Recommended Firewire Audio Interfaces
- sirbergersworth
- audio school graduate
- Posts: 11
- Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2005 1:05 pm
- Location: STL, MO
I have had my Mackie Onyx 400F for about a month and I am loving it. Drivers and firewire stuff was done by echo on this unit and it has even performed very well with my laptop that has a ricoh firewire chipset. Sounds great to my ears. 4 pres with inserts. Pres sound very good for being built into a unit.
Some have said the high end is "crisp", but for me the high end sound accurate and not muffled.
MF had B Stock of them for $399 as well. Mine has been working flawlessly.
On a side note, anything echo will be a great choice. I used a echo gina20 for years and it still soumnds better than the Maudio stuff IMHO.
Good luck with your search. My advice is to take your time making a decision.
Some have said the high end is "crisp", but for me the high end sound accurate and not muffled.
MF had B Stock of them for $399 as well. Mine has been working flawlessly.
On a side note, anything echo will be a great choice. I used a echo gina20 for years and it still soumnds better than the Maudio stuff IMHO.
Good luck with your search. My advice is to take your time making a decision.
http://www.myspace.com/sirbergersworth
"In the long run, we only hit what we aim at."
-Henry David Thoreau
"In the long run, we only hit what we aim at."
-Henry David Thoreau
Ditto. My Firestudio Project fried yesterday. Had it for less than 2 years, only got it working about 1 year ago.dparrish wrote:Presonus FireStudio?
Bad, bad, bad, bad.
Bad, bad.
"Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact." William S Burroughs
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- gimme a little kick & snare
- Posts: 98
- Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2004 7:23 am
- Location: mobile al
+1 for echo, i also want to say i owned a presonus firebox and i noticed my recordings had a slight whine, thought it was computer noise but it was the firebox, ( so i replaced it) tried out an apogee duet n echo audiofire4, i returned the apogee duet, echo makes good stuff they just dont advertise and hype there product like other companies do.
is it beer 30 yet?????
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- re-cappin' neve
- Posts: 699
- Joined: Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:00 pm
- Location: Allentown, PA
- Contact:
grockvt wrote:so what about this prism orpheus...who is using one and how good does it run with sonar 8.xxx????
4 mic pres on it too...
Well, it lists for about 4 or 5 GRAND(!), so are you still wondering if it works with Sonar?
By the way, I did a review of the Focusrite Saffire PRO 40 several months ago for a radio industry magazine. Nifty little box, and it sounded good, although the headphone amps were a tad noisy. Lots of cool features too. Very stable drivers, easy installation, and priced under $500.
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- ass engineer
- Posts: 44
- Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:02 pm
- Location: Portsmouth NH
I went from a Firebox to an Audiofire 8 this year.
The Firebox's noise floor definitely has a whiney pitch to it that makes it sound awful. I also had problems with the power transformer during the summer; it was starting to make an audible whine in the room, then when I pressed +48V, poof! It dropped dead. After letting it cool off, it powered up again, but the same thing happened. The temporary solution was to use the provided wall wart instead of 1394 bus power, no more transformer problems. Now it works fine on bus power again, so I blame temperature/humidity for that. Also, presumably due to dirty power in this house, I was getting a lot of clicks and pops, both in my monitors and in my recordings. Then there was the issue of the Firebox going unresponsive at random times, forcing me to cycle the power to reset it. When I had to cycle the power 10 times during a mix session, I decided it was time for the Firebox to go.
I got a good eBay deal on an older model Audiofire 8 (no ADAT) and paired it with an ATTY to control the volume of my active monitors. The D/A conversion is night and day better. Everything sounds so good now, it's almost scary, because I know my mixes can't sound this good on any consumer system No more pops or breakdowns. I have done just enough recording with it to decide that the built in preamps are quite limited. I compared Tambourine -> 57 -> GT Brick vs. built-in, and the Brick was clearly deeper with less distortion in the tippy top end. Toast from a toaster, right? Now that I've finished mixing the live show I was working on, I can finally begin to realize the tracking benefits.
There is one nitpicky thing I don't like about the Audiofire vs. the Firebox. The output seems to be exclusive between ASIO and Directsound. By that I mean that if I'm playing something in Winamp and I open my DAW, I can't get any output on 1/2 from the DAW. Vice versa, while DAW is open I can't get audio from Winamp, web browser, etc. This is annoying because I like to turn on some music while bouncing tracks. Eventually I'll break down and get some cheap powered speakers for media and route Directsound audio through 3/4...
The Firebox's noise floor definitely has a whiney pitch to it that makes it sound awful. I also had problems with the power transformer during the summer; it was starting to make an audible whine in the room, then when I pressed +48V, poof! It dropped dead. After letting it cool off, it powered up again, but the same thing happened. The temporary solution was to use the provided wall wart instead of 1394 bus power, no more transformer problems. Now it works fine on bus power again, so I blame temperature/humidity for that. Also, presumably due to dirty power in this house, I was getting a lot of clicks and pops, both in my monitors and in my recordings. Then there was the issue of the Firebox going unresponsive at random times, forcing me to cycle the power to reset it. When I had to cycle the power 10 times during a mix session, I decided it was time for the Firebox to go.
