Does anyone here have experience using this box with Mac laptops and Live/Logic? Would love to hear opinions. Searched the forums, but no-one really had tested them thoroughly it seems.
R
Presonus Firebox
-
continuous
- Posts: 1012
- Joined: Sat Aug 06, 2005 7:11 pm
- Location: PDX
This probably won't be much help bu i've seen some discussion of the Firebox on http://www.osxaudio.com
uh site seems to be down at the moment...
uh site seems to be down at the moment...
-
Winterpark
- Posts: 1671
- Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2004 2:59 am
- Location: Melbourne, Australia
An important factor for me too.... And is it bus-powered?!?!??!...am wrote:can you "hotplug" the firebox?
i'm also thinking about getting a firewire soundcard, and have looked at the firewire410, but you have to turn your computer off before attatching/detatching... which i think is kinda lame.... especially with my laptop, which i almost never switch off.
-am
R
i haven't tested on a mac but used one on my pc and pc laptop for a few weeks
bus powered from desktop but you need the power supply when running off laptop
be aware that it has major conflicts with wireless networking devices and will cause audio dropouts if they are used at the same time
other than that, very nice card
bus powered from desktop but you need the power supply when running off laptop
be aware that it has major conflicts with wireless networking devices and will cause audio dropouts if they are used at the same time
other than that, very nice card
Interesting.... so no AirPort and Firebox at the same time.xeb wrote:
be aware that it has major conflicts with wireless networking devices and will cause audio dropouts if they are used at the same time
Some reviews: http://www.macmusic.org/articles/view.p ... AznOhMaS=1
and
http://www.presonus.com/pdf/SOSFIREBOX.pdf
Hello, 1st time to the site, I have been interested in purchasing live to use as a daw as well as to use on stage and came across this thread. I have the firebox and use it with my powerbook (1.67 128vram 2g ram). The firebox can be plugged in after you put your mac to sleep there is no need to shut it down, it syncs upon waking. It has failed to sync 2 or 3 times but corrected itself pon sleeping and waking again. You can also change the sample rate then change it back to sync it as well if it fails after waking. The preamps sound great to me and was a breeze setting up and getting started. Im pretty new to all of this and have been using the Cubase l.e. that came bundled with the firebox when i purchased it a couple of months back but have been looking into Live after reading some positive threads about it at osx.com and macmusic.org. Anyway, sorry for the long introduction, I hope this helps.
Thanks, this helps indeed. am more and more intruiged by this unit.SadPandas wrote:Hello, 1st time to the site, I have been interested in purchasing live to use as a daw as well as to use on stage and came across this thread. I have the firebox and use it with my powerbook (1.67 128vram 2g ram). The firebox can be plugged in after you put your mac to sleep there is no need to shut it down, it syncs upon waking. It has failed to sync 2 or 3 times but corrected itself pon sleeping and waking again. You can also change the sample rate then change it back to sync it as well if it fails after waking. The preamps sound great to me and was a breeze setting up and getting started. Im pretty new to all of this and have been using the Cubase l.e. that came bundled with the firebox when i purchased it a couple of months back but have been looking into Live after reading some positive threads about it at osx.com and macmusic.org. Anyway, sorry for the long introduction, I hope this helps.
R.
Olaf,
I dont use the Midi ins on the firebox, I am using the Oxygen hooked up via usb to my pbook. I use Absynth and a couple of other soft synths but moslty make simple drum loops using Battery then recording my guitar through the Pod Xt Pro rack. What are the advantages/disadvantages of using my oxygen through the firebox as opposed to using the usb in to hook it up? Besides the latency of course
.
Format,
Besides the box sounding good to me I had contacted presonus after i found out that upgrading to Tiger would render my Cubase L.E. useless and the guys over at presouns are sending me out a newer version of Cubase l.e. with an updated Tiger friendly installer and were more than helpful with any other questions i had regarding their unit. Let me know if you do indeed purchase it and what your thoughts are. Like i said im new to this so my views may be a bit novice compared to yours and your experience may differ.
Cheers,
pandas
I dont use the Midi ins on the firebox, I am using the Oxygen hooked up via usb to my pbook. I use Absynth and a couple of other soft synths but moslty make simple drum loops using Battery then recording my guitar through the Pod Xt Pro rack. What are the advantages/disadvantages of using my oxygen through the firebox as opposed to using the usb in to hook it up? Besides the latency of course
. Format,
Besides the box sounding good to me I had contacted presonus after i found out that upgrading to Tiger would render my Cubase L.E. useless and the guys over at presouns are sending me out a newer version of Cubase l.e. with an updated Tiger friendly installer and were more than helpful with any other questions i had regarding their unit. Let me know if you do indeed purchase it and what your thoughts are. Like i said im new to this so my views may be a bit novice compared to yours and your experience may differ.
