PreSonus FireBox 6X8 Firewire Recording Interface

by PreSonus

Product Features

• 24-bit recording up to 96K sample rate
• 2 Class-A mic/instrument preamps
• S/PDIF and MIDI I/O
• Cubase LE4 48-track recording software
• Completely portable professional recording solution

Product Details

Read the Presonus Firebox User Manual [PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 12.5 x 8 x 4.5 inches ; 4.6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0006VYH1Q
• Item model number: FIREBOX
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,862 in Musical Instruments (See Top 100 in Musical Instruments)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The FireBox is the most powerful 24-bit/96k FireWire recording interface that fits in the palm of your hand. The FireBox is a complete 24-Bit/96k personal recording studio combining two high quality PreSonus microphone/instrument preamplifiers and 24-Bit/96k sample rate. The FireBox is bundled with PreSonus Studio One Artist, our groundbreaking music creation program, and over 4 GB of virtual instruments, plug-ins, loops, and samples to get you started making music immediately.

The most powerful 24-bit/96k FireWire recording interface that fits in the palm of your hand. Click to enlarge.

View rear panel connections. Click to enlarge.

Features a Zero-Latency DSP mixer. Click to enlarge.

Hardware
The FireBox has the highest record/playback track count of its size with the ability to record six inputs and playback through ten outputs simultaneously all at pro-quality 24-bit/96kHz. Two ultra-low noise high-headroom microphone/instrument preamplifiers with 48V phantom power are on the front panel for quickly and easily connecting your favorite microphones and instruments. The FireBox also includes a high quality stereo headphone output with volume adjustment on the front panel. The headphone output has its own two-channel driver stream which can be used as a separate stereo bus or two-channel output giving you the ability to send a "cue" mix to the headphone output and a main mix to the main output. Two additional balanced TRS line inputs are located on the rear of the FireBox along with six balanced TRS line outputs. Two channels of S/PDIF input/output and MIDI input/output are also included via DB9 breakout cable. A software router/mixer is also included for further flexibility and power. The 1/3U-wide metal chassis of the FireBox is designed to fit the MAXRACK rack-mounting system from PreSonus and can be racked with the TubePRE, COMP16, EQ3B and HP4 for a neat and compact computer recording system.

The FireBox works with both four and six-pin FireWire (IEEE 1394) connectors and can be powered by either 6-pin FireWire bus power, or powered by an external power transformer.

DSP Mixer Included
The FireBox features a Zero-Latency DSP mixer that allows you to mix all six live inputs with a software output stream, then route that mix to any one of its outputs, as well as assign either that mix or a software output stream to its headphone amplifier. This feature eliminates monitoring through the computer and makes it easy to customize a mix for the artist. It also allows CUEING for DJ’s and live performance where the headphone output can monitor a completely different signal than the MAIN outputs.

FireBox Features

• High-Speed FireWire Network Audio Interface
• Plug and play FireWire (IEEE 1394) audio interface
• 24-Bit / 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96K sample rate
• Record/playback 6 inputs/10 outputs at 24-bit/96K
• 2 PreSonus microphone/instrument preamplifiers
• 2 analog line inputs, 6 analog line outputs
• S/PDIF input/output
• MIDI input/output
• Low latency monitoring
• Headphone output
• Powered via FireWire bus or externally
• Software router/mixer
• Windows and Macintosh compatible
• Fits MAXRACK rack mounting system
• FREE PreSonus Studio One Artist recording and production software

What's in the Box
PreSonus FireBox, AC Adapter, FireWire Cable, Software/Driver CDs, User's Manual

Product Description

The FireBox is the most powerful 24-bit/96k FireWire recording interface that fits in the palm of your hand. The FireBox is a complete 24-Bit/96k personal recording studio combining two high quality PreSonus microphone/instrument preamplifiers, 24-Bit/96k sample rate and Steinberg's Cubase LE 48-track recording software. The FireBox is the perfect hardware and software combination for a powerful professional-quality and compact computer-based studio.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best FireWire interface for the money!, December 17, 2005

By 

Nathan (La Crescenta, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: PreSonus FireBox 6X8 Firewire Recording Interface (Electronics)

This is, quite simply, the only FireWire audio interface in this price range I would recommend to anyone, period.

I did a lot of research on the internet before my purchase, and the USB and FireWire audio interfaces from other manufacturers seemed to be plagued with all sorts of problems, from not enough bandwidth, to losing audio sync, to poor driver support, and so on. The similarly priced M-Audio devices didn't even support hot swapping, instead recommending that you turn your computer off before you plug it in or unplug the device, or risk frying your FireWire ports on your computer!

The PreSonus Firebox has none of these problems.

