PreSonus FireStudio Project FireWire Interface

FREE ProPak Software Suite including Cubase LE 4 Audio Production Software.

Item: PRSFSPROJECT

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customer reviews

Rate and Review This Product:

13 People rated this product : * * * * * * * * * * 6 out of 10

5 People wrote reviews

* * * * * * * * * * 10 out of 10

"Absolutely Perfect :)"

Feature:
Id give this more than 10 !!!!! it comes with Cubase LE wich is pretty much perfect, Drumagog wich is awsome, ive not used the rest :P, but im sure there great.

Quality:
Excellent Quality.

Value:
You cant find anything better for the price and with all the shizz included you might aswell just buy it now !!

Desirability:
It loooks great in a rack :P, the only thing i dont like is the lack of colourful LED's hahaha :P but hey... its all goood :P

Sound:
The sound is truly awsome, the preamps are super quiet. I was blown away with the sound when i got it, i was expecting pops, cracks, hisses and all that other stuff, but NOTHING !! its crystal clear and sounds awsome. I can record anything on it, ive got awsome sounding acoustic guiar, great sounding drums, clean guitar all the way through to death metal, it all sounds amazing.

Ease of Use:
It was SO easy !!!, the only thing is i had to get my mate round to fit the firewire card cause i didnt have one. But ones i plugged it in i just followed the instructions ( very easy steps ) and there i was recording straight away :) Obviously youve got to get used to cubase and drumagog etc... but its not hard at all and its all great fun.

Support:
Havent neeeded it :)

Overall:
I am EXTREMELY satisfied with the firestudio, i honestly couldnt of spent my money on anything better !! Its perfect. id recommend it to anyone :)

Submitted: 3/1/2008

Style of Music: Heavy Metal, Death Metal, Rock, Acoustic, Spanish, Country and Dance

* * * * * * * * * * 1 out of 10

"PreSonus Break (got it? BOOOOOO!)"

Feature:
I had a very bad experience, but I'll try to at least review the features I could try as they were when they were working fine (can't say I'm not trying here PreSonus People) ++Extra points for being able to use it as pres without a computer. Great quality pres truly reveal the sound of any mics, but can sound sterile (I DO like it better that way, but some people expect a "warmer" sound when recording, I enjoy having more headroom for effects and such). Good headphone amp & volume control. I like the tiny but noticable-just-by-feeling 1 db increments on the trim knobs also to be fair instead of the usual loose knobs. More juice in there than any vocalist or guitar player ever needs. - - I wish the software mixer was better designed, it's clumsy and unfriendly. Some features in it like the "safe modes" are unexplained if you do not read the manual like most people do. And for those that do read it like me, the features you wish were explained with a whole page are usually explained in one sentence... In the manual : "..this is where you select normal, safe1, safe2 or safe3 mode for increased latency buffer..." Huh increased by how much? What kind of buffer? A hardware buffer in the FSP or the driver one? Nobody had a clue over there on the forums either it seems...

Quality:
Something that is not mentionned on Presonus website or anywhere stating their requirements for the FSP is that it cannot function right with the iMacs or MacBooks without something else. They blame it on a change Apple made to the firewire chipset used in those (true enough the Agere chipset is worse than the TI). However a similar item made by Presonus for just (of course)200$ more works fine with those (the FireStudio, without "Project" in it. Yes my friends, they make two entirely different products using the same name and added a suffix to the newer, cheaper knockoff to confuse us more into buying it.) Nevermind that this same product is OLDER than the FSP which if any of their theories were true would probably have more problems with the cheaper firewire chipsets, not the opposite... My theory? Great pres but bad sync hardware or drivers. Anyways, guess what, our Mac was a newer iMac and it started hiccuping every time we went higher than 44k. So we returned it. Then the pc one started acting funny. One day the mixer (FireControl)wasn't installed anymore.I went and reinstalled it. Ever since that it started giving me blue screens at reboot! And that was only when the FSP wasn't hooked to my pc on boot. I could wonder if this had something to do with driver, hardware & software quality because I tried other firewire audio interfaces and they work fine on my PC... Bottom line, that went back with his other friend at the shop. Now I'm looking for something new. I guess it deserves a 5 because it was awesome on the pc for the 2 weeks it worked. ROFL

Value:
After that day, which will forever be known in my life as "The Day I Made PreSonus Cry (cause I insulted it somehow)" I decided that I should go re-read that thread and see, maybe I had been hard on that guy. I'm banned but hey a lil hop on a proxy to cut & paste the thread which was now locked... Nope, nowhere in there I could find an insult... Now that lil forum twerp had given me enough motivation to write a nice little letter to send to the people at PreSonus. Explaining why I had returned two FSP I realized I should at least make it a thousand words letter since that's just how much they'll be losing in sales with me. I could be using it just for the pres, but not for iMac&MacBooks or PCs, really as soon as I uninstalled FireControl from my pc the second time the blue screens stopped, my firewire chipset in there is TI and works fine with many other audio interfaces. . . I just won't lose anymore time with it it's gone...

