Ideal Firewire front end??

Can anyone recommend a high quality Firewire A/D converter exists with quality mic pre, compressor and A/D on board, two or four channels or more?

I use a MOTU 896 which I really like, but I may be donating this to a project and would need to replace it. If I do, I would really would like something that has at least a nice pre and compressor built in, maybe a complete channel strip type deal and then go direct to computer....

Any ideas/experiences??

Checkout the Mackie Onyx Satellite. It has two amazing preamps as well as inserts to hookup an outboard compressor. I love mine!

There is no simple answer becuase of problems and conflicts that come with many firewire interfaces. What are you running? Mac or PC? Intel? Dual Core? What firewire chipset does it have?

Robert

FW interfaces with onboard DSP :

I use Mac with Logic and PC with Vegas, I am moving the PC over to my Intel Mac in a dual boot

I have had very varied experiences with Firewire on PC so for now I plan to stick with my 24" intel iMac for hardware....

The new Mix Magazine has a review of a PreSonus that I think has firewire, as well as 8 mic preamps/DIs and eight converters. I don't remember more, sorry. But it was a rave review, with the guy claiming that the converters kept up with his Apogee AD16X/Big Ben in terms of quality.

That would leave out the Metric Halo as it won't work with XP. The last 2 options(Saffire/Konnekt) will work with both and are the only 2 that I can think of with onboard DSP. The only other one with onboard DSP is EMU, but the onboard DSP isn't much to comment on.

The PreSonus FirePod or FireStudio. Great units. FireStudio is basically a FirePod with additional goodies, including a monitor manager gizmo. FirePod is 8 channels with 8 preamps, allows 0 latency monitoring, and is reasonable at $499. Daisy-chain them to get more input channels. Comes with Cubase LE, too. Good stuff!

thanks for the feedback and ideas. You are all so knowledgeable that this actually rasies more questions

Converters with DSP- I was thinking more along the lines of a set of analog channel strips with comp/lim, maybe EQ which then feed an A/D converter

Built in DSP raises the question of whether you are applying, for example, compression in the analog domain before A/D, or after. After does not seem ideal to me for material that I *want* to be compressed while tracking- any thoughts on this??

Why must it be firewire?? unless you have firewire 1394b, USB 2.0 is faster.

I've just purchased an onyx 1620. (thankyou Craig for your review on it )

That's a good point, I just generally consider Firewire more "Pro" and "robust'. I really don't want to ignite any flames here, it just seems to me that Firewire is better suited for multiple channels of audio at the same time than USB, but I could be wrong about this.

Remember my base comparison is the MOTU 896, 8 live channels in, good preamps 96k- any recommendations in the USB world?

PS- The closet unit so far I have found is the Presonus Digimax

http://presonus.com/digimax96k.html

USB 2 may be a bit faster but it also drains more resources.

Not true. Theoretically, USB 2.0 is slighltly faster, but in real world apps, 1394a usually whips USB 2.0. In any case, the speed difference is a moot point for most apps.

If you have a Mac, I highly suggest the Apogee Ensemble.

For PC, I suggest RME Fireface. Both of these are more money than the MOTU, but are worth the extra cost IMHO.

It appears you are correct amplayer as I've just found out here - thanks for pointing that out.

http://www.qimaging.com/support/downloads/documents/FirewireUSB.pdf

cheers

john

Great link with an excellent explanation. This is what I exactly what I have in my real world experience, it is good to see it quantified and explained.

The Focusrite has both. It uses the built in DSP before the converters and also has native VST plugins for DAW treatment afterwards.

Trouble-Free = RME

Fireface 400 & Fireface 800.

With Cubase SX, it's a joy.

RME & Steinberg. Germans Rock.

How much money do you have, and what are you planning to do with it? Is monitor latency highly important? If so, get out your screwdriver and forget Firewire. And if you want a built-in compressor, forget "high quality." That's a convenience for people who aren't smart or attentive enough to set levels properly (which means low enough so there won't be any overloading).

