I’v searched quite some time for a good firewire soundcard and the name Firebox keeps popin up very often. I looked into that and found that it’s qute an old model. Has there really been any big developments in four years? Does anyone know any new hi-quality soundcards from own experience?
Second thing that I found was that the pricerange for a new Firebox is from 250USD (Amazon) to 500USD (Presonus homepage). Is there then any difference in the quality? Has anyone bought a Firebox from Amazon or from any other web-store that has a low price?
You are welcome to give any feedback with your own soundcard that your using!
It’s very hard to tell the difference between soundcards on quality anymore, they just do the job. Quality really comes from two areas:
Having a good signal chain between the device that’s being recorded and your soundcard (mic → preamp → desk-eq → soundcard → disk for example)
Knowing how to engineer your recordings. What’s your chain of amplification? What’s your target signal level? What’s your target bit-depth, and sample rate? How much headroom do you have in dB? Any good book on music recording will give you the basics on that, but the newer ones on home Digital Recording will get to the point faster, e.g. Amazon.com
Choose one that’s had good reports on stable drivers on your platform, has the right number and types of ins and outs you think you’ll be needing, has the right latency of monitoring and round-trip for the kinds of recording you want to be doing and you’re good to go.
I’v looked into the prices of the Firebox and it seems that the soundcard costs much more here in Europe than in US (180£ - 362$ or 299EUR - 480$). UK has lower prices.
Does enyone know any good dealer in Europe with a reasonable price for the Firebox?
Well i loved my Presonus, but last year i went through a transition into protools which i am kind of disappointed with, and could be switching back to the presonus firebox very soon!
Presonus is awsome. Though i dont have the small version, I got the fp-10, it still kicks ass. Its nice cause it has 8 stereo outputs than i route. Excessive yes…though i didnt think i would be useing it to Dj…
I’ve just purchased a Firebox and am awaiting arrival next week. I just thought i’d start this thread to get a bit of a headsup on any tips or find out if anyone has had any trouble before it gets here as i have a 3 night weekend djing with it straight up next week so it will be great to find out any little hidden nasties before hand so i know what i am looking for if the shiznit hits the fan halfway through a set.
Good choice with teh firebox, main problem i had when getting started with this card was using old firmware and drivers, and its never been perfect on vista but solid as on xp and osx
I’ve had mine for about 2 years, can’t fault it. Once in a blue moon it might do something strange but thats probably my fault more than anything. Love having the 24bit/96k option there for if I ever need it. Mmmmmm firewire. It’s plug in and go in OS X aswell. You can’t go wrong.
Make sure you get 4? 1/4" TRS to RCA outputs. 2 for coming out of the main output from traktor and 2 to go out through RCA’s to 1/8" Jack to a female-female adapter so you can plug your headphones in.
Set main output in traktor or whatever to 1 and 2 mono, and 3 and 4 for monitor(headphones). Just had an idea, you could use 5 and 6 output for speaker monitors in a club or maybe route them as an out for itunes for if Traktor decided to die on you during a set.
There is probably an easier way but this doesn’t cost much. Lots of adapters makes you look like you know what you are doing all the time!
oh and the preamp in the firebox is crazy, nice sound and you will never have to turn it up past half/three quarters. instrument/mic in’s are really low latency too.
Not for cueing it can’t because it’s hardwired to output the same audio as the master outs, 1 and 2. I searched around for the same thing when I first got mine but to no avail.
I use the headphone output on mine to cue with and i tell you what that cue out is loooooooooud ! In the “Presonsus mixier” software you can select which ouput will be yor moniter channel, i recommend setting this to Spdif if your not using that output.
Then its just a matter of selecting the Spdif output as the monitor out inside of your dj software.
Since there is two FireWire plugs on the back of the card, can we chain a FireWire hard drive to the computer via the card? Saves on USB slots for us Mac users..
like bento said, as long as you select the right settings in the firebox mixer software then you can cue with the headphone jack. it’s nice and loud too, which is always a plus.
i think my firebox is one of the best computer/digital music purchases i have made. It has great sound and the firebox pumps it out LOUD!
yes the extra firebox firewire ports is meant for chaining a hard drive or whatever.
huh, I’m confuszzled and drunk, bento says he uses the headphone out but then says he uses the spdif, i mean thats pretty much the same as rca’s except that spdif is digital and not true audio signal…? choosing 3 and 4 output on the firebox through traktor seems alot better than going through spdif. Tell me the settings in which i can cue with the headphone output!..does it effect other apps?
geez, tell me how to do this, i’ve been missing out. never took too much notice of the firebox mixer app.