Desirability:
I want it..far away from me lol... ...its sex appeal reminds me of an herpes-infested ex-girlfriend... Seriously ... *shivers*

Sound:
That's what's a shame here, it sounds truly amazing, if you're willing to gamble 500$ and see if you'll have any problems ...... *diabolical laughter* We bought 2 FSP, 1 for an iMac (newer version) and a PC (with TI firewire chipset for those that are interested)... It sure sounded awesome on the PC...at the beginning. And the iMac well it never got higher than 44 without starting to start poppin and clickin constantly...

Ease of Use:
And the problems start... Pluging it and playing at 44 is simple and goes fine usually on the iMac. We got pops, clicks etc on the iMac or MacBook right when we switched to anything but 44. See below for explanation. For the PC it worked fine until ome day the FireControl wasn't anywhere to be found on the computer. I reinstalled it and my PC would not boot anymore, just give me a blue screen whenever the FSP wasn't hooked to it. Not funny.

Support:
Now that was the icing on the cake. I started reading the forums at Presonus pretty much everyday for 2 weeks looking for iMac hope before losing faith and returning one of the two we bought. I started losing hope when I noticed the first post complaining about it was over 6 months ago (at FSP lauch) and there was still no solution advanced by PreSonus other than "complain to Apple". Some people reported that hooking a HD acting as a firewire "routed" the traffic better and solved their problem. Now that seemed like a starting point. While discussing that as a viable solution with other users on the forums an admin kept insisting that the Agere firewire chipset was crappy etc... Basically I agreed but also tried to logically prove a point to him and he banned me. Number one for unconstructive posting (to my defense he answered every one of my posts with two of his own, that thread was made of 10 posts he was the author of 6 no less that's being loud and overbearing, not constructive), number two my posts were negative (I guess stating the truth and wondering why nobody is scared for their jobs selling 500$ bricks is seen as negative lol. Of course I never said it in those words but really). But in a twist outta the Twilight Zone I was accused of Number Three! : insulting the company. Let me repeat this so everybody understands : these guys expect you to pay 500$ and not say a word if you hear popcorn baking over your recordings, cause that would be insulting to them. These guys are lucky they can't imagine how insulting paying for a 500$ doorstop is.Really. And I mean I never insulted PreSonus in any way. That lil power hungry weasel on the forums IS NOT PreSonus, and i did not even insult him. i just proved him wrong. That's what insulted him, the realization that they WERE in fact selling something that SHOULD work, DOESN'T work and WON'T work. And what that implied for him.

Overall:
This product made it clear that not only it is bad, but that any purchase made from PreSonus (on my personal behalf, you'll see if you try, and it might go fine, here's to your luck:) would be insanity. They do not care about stating correct requirements hoping to make more sales and they don't even try to fix the problems to keep their sales. You cannot have it both ways : say you only need OSX 10.5 but once I buy it and am stuck with it tell me to go complain to Apple cause it's not your fault... Apple didn't tell me your product would work, you did... Then it stops working right on Windows?? Then I get banned for looking for solutions?? Test it if you get it. And I mean test the heck out of it and make sure you like it. Because if you keep it I wish you luck and I hope your experience with them doesn't go as sour. And if it does and you read this protect your investment and more importantly dohn't waste your time, life is too short to be squandered running after thieves that sold you 500$ bricks heheh. Maybe I wasted my time so you will not waste it too, but hey at least I got my money back so it's alright... And I still have that letter I wrote to them in my sent folder to make me laugh every now and then...

Submitted: 2/4/2008

Style of Music: That one yep...

Read all reviews...

SPECIAL OFFER!

For a limited only! Purchase a New FireStudio Project interface and receive a FREE PreSonus FaderPort. Must select New with PreSonus FaderPort option.

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Main
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Front
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Rear
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About This Product!
Description
From Our Catalog
News
The FireStudio Project is a complete 24-bit/96K professional recording system combining eight Class A XMAX microphone preamplifiers, 24-bit/96k sample rate conversion, zero-latency matrix router mixer, and the PreSonus ProPak Software Suite featuring Steinberg's Cubase LE 4 48-track recording and production software, over 25 real-time plug-in effects (EQ’s, compressors, reverbs), and more than 2 GB of drum loops and samples.