You can get a Firewire interface for the Lynx Aurora converters now. That's probably as good as it gets. The RME Fireface series is excellent as well. Both of these companies make very good I/O (sorry, you'll get a back end along with the front end, because that's what people build) and don't depend on textbook driver design.

I'm told that the latest Presonus Firewhatever sounds excellent, and their gear tends to be pretty compatible and hassle free. MOTU is kind of like the old standby, like a 10 year old Toyota Camry. Solid and reliable but not up to the latest state of the art. At least that's my opinion.

I don't necessarily agree with that statement. I spent years recording analog tape, worked with Neve, Trident, SSL, etc. SSL had compressors built into each channel, was that because the SSL users didn't know how to set a level??

I have been recording for a few years with my MOTU 896 setup. It has excellent sound quality but I think it would benefit greatly from an analog compression/limting stage at the front. The issue is not being able to set the level correctly, the issue is that there is no graceful overload in digital -you have set the general average level quite low for a lot of different type of vocals, guitars, etc. to avoid overload on peaks. In the old days, we could push the analog gear, and, it was generally easier to patch things in inserts since it was all analog and designed to do that. Most of the converters, especially if you are relying on the built in mic pre, really don't have a way to patch an insert effect.

Take a look at this PreSonus product link, I think the hybrid comp/lim built in a great idea, it addresses perfectly one of the "cons" of digital recording- avoiding peaks while keeping the overall signal up.....

http://presonus.com/digimax96k.html

excerpt:

Now with 96k sampling rate*, the DigiMAX is the newest member in the award winning family of Presonus mic preamp's. Combine eight channels of pristine mic preamplification with 24 simultaneous digital and analog outputs, and the DigiMAX 96k seamlessly fits into any digital recording situation. The DigiMAX 96k is the perfect front-end for DAW's as well as adding mic pre's to digital mixers and sound cards.

A MIC PRE WITH HERITAGE

We started with the same design as the MP20, M80 and VXP: Class A Discrete Input Buffers followed by a dual-servo gain stage giving you 60db of preamp gain with 52db of headroom. The DigiMAX 96k is electronically balanced and features phase reverse on the first two channels, as well as a 20dB pad and selectable 48v phantom power on each channel. A unique feature is EQ Enhance

Focusrite Saffire is working the DSP in the digital domain. Not sure if the previous poster was saying otherwise, but if you check the manual, you can see that.

As to the original poster, a different Focusrite product, the Octopre, has compress/limit on the pres in analog. Then you add an ADAT A/D. Gets you to about $1000.

It is weird that all these guys are missing this market point. You are doing live recording: you *want* a low freq shelf, and you *want* a limiter. Most products don't have them. Putting them in the digital path is not that useful to me, since once I have it in digital, I have 1000 other options to use already. Just weird.

Oops... forgot about this one: Apogee Mini-me, I've seen these going for about $750 on Ebay. Has about everything I want. If you can get USB to work well, then it should be sufficient. Perfect feature set. Note: they have announced that they are going to make a firewire version of this. But honestly, it's the perfect feature set. Don't know why others haven't duplicated it. The other nice box along these lines I have seen is the USB-Pre.

So... it looks like the EMU 0404 USB2.0 does have the soft-limit in analog. Don't know why they put the switch in the applet, and not on the box, but anyway. The SoundOnSound reviews are confusing on these products, so tough call. You will be doing external power if you do EMU 0404. 7"x7" approx.

UBSPre can be USB1 bus powered, but only outputs in 16-bit.

Konnekt 24D is 9"x9", so it ain't that tiny. Bet it is the best if you are a guitar player though. And the ADAT out on the Konnekt is a big win to me.

Based purely on pre-amp reviews, you have to think that the Focusrite guys might have the best shot there. But again, if you look at the history of Saffire / Saffire LE reviews on SoundOnSound, you will have your head scratching. My gut says: Saffire LE probably has the best pres of any of these... and that Focusrite seems to be doing good drivers. So that's where I am personally leaning at this point.