Cheers,
pandas
Well the difference is that I'm looking for a unit that is small enough to carry around, and ideally it should become my studio interface too -- for this, I'd have to go with the Motu Traveler, which is great but actually, despite its name, very bulky. It is not quite 19" wide, but the depth is outrageous - they promote it as being able to sit under your laptop, and this is handy, but it's exactly the size of my Powerbook, footprint-wise -- that made me think as I'm actually still quite satisfied with my original Motu 828. So I'll probably go for a smaller interface specifically for playing out, rehearsals, stuff like that.SadPandas wrote:
Format,
Besides the box sounding good to me I had contacted presonus after i found out that upgrading to Tiger would render my Cubase L.E. useless and the guys over at presouns are sending me out a newer version of Cubase l.e. with an updated Tiger friendly installer and were more than helpful with any other questions i had regarding their unit. Let me know if you do indeed purchase it and what your thoughts are. Like i said im new to this so my views may be a bit novice compared to yours and your experience may differ.
Cheers,
pandas
The Motu has always been VERY reliable, hot-pluggable, always.... I wonder if the Prosonus drivers are up to the same rock-solid "you don't even realise the unit's there it's so flawless" standard???
At € 400, it's quite steep for a secondary unit though...
IMHO it's just about the maximum size i'd want to carry in my backpack. not too big and bulky but not really small and ultra-portable either.FORMAT wrote:I'd have to go with the Motu Traveler, which is great but actually, despite its name, very bulky. It is not quite 19" wide, but the depth is outrageous
bear in mind that the i/o does fill the back panel really tight, some of the connectors are on the side panel (midi, power) and the front panel doesn't have much free space either after the knobs, lcd and mini meters. i'm guessing that the size couldn't get much smaller with that feature set unless they decided to take some of the front panel control / metering away or moved some connectors to a separate breakout cable like firebox has.
another thing worth considering is weight. as long as the unit fits in your backpack or whatever you carry your mobile setup in, you would probably be more considered about how much all the stuff weighs since you have to lug it around. firebox seems to be really heavy (and sturdy) for an unit as small as that whereas traveler is pretty damn light for an unit in its size... i'd guess they both weigh about the same but i might be totally wrong.
sheesh, i sound just like a salesman now. anyway, i've heard good things about presonus units too (despite the first batch of fireboxes seemed to have lots of faulty units that caused complaints) and i'm not trying to get you to purchase either, just making some observations.
i was actually planning to get firebox at first but i decided to save up a bit more and wait for reviews. then i thought of getting rme fireface since rme stuff does sound amazing and firebox missed some features i would've wanted to have (it's my new main interface i was shopping for anyway) but the size and price were a bit too much for me and the feature set is a bit overkill at this point. in the end, traveler was a good compromise between features, size and price and it doesn't sound bad either. plus the drivers are really solid.
your situation is a bit different of course.
| http://www.lumeet.net/ | neverstoplovingmusic |
Well not really because ideally I'd like to have One interface and sell my current one...zion15 wrote:IMHO it's just about the maximum size i'd want to carry in my backpack. not too big and bulky but not really small and ultra-portable either.FORMAT wrote:I'd have to go with the Motu Traveler, which is great but actually, despite its name, very bulky. It is not quite 19" wide, but the depth is outrageous
bear in mind that the i/o does fill the back panel really tight, some of the connectors are on the side panel (midi, power) and the front panel doesn't have much free space either after the knobs, lcd and mini meters. i'm guessing that the size couldn't get much smaller with that feature set unless they decided to take some of the front panel control / metering away or moved some connectors to a separate breakout cable like firebox has.
another thing worth considering is weight. as long as the unit fits in your backpack or whatever you carry your mobile setup in, you would probably be more considered about how much all the stuff weighs since you have to lug it around. firebox seems to be really heavy (and sturdy) for an unit as small as that whereas traveler is pretty damn light for an unit in its size... i'd guess they both weigh about the same but i might be totally wrong.
sheesh, i sound just like a salesman now. anyway, i've heard good things about presonus units too (despite the first batch of fireboxes seemed to have lots of faulty units that caused complaints) and i'm not trying to get you to purchase either, just making some observations.
i was actually planning to get firebox at first but i decided to save up a bit more and wait for reviews. then i thought of getting rme fireface since rme stuff does sound amazing and firebox missed some features i would've wanted to have (it's my new main interface i was shopping for anyway) but the size and price were a bit too much for me and the feature set is a bit overkill at this point. in the end, traveler was a good compromise between features, size and price and it doesn't sound bad either. plus the drivers are really solid.
your situation is a bit different of course.