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Presonus Firebox??

Discount Saint

Discount Saint

Bassist for the music in my head
Jan 26, 2007
1,613
1,055
Victoria, BC, Canada
#1
So I've got some Long & McQuade giftcards to burn ($550 worth) and I've been wanting to get into a small laptop recording setup that will allow me to multi-track bass, guitar, keyboards, and drums (not all at once), as well as vocals, etc.. mostly for writing purposes at this point. The guy and L&M reccomended the Presonus Firebox (comes with Cubase LE) .. and I am wondering if anyone can give me a bit of a review on how well they work and their quality, etc? I was thinking, for purposes of recording drums, I would need to get a small mixer as well .. I was told that it would be a better idea to just get an interface with more inputs.. is this true? Wouldn't it be better to have an external mixer anyway?

Never really tried this before.. someone help!

Maybe I'll just the spend the money on a BMS and a BPDDI like I had originally intended . . .
 
#2
I'm going to back up my colleague out west...unless you're planning on recording the entire band all at once, you don't need the extra inputs...
better would be subjective. Unless you're tracking your band's next full length project that's going to release from your recording process, the Firebox should be fine. Maybe consider doing the Firepod or another 8 mic pre interface, but the 'Box is great!

...now, the drums, that does present an interesting problem...even though we had enough available inputs, my band came up with a solution that would work for you without needing the inputs at all! PM me if you're interested...
 
#3
Hey Rev (PM'd this to you as well) - very interested to hear about what your band did about drums. My thought would be to just hook up an external mixer with all the mics that you need and feed that through the two inputs on the Firebox.. you'd have to do all of your drums in one take, but for my purposes (demos, idea recording) that would be fine.

I've also heard a lot of REALLY bad reviews about the reliability of these things, like they break down and have to be replaced under warranty very frequently, etc. I'm not made of money, so if I'm going to invest in something like this, it needs to work and not create a whole slew of problems...

Plus the computer reqs for Cubase LE seem within the scope of my system, if just barely (Celeron 1.5GHz, 512 MB RAM) .. though I guess I might need to buy an external HD.. might just end up being a dead end for now.. I don't know.

Suggestions / thoughts?
 
#4
::Saint:: said:
Hey Rev (PM'd this to you as well) - very interested to hear about what your band did about drums. My thought would be to just hook up an external mixer with all the mics that you need and feed that through the two inputs on the Firebox.. you'd have to do all of your drums in one take, but for my purposes (demos, idea recording) that would be fine.

I've also heard a lot of REALLY bad reviews about the reliability of these things, like they break down and have to be replaced under warranty very frequently, etc. I'm not made of money, so if I'm going to invest in something like this, it needs to work and not create a whole slew of problems...

Plus the computer reqs for Cubase LE seem within the scope of my system, if just barely (Celeron 1.5GHz, 512 MB RAM) .. though I guess I might need to buy an external HD.. might just end up being a dead end for now.. I don't know.

Suggestions / thoughts?
Click to expand...

Man, I got to your PM before this! WAY too tired to type all that out again...


...Reason 3.0+V-Drums as midi interface= Awesome drum takes, without using up tracks or computer resources!

that's the short version :)
 
#6
Standalone said:
The 10 input 8 mic pream firepod is a much better bet, IMO.
Click to expand...

+1. Different tools for different jobs, but if you've got a band or just want to record rock drums w/ multiple mics, you'll be a lot less limited -- and have access to more beginner-friendly techniques -- with a Firepod than the Firebox.

The downside of the Firepod (even at the bargain price) is that zero-latency monitoring requires some additional gear and chops. If you already have a mixing board with decent preamps and direct outs, you're golden with the Firepod.

OTOH, if you don't have a good board already, I'd recommend looking at the Firestudio or similar product.
 
#8
derrico1 said:
+1.

The downside of the Firepod (even at the bargain price) is that zero-latency monitoring requires some additional gear and chops. If you already have a mixing board with decent preamps and direct outs, you're golden with the Firepod.

QUOTE]

For what I do, the firepod is awesome. Really no need for a mixing board. The pres are A-ok for home recording, up to the point where you have tens of thousands in your studio.

I'm at about 15k in mine, and nowhere near needing better pres. Maybe I just suck, but heck, I have fun!

Anyway, witness the tenor sax recorded with a ribbon mic. If they have enough gain for that ribbon, they're fine. I have a vlz pro board, and one rane pre, but have never seen the need to bypass the pres on the firepod.

And if zero latency monitoring means that you hear playback and can overdub something and have it all match up on the transport, then it's pretty much a matter of turning one knob on the front of the unit.

If zero latency monitoring means that you're sitting in a control room and hearing it exactly at the moment it's played, I think it does that, too. If not, and you're being old school and riding faders all over the place, then I can't see how fifty miliseconds is really going to affect your end product, when you can easily grab anything you missed later.

Anyway, you're just getting started, ::saint::, so don't worry too much about what you get, but you will want to be able to record a bunch of tracks at once, and the firepod will let you take 8 at once, or 6 and one stereo s/pdif digital in. There's also the M.O.T.U. 8pre that has some equivalent features, but I have zero experiences with it.

Good luck!

edit: over at homerecording.com/bbs, I believe I have read that the mic pres in the firebox are actually not the same as the firepod. for an extra $100 you have four times the inputs. Go for the 'pod.
Click to expand...
 
#9
I have the Firebox and I like it a lot. I used to have a few MOTU units including an 896HD, and I felt the Firebox sounded a little better and operated a little more intuitively, and Cubase also works a lot better for me than whatever came free with the MOTUs. (Although obviously the 896 had a ton more connectivity.)

Downsides to the Firebox: It runs very, very hot, so you can't use it in a tight unventilated rack, and you shouldn't leave anything meltable sitting on top. Also, I found that if there was an extra Firewire cable attached to it, with nothing plugged into the other end, that sometimes it would glitch out for no apparent reason. Problem solved whenever I would remove the stray cable or connect it to a device.
 
#10
To clarify about Firepod monitoring, I find it perfectly fine when doing overdubs, but it isn't workable for full band tracking w/o a mixer IME.

While you can monitor the pre-amp inputs (i.e, before the signal goes to HD and back), the only mix available that way is the result of setting channel gains.

For the benefit of the OP, that means unless the monitor mix you want is the sound of every channel running just below clipping, full band tracking w/o an additional mixing board requires either compromising on optimum gain structure (and consequently the resolution of recorded tracks), or else living with latency in the monitor mix (monitoring from the DAW software).
 

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