Presonus Firestudio?

[gmeredith]

Hi, I'm considering putting together a new recording system, for mainly live recording use. I've read a couple of threads here of people using the Firestudio - some useful information there - and I can get one for a good price through my drummer who works in a music shop. Has anyone been using it much for live recording, using up to its full 26 analog inputs (using the Digimax extra input boxes)? I've downloaded the manual and I think I've got my head around the basic idea of how it works.

I want to be able to record at least 16 analog channels at once, such as mic'd drums, vocals, guitars, acoustic instruments etc. Has anyone done this with the firestudio (and associated Digimax mic input modules)?

What problems did you have to work through to get your system working, and what sort of computer setup did you use? I want to use a PC, which I will also put together from the ground up on recommended specs. Any advice is appreciated.

Cheers, graham

[space6oy]

i have a firestudio and two digimax running to ableton live 8, but on a mac. they're very nice, except for how i have to open the presonus software to reassign the firestudio's input settings almost every time i power them up before opening ableton. wish it would remember them as an assigned default.

[b3groover]

I don't have the Firestudio, but I use three of the older Firepods and don't have any problems. They are very stable and sound good. I've done three complete, nationally released CDs on them so far (working on a fourth and fifth). They aren't top of the line as far as converter quality, but if someone can't get a good sounding recording from them, they are doing something wrong!

I've thought about upgrading to the Firestudio because supposedly the converters are better, but the Firepods just work so damn well.

You might look into getting three Firepods used. The last one I bought was $250 used. You can link up to three of them together for 24 inputs. The most I've ever used for a live recording was two (16 channels) but that's only because my laptop isn't powerful enough to run all three at once. In my home studio, I use all three at once attached to my PC desktop. The desktop is not state of the art either; it's an X2 Athlon based machine with 2GB of RAM. They work great with it.

[gmeredith]

Thanks Space6oy, even though you're running a Mac, it still lets me know that the firestudio itself is inherently good, and that the Digimax's work well with it.

B3groover:

Firepods $250 used? So they work well daisy chained? That's encouraging. I'll download the manual and check it out. So when you run them in your DAW, under XP I presume, what does the DAW see the 3 firepods as? Meaning, how do the replicate inputs look in each track's device list, to distinguish the 3 firepods?

Cheers, graham

[b3groover]

Yes, they work very well daisy-chained. You have to turn them on in order (ie, Firepod 1 first, wait for it to sync, then Firepod 2, wait for sync, then Firepod 3) but as long as you do that, they sync up just fine.

You can name the Firepods whatever you want in the Presonus driver panel. In Cubase they pop up as Firepod 1, 2, and 3. It's pretty simple.

The onboard preamps are pretty good. They get the job done. You can also bypass them and plug other preamps in via the 1/4" inputs. I use a combination of outboard preamps and the Firepod preamps.

[gmeredith]

Excellent! Thinking about it, I'm now leaning much more towards the 3 firepods now. The advantage I see with them over the one firestudio with 2x Digimax input racks is, besides overall price, the fact that each firepod is totally a standalone input box interface. Which is handy if I want to have a box at another location temporarily (like lend it out to a band member) but still use mine, when I'm not needing them for 24 input live recordings. You've given me much to think about

Cheers, Graham