normal use was maybe 3 times in the 5 months that I owned it, and I used the device almost everyday. Those incindents seemed like they were totally random though.
Converters:
On this subject, it's pretty much a toss up in my opinion. I didn't really notice any difference in the conversion when switching from the Firepod to the 1804, but I definitely noticed a difference when going to the RME. So, on this side, I would say that either one would fit the bill here.
Conclusion:
With the Firepod, you get 10 inputs (8 analog, 2 digital), you can only bypass 2 preamps, but the preamps on the unit are very useable, and you can daisy chain up to 3 units together for more inputs. In my opinion, the drivers in the Firepod are a little more stable. Plus it all fits in a single rack mount unit.
With the Tascam, you get 18 inputs (8 analog, 10 digital [including ADAT]), and you get only 4 preamps, but you also get 4 line ins to use better outboard pres with instead of just 2. Having the ADAT is nice, since there are some nice 8 channel pre-amps that have ADAT out to use with it. The 1804 is alot more "feature-rich" so to speak in that it has better input monitoring, extra MIDI I/O, etc... However, I felt like the Tascam wasn't as 'stable' as the Firepod, since I would get sync issues sometimes. And even though they were very very few, I remember it happened once when a guy was recording a wicked solo over a track, and it came out of sync and we had to do it again, since that caused a gap in the audio for that moment. He did it again and it sounded fantastic, but not every musician is as nice about crap like that. In the defense of the Tascam however, there are plenty of people who have used it without a hitch whatsoever, so it might have been some little thing with my system. And the guy I sold it to is having no issues with it either as far as I know.
So... After all that blabber I hope you found something useful in all that. I guess if I had to pick now, I would probably go with the Firepod 'by a nose'. They are both very nice units, but now that the Firepod supports multiple units, it has now done a little more to up it's feature anty. Plus, as long as you have a kickin computer, you can turn on input monitoring in your software and go that route. It just takes alot more CPU power to run that while recording at the same time. Good luck, and let us know what you decide.
B
Bulls Hit
Well-known member
Just to clarify the comments on input monitoring: the firepod doesn't come with a s/w mixer to control the level of each individual input, but it does let you balance the overall input levels with the prerecorded levels for monitoring purposes
M
manontheside
New member
that IS pretty funny you posted about these two. i've also narrowed mine down to these. and from what it sounds like, i think i'm going with the firepod. i recently exchanged an m-audio firewire 410, and i dont think i would ever do business with m-audio again. so far i've owned 3 of their soundcards, and had sync problems with every one of them. its true what you said, i'll be in the middle of a song and an error would pop up messing everything. oh i was livid when i didnt save anything and had to start all over. thats when i put my foot down. had any luck with pci cards as an alternative to firewire/usb?
altiris
New member
dosent that tascam have moterized sliders and can work as a consil? or am a I thinking of another model? I Was looking at that one for the future.
K
Kryptik
New member
I like my Firepod alot. Good unit for the money. I haven't used the Tascam though. The tascam only comes with 4 preamps though, so if you want to plug eight mics into you converter, you may want to go with the firepod.
$
$a1Ty
New member
if you plug in a trs line in into the firepod and have the gain at 0, thats not using the preamp????????cawhite12 said:
C
cawhite12
New member
$a1Ty said:
Well, sort of. They said that you can put the knobs at 12 O'Clock and that is "bypassing" the preamps, But... if you have to have any gain at all, then it is essentially going through the preamp.
C
cawhite12
New member
Bulls Hit said:
This is true, I just said that the Tascam had BETTER input monitoring, in that you can control the inputs volume levels individually.