Would you go firewire, or PCI based? Which one would you pick and why? I am thinking of picking something up, that already has the preamps built in. I want some great sound quality, and I really don't foresee myself ever recording more than 4 tracks at a time. My candidates are: **Firewire** Motu 896 HD Motu 828 Mk II Presonus Firepod **PCI based** EMU 1820M Lynx II (but I would need a preamp) I already have pretty high powered dual processor P4, and G4 machines with plenty of disk and memory, that should do whatever I need them to do. I also have a pair of Mackie 824 monitors, and a Mackie 1402 mixer that I should start to put to good use. For now I have an SM57 to mic the cabinets, but I will be looking for a versatile condensor mic in the $300 range that can cover vocals, and instrument micing as well. I basically want to pick a platform and start to move forward, which I think will help me improve my playing as well. Any suggestions? Thanks, B
It depends on what you want to spend. I recently got a Firepod, and It really is great! And, for the money nothing even comes close.
If I was buying a new rig right now, no matter the platform I'd go with something firewire based because I think the companies are going to phase out support for PCI-based systems at the low end (i.e. not Pro Tools HD level systems). Digidesign just released Pro Tools 6.7, which does not work with the Digi001, their low-end PCI system. I think the other companies are going to follow suit soon enough. --chiba
MOTU hardware is great. Their software i.e. Digital Performer, was great under OS9, if you want to run in in OSX you'd better have a cutting edge CPU. If I was buying a rig from the ground up I'd be looking at one of the Pro Tools systems or maybe Logic 7. I'm a long time Performer user but the way it's "performing" for me right now, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Cubase and Sonar 4 PE. I have not decided which I like better. Cubase is easier yet I feel like once I learn it Sonar will be much deeper and much better sounding. The Firepod is really great.
Thanks for the info. Are the built in preamps on the Firepods as good as the other competitors, such as Motu, and EMU?
If it was me: 1) Computer 2) Lynx AES16 3) Apogee Rosetta 800 ad/da 4) Samplitude For lots of reasons.
I've never had and Emu but they are certainly eqaul to the MOTU pre's in my opinion. The friepod is a really versatile and easy to use unit. I'm impressed. I'm running latency at 2ms on a p4 3.0 gig machine with a gig of ram. Pretty awesome.
I just heard some demo recordings on Sweetwater's website done with the PreSonus Firepod of a funk band done live and they sounded incredible (at least to my amateur ears). I am wondering if I should start with something like that. I also heard that the pres, in the RME Fireface 800 are some if the best you can get, but it is 2.5X the price. Either way, these units (even the Firepod) has to be a step up from my M-Audio 2496 card, run through a Mackie mixer. No? I will be using Sonar 4 with this setup, on a dual Pentium 4 Xeon machine running at 2 Ghz, and 2 GB of RAM. I also have the machine loaded with Ultra 160 SCSI hard drives. Although it isnt the latest processor, I think it should do the job for some home wanking for now. No? Sorry for all the newbie questions, but I just want to get something that's simple, and good sounding off the ground! B
Go for it. I'm still using my laptop w/ Pent IIIm 1GHz (actually clocks at 700MHz) w/ 256MB RAM w/ Sonar2.2 w/ slow IDE hard drive, and I'm still in business. ari
The fireface is supposed to be awesom but it is way more expensive. Just so you know, the Presonus just released the firebox, its a small version of the firepod. firebox Oh, and that wasn't just any funk band, Its T.O.P.!! Tower of Power.
