Ableton Forum

I keep getting dropouts. Especially when srubbing through the arrangement position using the timeline numbers at the top. Doing it quite fast causes dropouts. I've already increased plugin buffer if that helps. Also increased latency but still happens. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I bought this item B stock as well so I'm scared it might be hardware!?

Thanks for any help!

I had bought a Firebox as well for my G4 1.5GHz Powerbook, and had drop-out problems as well. Since I was able to run my internal soundcard at 64 samples without any problems and my Motu828mkII as well, I figured it definitely had to be a Firebox problem. The best I could run the Firebox at was 256 samples, and even then I experienced drop-outs once in a while!

Ken

i have been having problems with my set-up too. no drop outs... but lots of pops and crackling. Has anybody else had these issues?
Had any luck fixing it?

HELP!

Having problems with Firebox and Live 4, keeps crashing occasionally and I get some dropouts as well. But I'm not sure if it's a Firebox problem in my case - Yamaha 01X keeps doing the same and it's firewire as well.. using for example M-Audio's cheap USB box doesn't cause any problems so I'm beginning to wonder if it's a firewire problem.

Using PowerBook G4 and OS X 10.4.2..

I don't know if it's a Firewire problem since my MOTU 828mkII works perfectly (gotta love MOTU for solid MAC drivers!). I would say it's definitely a Presonus driver problem. Maybe in your case it's a Yamaha driver problem as well!!

Ken

I had some problems initially when I bought the Firebox and I was using Live 4. The audio would drop out and the blue Firewire sync light on the unit would cycle from blue to red and back to blue. (this is on a WinXP Pro machine, BTW)

I called Presonus and they were very helpful. They told me to check the IDE devices setup in Device Manager. I checked them, and instead of them being set to DMA, they were set to slower settings. Presonus suggests removing the IDE controller drivers in device manager and restarting, letting Windows reinstall the correct drivers and automagically setting them to DMA. This worked for me, although I have had the problem reoccur from time to time. Searches on MS's Technet told me that usually DMA devices get set to slower speeds when there is a timeout writing to device. So I imagine that the IDE/DMA issue is what causes the Firebox issues on my system. I will probably reinstall WinXP in the near future to see it that finally resolves the issue.

Dang, Presonus just lowered the price of the Firebox to $299. If they could only get the OSX drivers to work properly!

Ken

i have also noticed that when using Live 5 w/ the firebox on my powerbook that you can hear a high pitched noise when i move the curser around the screen with the trackpad... really annoying.

my firebox is turning out to be a pain in the butt. I hope that if it is a firebox/software problem, that they fix it very soon.

I tried out the Firbox and it consumed much more CPU than say the Motu 828- this can lead to dropouts and crackling.... I would say the Firebox makes the computer performance deteriorate...

damn, i just bought a firebox...before they dropped the price double downer.

actually have been pretty happy with mine so far, had a couple dropouts so have decided to try using powerpack with it, would be nice to power it off the firewire bus (of course) but i have a feeling it will be a lot more reliable with its own power supply ? Shame the latency performance is not that great but its a damn site better than m audios firewire 410 that i had b4

I've been in contact with Presonus about this. After a lot of back and forth they told me it was system specific, basically they said it was my fault I can't get it to run! They were "trying" to be helpful and forwarded my system profile to Apple, but haven't heard back from them. Anyway, I did a test with MOTU equipment as well as M-Audio stuff, heck I can run my Photon X25 at the same latency as the Firebox. All the MOTU stuff at a much lower latency. The funny thing is that they're blowing out the Firebox, which mind you didn't come out that long ago, to introduce mkII. It strikes me very odd, I think something is definitely wrong with this thing hardware-wise. I don't have mine anymore and couldn't be happier. The Firebox is crap if you're trying to run at low latencies, and system specific is BS too, imho. Like I said everything else works fine on my system. And they brushed it off like they would have heard many more complaints about it, if there was a real problem, so I did a search on Cubase.net as well as here and forwarded all the links to them. Maybe more people should inquire about this problem! It was my second Presonus product and my second problem, I don't know but I don't think I am gonna invest any money into Presonus in the near future. The last thing I wanna say though is that the guy at Presonus has been very nice and professional about this, even though he couldn't help me one bit!

Ken

that sucks, That's not what I wanted to hear at all.
It MUST be a hardware problem. they really need to update their firmware or something. The fact is that the silly box doesn't deliver like it should.
how frustrating.