Ableton Forum

i'm thinking of switching my motu (witch i love, is trusty an stable) for a firebox, as i don't realy need all the in's and out's and i could save some money, and the box is a bit smaller...

a good plan?

i must mention i use a macbook pro from first generation, 2.0 intel core duo

I don't know about the firebox, but the MOTU Ultralite rocks! Even though I don't need the ins and outs, I keep it because it works and it sounds good. That said, I know nothing of the firebox, but if it was me, based on my experience of the Ultralite I would keep it.

MOTU. It works.

oki
more opinions?

stick with the motu, maybe you will have a need for more outs later in life. The MOTU is a lovely AI

the firebox will need its own power supply

other than that, its a really (REALLY) amazing soundcard for it's price... it hands down beats my echo cards and mboxes!

I'd keep the MOTU. I've never had a problem with my Firebox, but I wish I had waited a few months for the MOTU....better convertors and preamps at the least,

if there's one thing you want out of a soundcard, it's reliability. that alone is worth it's weight in gold

so in the pro corner you have

-better sound
-more routing options
-stability
-you ALREADY OWN IT

why even consider it?

making music on a stable system beats troubleshooting a crashing one i think

I have the firebox. It's awesome for the most part. It doesn't need it's own power supply either. But, the Ultralite is in another league in my opinion! Keep it.

give me your motu ultralite and I'll give you an echo indigo i/o

I had a firebox and it was the most reliable, stable audio interface I ever had. Only traded it in because I wanted more inputs.

Originally I traded it in for the ultralite, but there were some things I didn't like about the motu for my specific setup, and it caused my system firewire activity to freeze all the time, so I went with a firepod instead, which I'm very happy with. But there are two things I miss about the firebox- bus-powered, and a software mixer(which for outputs was more configurable than the ultralite -couldn't set two sets of monitors with individual volume control like i did with the firebox). The firebox integrates nicely with the mac's own sound control as well (I could still use the mac volume buttons to control the firebox output which was nice because the unit was away from the computer where I recorded. This isn't the case with motu, meaning you have to adjust volume on the unit.)

The ultralite had more input monitoring options, but less options for straight output routing.

I understand that the motu has slightly better pre's, but I thought the firebox was fine, and I'm happy with the firepod.

It really depends on your setup, most people love the ultralite, but for me it just didn't fit as nicely as presonus.

One thing you do want to look out for though if you switch is the input levels of the pre's on the firebox. My first unit was way too quiet on the preamps. I traded it in for a different unit, and they were fine. So I guess some earlier makes had quiet preamps.

rjw

thanks for the posts guys

I have the same macbook that you do, and I now have a firebox as well. On my 2 systems (macbook and mac pro) sometimes my traveler (which uses the same driver as the ultralite) won't give me any sound (other than a weird, high pitched whine) after waking the computer from sleep. I have to restart every time to get it working right.

The firebox has been rock solid so far (I've now had it for 2 months), and sounds good to me—and I say this after having my traveler upgraded with the Black Lion modifications.

I know that the traveler and the ultralite are different, but they use essentially the same components. In my opinion, the sound of the traveler/ultralite vs. the firebox is too close to quibble about. You'd do great with either one sound wise.

this is exactly what I did end of last year and am now really regretting. the level on the mic preamps is really low with my dynamic mic and the digital boost introduces noise.
you can have my firebox for your ultralite if you still have it. I'm thinking of getting another ultralite or poss a audiofire8

don`t think that you will need a powersuplay for the firebox, i have one with macbook and it works great!

but i`m not shure about your trade, firebox goes for 299 on playback, i will keep the motu for home and buy the firebox for live gigs