Great for professional studio recording, live sound recording, performance, podcasting and more, the FireStudio Project is designed for flexibility and ultra-high sonic performance. Whether you need to record a live drum set, mic a guitar amp, or a complete band, the FireStudio Project is ready and more than able. With the new FireControl Mixer/Router you can send up to five individual mixes to different musicians during recording so that every band member can have a custom headphone mix.

Based on the award-winning FP10(FirePod) the FireStudio Project starts with eight PreSonus Class A XMAX microphone preamplifiers found in the FP10(FirePod) and adds the folllowing improvements:

Improved analog to digital converters (114dB dynamic range)

Improved syncronization with JetPLL (jitter elimination technology)

FireControl Mixer/Router to send up to five separate zero-latency stereo mixes to musicians during recording

Three-segment LED input metering on all analog channels

Internal IEC-based power supply

ProPak v3 software suite with Cubase LE 4, BFD Lite, Wave Arts Plug-ins, Cubase LE 4 Demysitified Tutorial DVD video and more.

XMAX Class A Preamplifiers
The FireStudio Project starts with eight custom-designed high-voltage, discrete, XMAX Class A microphone preamplifiers.

Many other companies offering recording interfaces add the cheapest possible microphone preamplifier as an afterthought to the interface.

PreSonus knows that the preamplifier is a key component in the sonic quality of a recording. The job of a microphone preamplifier is to boost microphone level signals to line level so that the signal can be converted from analog to digital. This mic to line boost is generally a preamplification of over 400 times the voltage of the original mic level signal. This preamplification stage is one of the most important stages that the signal will go through before converted to digital, and is why a high performance preamplifier is important to achieving great results. A cheap "off the shelf op-amp" type mic preamp that is found in most interfaces translates into thin, noisy and harsh results.

New Advanced Platform Technology - DICE II and JetPLL
The FireStudio Project is loaded with the new ultra powerful DICE II FireWire chipset delivering 10 channels of simultaneous inputs and outputs at professional-quality 24-bit. The strength of the DICE II chip lies with its ability to easilly handle high channel count at high bit-rate while minimizing latency and load on your computer.

The synchronization of the FireStudio Project is handled by patented JetPLLTM jitter reduction technology. JetPLLTM incorporates noise shaping to virtually remove all audio band jitter. JetPLLTM ensures the highest converter performance possible, resulting in better stereo separation and clearer more transparent audio. JetPLLTM delivers ultra-fast locking to any digital format, through a wide range of frequencies and is extremely robust, and tolerant of wide variations in clock frequencies. JetPLLTM ensures near perfect clock performance when networking audio devices thus creating the most stable and robust synchronization to the computer and all devices synchronization with the FireStudio Project.

FireControl - Zero Latency DSP Mixing/Routing
The FireStudio Project also includes the FireControl mixer/router a 18x10 DSP mixer/router for flexible mixing and direct routing any input to any output including the headphone output, with zero latency. The FireControl software application lives between your FireStudio Project interface and your DAW software enabling the mixing and routing of input streams coming into your FireStudio Studio Project interface and playback stream coming from your DAW software. The FireControl is capable of creating up to five stereo mixes and then routing to the outputs of your FireStudio Project for headphone mixes and various aux sends. This way everyone in the band and the recording engineer can have a custom mix. Also, the FireStudio Project is loaded with internal flash memory so that all FireControl settings are saved and recalled in the FireStudio Project during power off/on. This allows you to configure your FireStudio as a stand-alone device, without being connected to a computer for uses such as a submixer, A/D and D/A-converter, headphone mixer, format converter, instrument or microphone pre-amplifier!

ProPak Software Suite (v3)
The FireStudio Project also comes with the new ProPak Software Suite (v3), which includes more than 20 real time plug-ins, a number of virtual instruments and over 2 GB of drum loops and samples including: Steinberg - Cubase LE 4, BFD Lite; Wave Arts – TrackPlug LE, MasterVerb LE, Discrete Drums and more!