A big problem I've noticed with A/V computer hardware over the years is that the companies who make it are usually AV hardware companies first, and then they have to crank out some sort of sub-optimal drivers to make the thing actually work with the computer. I used to own a video capture card and an audio card (with great A/D converters) that both couldn't work in anything after Windows NT 4, and the video card reqired nothing later than Service Pack 3 (even though SP6 was the final release)!

The Firebox supports Apple's CoreAudio, so if you have a recent Mac, you won't even need to install any drivers at all! A Windows driver is also provided (although if they're like most companies, whenever the product gets discontinued someday it probably won't run on future Windows operating systems).

Construction is sturdy and solid, and the audio circuitry sounds great throughout. All the connections are balanced (most in this price range only have a mix of balanced and unbalanced connections). Also, unlike many other interfaces in this price range, you can use all the ins and outs at 24/96 simultaneously (unlike many other interfaces, where you have to lower the quality to run more simultaneous channels).

By using CoreAudio, PreSonus made a great choice, since they're essentially using a standard driver that Apple provides for free as part of the operating system. Apple will almost certainly continue to support CoreAudio for years to come, regardless of whether the Firebox is still being made down the road.

When I got my Mac, I literally just plugged in the Firebox, turned the Mac on for the first time, and the Firebox became the default audio interface automatically. It was really just as easy as plugging it into the computer. I didn't even need to plug in the power adapter, since it draws its power directly from the computer over the FireWire cable.

Don't buy another FireWire audio interface until you evaluate this one first!

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good value -- quality product for home recording, March 16, 2008

By 

Nessander - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: PreSonus FireBox 6X8 Firewire Recording Interface (Electronics)

I just wanted to give my feedback. I've owned this Presonus Firebox for just under two years and it's served me well. I have a home recording studio, and use Logic 7 and an Alesis Quadrasynth 8. This is a great way to get started in home audio recording, if you want to set up your little studio. You've got pre-amps, an audio interface, plenty of inputs and outputs, MIDI in/out, and it comes with a software mixer.

The inputs are all good and clean. I'm using an AudioTechnica AT3035 cardiod condenser mic and there's plenty of signal from the mic. I noticed one reviewer gave the Firebox bad marks because he couldn't get his mic signal loud enough, and had to use both gain boosts (there's one on the Firebox and a digital one in the software). I'd reason that this is probably because he's using a dynamic mic that requires a lot of gain, like the classic Shure SM57's. It may be that the Firebox isn't suited for those mic's, but it works perfectly well with condenser mic's like the AT3035 or the Studio Projects B1 (which is half the price; or the same as the Shure SM57). So, I don't see this as a problem with the Firebox itself.

There are a good number of inputs on this baby, and you can get an additional mixer if you need more options, as I just did (got a Behringer--good quality inexpensive mixers. It pairs up well with the Presonus Firebox.) However, I did just fine without a mixer for a long while, and you can do that if you're recording solo most of the time or don't have a lot of equipment (or don't mind switching cables), because of the decent number of inputs and outputs on the Firebox. For the price, I think this is a good product and a good deal, and it's held up against the test of time thus far!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great audio interface for solo musicians!, March 17, 2007

By 

pikine (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: PreSonus FireBox 6X8 Firewire Recording Interface (Electronics)

I use Firebox with Mac OS X, so as another reviewer pointed out, it works immediately the moment you plug it in without installing additional drivers. You can hotplug the device whenever you want and it will work.

It is bus powered from FireWire port, so you can bring this wherever you can bring your laptop.

The computer I'm using is an old Powerbook G4 667Mhz with 512MB of ram. It is below advertised system requirement, but it works fine with jackd + Ardour. Recording at low latency (~10ms), 24bits/96khz takes a lot of CPU time, but dropouts only occur when I run out of memory and the system has to do paging. Increasing the latency helps curbing dropouts and CPU usage. Additional memory helps, as well as quitting unneeded applications running in the background to free up memory.

Sound quality is great. A subtle quirk is that volume/gain knobs in the front are step-wise, so don't expect to use these knobs like a mixer because sound-level would change in audible steps. You can download a software mixer from Presonus, but I definitely recommend using it in conjunction with a real mixer if you want that functionality.

The neutrik connectors for mic/instrument input is a great convenience. The 1/4in phone connectors are all balanced TRS, each for single channel only. The circuit automatically detects unbalanced plugs and adjust accordingly. If you want to interface that with RCA connectors, make sure you use TR (also known as "mono" phone) to RCA and not TRS (also known as "stereo" phone) to RCA, because RCA is unbalanced, and TRS confuses the circuit and makes it think it has a balanced signal while there is not.

In theory, you should be able to use the 6 output channels for surround sound when watching DVDs, but I've never gotten it to work.