Saffire Blows, Suggestions?

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 1:12 pm

i retract my previous glowing statements about the Focusrite Saffire. It's a genuine piece of gorilla shit. Latest firmware, drivers, apps, OS etc and it still just gives me the digital finger. Either it spends the whole time flicking on and off or goes to digital noise after about 5 minutes of use. Same results in Live 5/6, GarageBand, Logic and Soundtrack Pro. Also the same on a G4 PowerBook and a Core Duo mini. I give up.

How's the MOTU Ultralite? I'm looking for bus-powered, compact and more ins than outs if possible. Thanks!

dmacintyre · Post by **dmacintyre** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 1:22 pm

Ultralite fine here. Using 6 audio ins plus S/PDIF with no probs at 256 samples in Live 6. If it makes you feel any better, I only lasted a couple of days with the saffire too. All the audible resetting every time I changed sample rates or did anything to do with the audio interface and poor performance was enough to get it the boot.

I do wish the Ultralite had knobs that you could actually turn without tweezers though. They are so close together I tend to use the CueMix software instead.

D.

CWoodOne · Post by **CWoodOne** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 1:53 pm

tjwett wrote:i retract my previous glowing statements about the Focusrite Saffire. It's a genuine piece of gorilla shit. Latest firmware, drivers, apps, OS etc and it still just gives me the digital finger. Either it spends the whole time flicking on and off or goes to digital noise after about 5 minutes of use. Same results in Live 5/6, GarageBand, Logic and Soundtrack Pro. Also the same on a G4 PowerBook and a Core Duo mini. I give up.

How's the MOTU Ultralite? I'm looking for bus-powered, compact and more ins than outs if possible. Thanks!

I went through THREE of them. I think it's the worst hardware purchase I ever made -- also the "DSP" functions were a joke, the plugins inferior and just plain impossible to even read.

rsagevik · Post by **rsagevik** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 2:13 pm

Presonus has never let me down

JahGuide · Post by **JahGuide** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:33 pm

Damn the saffire sucks that bad. I was thinking about geting the Saffire LE but now i am a liitle worried. The features on paper looks so damn cool. how is the Presonus FirePod. I wish my X-Station had two more outputs.

SubFunk · Post by **SubFunk** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:40 pm

wow, this is news... i am wondering myself, i only heard good things about the saffire from a lot of users i talked to... so far... ?!?

CWoodOne · Post by **CWoodOne** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:41 pm

JahGuide wrote:Damn the saffire sucks that bad. I was thinking about geting the Saffire LE but now i am a liitle worried. The features on paper looks so damn cool. how is the Presonus FirePod. I wish my X-Station had two more outputs.

There's a lot of blurb about the great "DSP" functions, but that's a total crock.
The crappy reverb is only on the heaphone mix -- same with the compression.
The drivers S_CK and customer service almost make m-audio look good.

JahGuide · Post by **JahGuide** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:51 pm

CWoodOne wrote:
JahGuide wrote:Damn the saffire sucks that bad. I was thinking about geting the Saffire LE but now i am a liitle worried. The features on paper looks so damn cool. how is the Presonus FirePod. I wish my X-Station had two more outputs.
There's a lot of blurb about the great "DSP" functions, but that's a total crock.
The crappy reverb is only on the heaphone mix -- same with the compression.
The drivers S_CK and customer service almost make m-audio look good.

That really sucks, all that raving review they got from sound on sound and other mags. I wonder how much they got paid from focusrite to write such a high review. Thanks for the info I think I will look at something else. The FirePod does look nice.

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:58 pm

My Presonus Firebox has treated me quite well, although I am envious of my friend's Ultralite. It costs a little more, but I'd go with the Ultralite if it had been out when I got my Firebox. MOTU sounds great, and the case is rock solid.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:59 pm

This is the first bad review I've heard of the Saffire. Sounds like yours was maybe a dud? Either way, the Ultralite is a great unit, I love mine.

CWoodOne · Post by **CWoodOne** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 4:06 pm

Tarekith wrote:This is the first bad review I've heard of the Saffire. Sounds like yours was maybe a dud? Either way, the Ultralite is a great unit, I love mine.

Had 3 of them, all problems, 1 from a store in Chicago even
(guitar center on halsted), 2 from New Jersey.

Tried them on 3 different PC's and 3 different Macs...

All of them trash.

The Ultralite is just better hardware, plus it has decent drivers, at least on the Mac

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 4:20 pm

The XP drivers haev been rock solid for me too.

So Solid Poo · Post by **So Solid Poo** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 4:24 pm

saffire blowz me 2 i sugges u wear a rubbah between u n me shez a dikaholik my cuz dik gon green sins she goobble itup now hez tekkin medikation 4 siffilus r herpez r sum shit

jamester · Post by **jamester** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 5:00 pm

Crazy, I thought the Saffire Pro looked awesome...oh well. Edirol and Presonus are generally rock-solid; I have an Edirol UA-1000 and I love it!

Jubei · Post by **Jubei** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 5:56 pm

I have had one for well over a year. Never one hitch. Not one pop....click.....nothing. As far as the dsp, well the compression and eq do the a really nice job on my vocals and it suits my needs perfectly. To each his own I guess. It's funny how everyone panics when one person on a board says his expierence with an item(anything....not just music gear) sucks, or was faulty. No one makes threads to just rave about a product that often. I mean.....I didn't and I love my saffire.

Saffire Blows, Suggestions?

Saffire Blows, Suggestions?

Re: Saffire Blows, Suggestions?