Presonus firebox, mbox2, maudio 1814 firewire or emu 1616?

If you get the MBox, get the first one, save yourself some money, and dont bother with the second is the general consensus I am hearing and I kinda agree with it. Focusrite made the Preamps in the first one, but didnt in the second one which turned a LOT of people off to it, and the price difference just means the first one was a better choice for many.

Now that being said Pro Tools(The Software that comes with the MBox) is NOT the be all end all of audio software despite what many people would have you believe. Even amongst people that have been doing this for some time this is a strong opinion. It is good software, dont get me wrong, but until you get in the TDM systems it really isnt much better than other options out there. The exception of course is what you brought up with being able to go to most every studio and work from compatibility since most of them do have ProTools in one fashion or another, I know of more than one studio that keep a MBox around specificly for when clueless producers that demand protools come sniffing around

In as far as the interfaces, I always shy away from EMU myself, but that is personal opinion with nothing to back it up, I just am not a fan of theirs, never really impressed by them and their main selling point(Onboard DSP) when you start getting your own plug ins really doesnt matter much as those wont let you run it on the EMU I dont believe.

That being said I think they are pretty well regarded in as far as interfaces go though, as I said it is just my personal preference to stick away from them.

The M-Audio I would strongly suggest you go for the cheaper 410 instead of the 1814 unless you plan on doing a fair amount of digital work. I have a friend with the 1814, and I ahve the 410 and we both agree the 410 was what we should have gotten since we both do audio work as it has all the analog connections we need for small portable studios, where as the digital connections on the 1814 really you cant take advantage of them as easily with a small portable studio.

Presonus is another decent choice, unfortunatly I havent used their interfaces, but I love their compressors for live theater. I havent heard anything bad about them though and am considering purchasing one myself.

Seablade

If you are recording a live band, I hope you are planning on taking the direct outs out of the board then if you are planning on using the other M-Audio. And then I would also suggest looking closely at its capabilities as I seem to remember some funkiness in it, but I could be remembering wrong. An external interface run with ADAT in wouldnt be a bad idea either.

And trust me I understand the cant try before you buy, even in the US I cant always try before I buy and it is sometimes the most frustrating thing when I get something awful that I had high hopes for.

In as far as the Edirol, that is actually another one I have been looking at, although I have to look at their USB options as opposed to their firewire. It looks a decent interface, but again I havent heard to much about it unfortunatly(That try before you buy? Yea as I am looking at their USB and cant try it... well I know the feeling I have to look at the USB due to running linux and USB devices being better supported, but so far I havent heard much in as far as bad things about it at least. I would imagine their Firewire device to be similar. Ill keep my ears open on it at least though.

Another option that may be out of your price range, Are you mainly recording live gigs you are engineering? If that is the case have you looked at picking up the Mackie Onyx small format mixers at all? Combine the two birds and kill them both at once as you can mix a live show on it, and it sends direct outs via firewire to your computer for all 16 of its channels, and their preamps are supposed to be pretty spectacular. It is worth noting though that this is a little more expensive, and if you do consider this make SURE you are aware of the capabilities of it beforehand(For instance the direct outs are Pre-EQ, it is primarly a live sound board with recording capabilities) which some people prefer(Myself included) but for some reason some people have taken offense at this. And its firewire card is an extra add-on.

I doubt its within your price range, but I Figured I would through it out there just in case.

Seablade

I would suggest one of these as the basis for a mobile studio.

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_...MixIO-main.html



Compatiblitity

Pro Tools M-Powered 7^ or greater

All Pro Tools systems (MIDI control only)

Logic*

Cubase*

Ableton Live 5 or greater^

Digital Performer*^

SONAR*^

ASIO 2

GSIF 2

Core Audio


* DAW software version must support Mackie Control, Logic Control or HUI protocol.
^Support provided after product launch via free downloadable firmware upgrade; see this page and Support>Drivers section soon for availability.

When you get some time, mind postin up a general reivew and opinions on that one?

Seablade

Appreciated thanks.

Seablade

S..b.. Could someone explain to newb what EMU 1616 does for audio? Have Sony digital camcorders, as thinking of shooting live & recording straight to HD (+miniDV). TY d8d PM
d..8d.. @yah or techie.com may save the more knowledgeable readers here some pain!

Good grief today is apparently a day for digging up old threads....

Um, what do you mean what it does for audio? It is an interface, it will get audio to your computer, so I guess I am not understanding exactly what you are looking for?