I got a good eBay deal on an older model Audiofire 8 (no ADAT) and paired it with an ATTY to control the volume of my active monitors. The D/A conversion is night and day better. Everything sounds so good now, it's almost scary, because I know my mixes can't sound this good on any consumer system No more pops or breakdowns. I have done just enough recording with it to decide that the built in preamps are quite limited. I compared Tambourine -> 57 -> GT Brick vs. built-in, and the Brick was clearly deeper with less distortion in the tippy top end. Toast from a toaster, right? Now that I've finished mixing the live show I was working on, I can finally begin to realize the tracking benefits.
There is one nitpicky thing I don't like about the Audiofire vs. the Firebox. The output seems to be exclusive between ASIO and Directsound. By that I mean that if I'm playing something in Winamp and I open my DAW, I can't get any output on 1/2 from the DAW. Vice versa, while DAW is open I can't get audio from Winamp, web browser, etc. This is annoying because I like to turn on some music while bouncing tracks. Eventually I'll break down and get some cheap powered speakers for media and route Directsound audio through 3/4...
"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." - pablo picasso
I received my Allen and Heath ZED R16 yesterday. Quick setup, no driver fuss. Sounds great, and amazingly simple to use. So easy to switch from tracking through it to DAW, to sending the recorded audio tracks through the analog mixer channels for analog mixdown. Just hit a button on each channel...
"Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact." William S Burroughs
no one answered this (that i know of) and ive been asking myself this same question.liftyrfists wrote:
Also, in regards to the saffire, since it only has 1/4" inputs, is it cool to run XLR to 1/4"s? I've been under the impression that that isn't the best idea, though I don't know where I got that impression (probably from a faulty xlr-1/4" cord ). Or would that be something that you'd be running the mics into preamps first and then the saffire?
can someone confirm this?
- woodhenge
- pushin' record
- Posts: 285
- Joined: Thu May 07, 2009 11:28 am
- Location: Hangin' with Jake and Elwood @Bob's Country Bunker, Indiana
If you're all talking about the new Saffire Pro 24, 24DSP, or 40, the inputs are in fact hybrid 1/4" AND XLR connectors. They'll take either cable.timh wrote:no one answered this (that i know of) and ive been asking myself this same question.liftyrfists wrote:
Also, in regards to the saffire, since it only has 1/4" inputs, is it cool to run XLR to 1/4"s? I've been under the impression that that isn't the best idea, though I don't know where I got that impression (probably from a faulty xlr-1/4" cord ). Or would that be something that you'd be running the mics into preamps first and then the saffire?
can someone confirm this?
insert witty comment here...
in his quote he said saffire but i meant the audiofire12. sorry! i shouldve specified.woodhenge wrote:If you're all talking about the new Saffire Pro 24, 24DSP, or 40, the inputs are in fact hybrid 1/4" AND XLR connectors. They'll take either cable.timh wrote:no one answered this (that i know of) and ive been asking myself this same question.liftyrfists wrote:
Also, in regards to the saffire, since it only has 1/4" inputs, is it cool to run XLR to 1/4"s? I've been under the impression that that isn't the best idea, though I don't know where I got that impression (probably from a faulty xlr-1/4" cord ). Or would that be something that you'd be running the mics into preamps first and then the saffire?
can someone confirm this?
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- audio school
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2009 9:04 am
RE:Firestudio
Just balancing out the negative experience of the previous poster.
I love my Firestudio. Sounds Great. The Control Panel Software is amazing. Super routable and expanable. nice pre's and converters. There were some driver issues but they have been corrected for some time.
Thanks Tape OP!
I love my Firestudio. Sounds Great. The Control Panel Software is amazing. Super routable and expanable. nice pre's and converters. There were some driver issues but they have been corrected for some time.
Thanks Tape OP!
I'm switching to a few Steinberg MR816 boxes. They make two different ones at different prices. There is also $300 rebates going on right now with them. I have a apogee ensemble that I'm selling.
-Chris
http://www.ctmsound.com
http://www.ctmsound.com
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- gettin' sounds
- Posts: 109
- Joined: Wed May 23, 2007 1:56 pm
- Location: Georgetown, TX
Audiofire 12 inputs are line level. As long as you're sending it a line level signal, no problems. There are no mic pre's in the it. BTW, I absolutely love my audiofire12.timh wrote:in his quote he said saffire but i meant the audiofire12. sorry! i shouldve specified.woodhenge wrote:If you're all talking about the new Saffire Pro 24, 24DSP, or 40, the inputs are in fact hybrid 1/4" AND XLR connectors. They'll take either cable.timh wrote:no one answered this (that i know of) and ive been asking myself this same question.liftyrfists wrote:
Also, in regards to the saffire, since it only has 1/4" inputs, is it cool to run XLR to 1/4"s? I've been under the impression that that isn't the best idea, though I don't know where I got that impression (probably from a faulty xlr-1/4" cord ). Or would that be something that you'd be running the mics into preamps first and then the saffire?
can someone confirm this?
I'm really tempted by those units. Everything I've read about them concerning the audio quality has been stellar.ctmsound wrote:I'm switching to a few Steinberg MR816 boxes. They make two different ones at different prices. There is also $300 rebates going on right now with them. I have a apogee ensemble that I'm selling.
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