But as one of the previous posters suggested, might be better to separate the D/A from the pre. And at that point there might be some very nice 2-channel pre choices.

(Other site mentions that MOTU Traveler also has ADAT, and the Yamaha i88x also has ADAT. So I guess there are some options. There are people who love the pres on the i88x.)

I have to disagree. The Presonus stuff is terrible to my ears, not to mention their terrible non-support. Their higher end stuff is fine, but the FIRE series is crap. I bought that and a TASCAM FW 1804 at the same time, and the TASCAM was miles better.

If you are running Logic, check out the Apogee Ensemble.

Not positive about all the specs but the Mackie Onyx Satellite's price has dropped to $200 in my latest Sam Ash brochure.

Analog recorders don't have Firewire interfaces, and people who mix through SSL consoles use the compressors for mixdown. Let's not compare apples with oranges.

This only further supports my contention that people who either start recording with digital or haven't made the transition from analog to digital fully don't understand metering. You aren't setting levels properly for digital recording if you feel that you need a compressor to help you because you haven't leaarnd to interpret what the meters are telling you. Metering is all about interpretation, not about rules.

It's all about headroom. In an analog recorder, the amount of headroom that you have is "soft." The distortion starts low and gradually increases with higher recording levels until it gets to the point where it's too much for you, at the time, for the project, on that track. The amount of headroom you have is the difference between the "intolerable" level and your nominal level, usually 0 VU on a meter. But given that a standard VU meter only goes up to +3, you have about 10 dB of headroom that you don't see on a meter.

A digital system has no inherent headroom. When you get to 0 DBFS it's all over. But you can have as much headroom as you want. Set your nominal level at -20 dBFS and you have 20 dB of headroom. Set it at -5 dBFS and you have 5 dB of headroom (and you'd probably best protect yourself with a limiter).

We learned with analog recorders that we should record at the highest level we could tolerate because that improved the signal-to-noise ratio. We carried this over to digital recording because when we started, we had 12-bit or 16-bit A/D converters to work with and most of those didn't really have better than about 10 or 11 bits of actual resolution before you got down to the noise level. So, though for a different reason, we tried to keep the digital level up as close to full scale as we dared.

But unless you're still using your original "blackface" ADAT recorder, you have 24 bit A/D converters and even the garden variety of those do a pretty good job at least as low as 21 bits. That's far better than any analog circuitry in the system as far as noise floor goes. So you can set your nominal recording level at -20 dBFS and still get a signal-to-noise ratio of 85 dB or so, which, realistically, is 20 dB better than analog tape. So why not?

Now if you need a compressor to keep your dynamic range within 20 dB, then you probably need to think about how or what you're recording. You may indeed have justification for compression at the input, but it's not a general case.

Agreed. But the reason for this is that most people don't need that ability even though they think they want it. This smacks of protecting users from their own ignorance, something of which I don't normally approve, but it means being able to provide a product that most people can use, and at a price that they choose to afford. If you understand recording well enough to be able to use a compressor (or not) in the front end, you're probably beyond the "all in one plug-and-play box" stage. There are plenty of excellent mic preamps, signal processors, and A/D converters that plug together nicely. Does it cost more? Of course. But you get more.

It protects you from making a mistake that you could avoid with a little planning and understanding of the process. Like I said - it's for people who haven't learned all they need to know yet, or are willing to trade one problem (overload) for another (compression) and giving up the ability to decide how much compression to add back when you can listen to what it's doing in the mix.

If you can get a compressor for free, you can always choose to use it or not. But if this means that you're getting less of something else, or paying more for it, then you need to consider your options. And I've learned that you don't get anything for free in this business.

Mike,

I see your point that the desire to keep the level up as high as possible is old thinking that does not translate directly to modern digital recording. However, I do think there are plenty of times where applying some compression/limiting while tracking is both technically and artistically relevant and reasonable!