Presonus Firebox vs. E-Mu 1820m
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Posted on Sep 28, 2005 06:03 pm
Dunce
Member Since: Sep 28, 2005
Nice message board... I've been reading it the past few days since I found it and have found a lot of useful information! I'd like some advice if it's ok to ask. I would like to upgrade my little home studio. I've been looking at 2 different interfaces: the Firebox and the 1820m. The problem is, I just can't decide which will fit me better.
Some background: I record mainly vocals, electric and acoustic guitar (just got myself a new Martin DC-15E that I can't wait to track!), bass, Alesis QS7 synth, some handheld mic'd percussion, and then the various soft synths and MIDI programmed drums using NS Kit samples. Obviously I don't record them all together at the same time, so I guess I don't need 8 inputs, but I would like to have the option to record my drummer friend. I track into Cubase and do all my MIDI there, too. I just got a BFC2000 controller to save my hand from getting crippled by using the mouse. When I record my vocals or acoustic guitar (my mic is a Studio Projects C1), I run them through a compresser/limiter/gate. When I record my electric guitar I usually either mic my amp with an SM58 or I run straight in and use Native Instruments Guitar Rig. Now, neither of these units have preamp sends, but I guess I could just put the compresser first into the chain although I'd probably need to pick up perhaps a TubePre to get the phantom power to my mic.
So, back to the two units. Can anyone give me any advice as to which will probably serve me better? Is PCI better than firewire? Are the DSP effects on the 1820m any good or am I better off using plugins for chorus, reverb, etc. If it matters, I'm running on a 3.2ghz P4 with 2gb (4x512) Corsair Value Select 3200 RAM, Windows XP Pro with SP2 installed. Up until now I've been using a Tascam US-122 but it's only USB 1.1 and I'd really like to reduce my latency.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Or, perhaps there's another unit I should be looking at? I've thought about the Firepod or even a MOTU 828 mkII, but I dunno...
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jmailjimmie neutronMember
Since: Feb 14, 2005
Sep 28, 2005 10:20 pm I've got an 1820M and I think it's great. I don't have a whole lot to compare it to, tho (Guillemot ISIS - yucky pooie tooie bleah...). Anyway, the PreSonus was on my short list, until I discovered that Win2K doesn't do firewire any too well for audio...
PCI is the established interface, firewire relatively new. Some computers do great with firewire, others do not. Seems to depend on the chipset, implementation and drivers. PCI should give better thru-put, firewire attaches to the PCI bus.
The effects in the 1820M, while certainly useable, are not all the ad campaign cracks them up to be. I use them for adding that "live" sound to my monitoring, while recording "dry". The reverb is definitely better than the Cubase VST 5.1 reverb, but that things a tin can, so it ain't much of a comparison.
One other thing to consider: the 1212M, or some other smaller interface, that has ADAT. You could use the smaller interface as "normal" for yourself doing 2 tracks at a time (you'd need pre-amps for the 1212M). When you go to do the drums, break out an 8 channel pre-amp with ADAT (ala Behringer ADA 8000) and record 10 tracks at 48kHz. Or, by use of S-MUX (or whatever they call it) over ADAT, record 6 at 96kHz...
Or just buy the Presonus with 8 pre-amps (which I wanted...). Lots of help, eh? Sorry.
DunceMember
Since: Sep 28, 2005
Sep 28, 2005 10:36 pm It does help actually :) And I suspected as much about the effects in the 1820m. I imagine it would be nice though to add a little reverb to your vocal tracks in the headphone mix while you're tracking them dry. Thanks for the reply!