Features
High-Speed FireWire (IEEE 1394) Audio Interface

Up to 96K Sampling Rate

8 XMAX Class A Microphone Preamplifiers (+60dB gain) w/ Trim Control

8 Analog Mic/Line Inputs, 2 Instrument Inputs

8 Analog Line Outputs

S/PDIF Digital Input and Output, MIDI Input and Output

Balanced Send / Return for Channels 1 and 2

Zero Latency Monitoring with FireControl Mixer/Router

Separate Balanced Main Outputs and 8 Balanced Analog Outputs

FREE ProPak Software Suite including Cubase LE 4 Audio Production Software

Technical Info

Computer System Requirements

Windows

OS: Microsoft Windows XP SP1
Computer: Windows compatible computer with FireWire port.
CPU/Clock: Pentium, Celeron with 1.6Ghz or higher
Memory(RAM): 512 MB (1 GB recommended)

Macintosh

OS: MacOS X 10.4.x or later
Computer: Apple Macintosh series with on-board FireWire port.
CPU/Clock: PowerPC G4/Dual 1 GHZ or faster, all Intel-based Mac models.
Memory(RAM): 512 MB (1 GB recommended)

Note that the speed of your processor, amount of RAM and size and speed of your hard drive will greatly affect the overall performance of your recording system. Also, a more powerful system (faster processor with more RAM) will allow for lower latency (signal delay) that you might experience while monitoring audio or MIDI signals.
Monitor resolution for both PC and Macintosh should be no lower than 1024x768 pixels.


FireStudio Project Specifications

Microphone Preamp

Type: XLR Female Balanced

Frequency Response (±0.5 dB): 20 Hz to 50 kHz

Frequency Response (±3.0 dB): 20 Hz to 150 kHz

Input Impedance (Balanced): 1600 Ω

THD+N (unwtd, 1kHz @ +4 dBu Output, Unity Gain: < 0.0003%

EIN (unwtd, 55dB Gain, 150 Ω Input, 20Hz to 22kHz: -126 dBu

S/N Ratio (Unity Gain, unwtd, Ref. = +4 dBu, 20Hz to 22 kHz: > 101dB

Common Mode Rejection Ratio (1 kHz, 55 dB Gain): > 55dB

Gain Control Range (± 1dB): -4 dB to 50dB

Maximum Input Level (Unity Gain, 1 kHz @ 0.5% THD+N): +14 dBu

Signal Level LEDS:
Red / Clip (±0.5 dB)
Yellow (±0.5 dB)
Green (±0.5 dB)

+10 dBu (o dBFS)
+4 dBu (-6 dBFS)
-30 dBu (-40 dBFS)

Phantom Power (±2 VDC): +48 VDC

Instrument Input (channels 1 & 2 only)

Type: XLR Female Balanced

Input Impedance: 1 MΩ

Line Inputs

Type: XLR Female Balanced

Frequency Response (±0.5 dB): 20 Hz to 50 kHz

Frequency Response (±3.0 dB): 20 Hz to 150 kHz

Input Impedance (Balanced): 10 KΩ

THD+N (unwtd, 1kHz @ +4 dBu Output, Unity Gain
< 0.0003%
S/N Ratio (Unity Gain, unwtd, Ref. = +4 dBu, 20Hz to 22 kHz: > 101dB
Gain Control Range (±1 dB): -16dB to +16dB
Maximum Input Level (Unity Gain, 1 kHz @ 0.5% THD+N): +10 dBu
Maximum Input Level (Minimum Gain, 1 kHz @ 0.5% THD+N): +22 dBu

Line Ouputs (including Preamp Output, General Purpose Outputs and Main Outputs)
Type: 1/4 in. TRS Balanced
Output Impedance: 51 Ω

Headphone Output
Type: 1/4 in. TRS Active Stereo
Maximum Output: 150 mW/CH @ 60 Ω Load
Frequency Response (±1.0 dB): 10 Hz - 70kHz

Digital Audio
ADC Dynamic Range (Awtd, 48 kHz Sample Rate): 114 dB

DAC Dynamic Range (Awtd, 48 kHz Sample Rate): 114 dB

Bit Depth: 24

Reference Level for 0dBFS: +10 dBu

Internal Sample Frequency Selections (kHz): 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96

External Sample Frequency Input: S/PDIF

Power
Input Connector Type: IEC

Input Voltage Range: 90 to 230 VAC

Power Requirements (Continuous): 20W

Note Cubase LE and Cubase SE are NOT supported by the PreSonus FaderPort
All-inclusive rack interface with 8x 24-bit/96kHz mic preamps. XLR/TRS combo jacks with phantom power, dedicated level control, and metering. Additional ADAT, S/PDIF, and MIDI I/O. Includes ProPak software bundle with Cubase LE, over 25 real-time plug-in effects, and more than 2GB of drum loops and samples.
  • 05/12
    New stock arrives at zZounds,
     Blemished, order before they are gone! 
  • 03/04
    First time in stock,
     New, With PreSonus FaderPort, new on zZounds. 
  • 11/21
    In stock for the 1st time!
     Warehouse Resealed, just added to the site. 

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