Seablade

Hey AlejandroI,
I just wanted to search some info on the M-Audio 1814 to replace my Edirol FA-101. Although the Fa-101 is a great little interface, good converters, geart look and prety dam good preamps(not allot of headroom tho) you unfortunately need a mixer for it. It does not have any internal routing, or any kind of digital mixer....its really analogue based in a bad way. As i said, its a great interface, BUT you NEED a mixer with it for the following reasons:
1. (prolly the worst)IT HAS NO VOLUME CONTROL (other than the mix, which is not cool
2. I am seeming to have problems with it crackling and poping and resetting, even at the highest settings. Ive been trying to track down and troubleshoot the issue with no luck. It may just be my PC because my friend doesnt seem to have issues (built em a brand new Asus powered Intel Core Duo system, 7900 GTX and all the perks).
3. it has no inserts, which isnt that bad, but it would be nice to have in my opinion since i will be using an Avalon VT747 Stereo Compressor for Recording/Mastering.
4. Since u dont have a mixer, ur direct in's and outs cannot be controlled, volume-wise and i had some problems with it live because it didnt run my 3-8 inputs to my L-R outputs til I set the Sample Rate down to 44.1-96 K and UNPRESSED the Soft Control button on the faceplate. But if the listed dont really bother you, and u have a mixer or want a mixer like an analogue head lol, this is a great interface. Might not have the poping problems i had, and i would buy it again if i had a mixer. if not go for the M-Audio 1814 (has everything but the inserts i need) or the Presonus Firepod (has inserts....great!). But as far as my next interface goes, im goin for a Motu 896HD, with a Neve 1073, 1272 preamps, an Avalon VT747 compressor, and a Presonus Digimax FS along with some other stuff for my main recording and mastering. Thats all anybody really needs! I mean cmon.....AVALON and NEVE!!!

The presonus firebox is a wonderful piece of equipment. I just installed a recording setup with my buddies laptop and it works great. Even if you do not have a TI firewire chipset. I know the MAudio throws a fit if you dont have a TI chipset.

so wait, your telling me that my poping problems are from my Firewire chipset???.... I heard the TI story before, but i didnt take it seriously. Are you certain that a TI chipset with my Edirol will fix me issues (its a buffer issue, running on max, and dont really have problems for the most part...i have ran on half the settings and It seemed to work fine til a few days ago when i needed to remix something for an artist.)

just for referance im running on
Asus P4P800-E DELUXE Motherboard
2 GB OCZ Titanium RAM
Intel 3.0 GHz Prescott CPU
Ultra 500 Watt PSU
Maxtor 250 GB SATA HDD
Edirol FA-101 Interface
Roland DS-7 Monitors (really great, accurate, you need sub tho..)
Cylinder Subwoofer

P.S.- My computer is maintained and run properly, except I dont have a surge protector. Im running right from the wall. This is just for referance, maybe I can get a resolv for my interface.....I dont hate it, its just pissing me off with the buffer thing...pops. clicks, reset. ARGGGHHH!!!!

Well it could be a variety of things. The TI chipset is certainly the prefered chipset for FW audio, in particular MOTU is known for having problems with other ones, I haven't heard much about MAudio having problems with others.

Now in as far as using it live, and not having a mixer...

It is a RECORDING interface. First and foremost. Neither of them have a decent DSP mixer built into them, that is why other interface costa bit more because they do. You can use software monitoring if your machine is up to it, and use a mixer to control it then, and peice of software with mixer functionality can work there.

If using it live, I am not sure why you would want to use it instead of a mixer. The only good uses I can think of for it all involve a mixer as well as it, this includes playback and effects processing. I would never touch one of them to use as a mixer, it just isn't worth it, and there are not enough decent inputs and outputs.
Seablade

Yeah, i know its for recording, but i would like to use my VST processors live one day, anyways thats not the main issue. My real problem is my Edirol FA-101 is throwing a bitch fit at normal buffer settings, which isnt right. And for some reason there is this one song from that artist i mentioned earlier that is making my interface in Cubase SX 3 go insane afer about 5 minutes of mixing. Works fine for 5 minuites, then its like it goes crazy. Starts overtaxing my CPU, and causing drop-outs. I tryed my friends FW card, but no luck with that. I dont think that was a Texas Instruments chipset, so I was kind of hoping thats the problem. I did my homework as far as researching my Fa-101 and came up with nothing. I was hoping maybe you or somebody that has had this kind of problem before could help me out. Earlier I posted my general system specs, and mentioned the no surge protector thing. But I can't think of anything else that would possibly cause this, and especially with that one perticular song...

It can be any number of things, what changes about that song for example? Do you have any problems running that setup for extended periods of time with anything else?

Seablade

Well not really anything else. I did WAV export of a Yamaha AW16G workstation and did an import into cubase. But after like 5 minutes it starts overtaxing my CPU and starts going crazy! And sometimes in windows my Edirol starts poping, especially at startup sometimes. I have it at full right now, and its manageble, but I want a new interface, or am willing to buy a firewire card with a Texas Instruments chipset if that will solve my problem.

There is a reason I don't work in Windows... you have to spend a LOT of time setting it up for reliable low latency operation. I would suggest going through the SOS Forums, they have a general FAQ topic for PCs there somewhere with a LOT of frequently asked questions for PCs, among there I believe is a guide to tweaking your windows PC for audio work. I would suggest going through that and seeing if that makes a difference.

From what you are describing I strongly suspect that the audio interface is not the problem, but rather background processes that kick up every now and then(Networking is notorious for this) making it seem that way, and fighting with your audio processes for priority. I love realtime preemption in linux

Seablade