PreSonus FireStudio

The software always freezes after a little while no way to get rid of that. done updates of software and firmware had contact with the presonus support (which is good) but its a pain in the ass

i like the design of the presonus stuff and the layout of the software but as the software is crap i wont buy from presonus again

I am busy making records. I don't usually have time to write revews, but I thought I might be able to save other musicians some grief.

I have a love hate relationship w/ this unit -mostly hate - the sound quality is quite good. BUT - & this is a BIG BUT- the software has got to be the most buggy I have EVER used - I have used free software that was far superior. I have spent ,,.,man,.,. I don't know how many hours of my life trying to get this thing going - even with help for the presonus tech support & download/installing several updates/following all their instruction it still is only reliable maybe half the time. I am on the latest mac operating system w/ 4 gigs of ram - a modern machine.

Terrible. as stated it work correctly about half the time,.,.once you get it going,.,. literally there is no magic formula or logic to the buggy drivers - I know what I am talking about I am a computer programmer - I assume this software was an intern's summer project,,.
there is hardly any documentation to be found.

the pre amp quality is good. YOu can make quality recordings if you can get it going.

plug it in.

I can get 96 khz 24 bit - this is great.

oh the software user interface is also NOT user friendly.

I wish I had bought something else. I want to make music NOT learn the ins & outs of how to fix the bugs in this product. I will NEVER buy something from presonus again.

I give it a 3 because the preamps are quality. I don't give it more because of the enormous investment I have had to make just to get it going. and still it give me problems.

The one unit rack consists of eight neutrik inputs with input adjustments on the front panel along with a very useful clip light associated with each knob. The rack and the knobs are made out of metal, making them durable.The unit is controled by its software driver in the computer you have the device set up with. Seems worthy of withstanding some road use, but remember this is an inexpensive interface, you get what you pay for, so don't expect that you can drop it off a cliff and get it to work.

The firestudio claims to be a 26in 26 out device but this is only true when sampling at 44.1/48k. When you switch to 88.2/96k you get 18in 18 out. That means that it requires double the adat optical cables to your 96k device, in other words four optical cables(2in,2out). Presonus makes the digimax FS, that is the device made to expand the firestudio. I have not yet had a reason to buy it since I am not recording more than eight in at a time so I can't tell you much about it other than I know they have inserts on every channel.

Having been a classically trained musician I tend to be more picky when it comes to noise. I read from others how impressed they were by the firestudio that I decided to buy it. I run a macbook 2ghz core 2 duo with Logic pro 8. I have run into problems in the past with the firewire latency issue. It has improved greatly when you always run at 96k and set your buffer as low as possible. The people from apple suggest no lower that 128. The latency actually improves with the higher sampling frequency by TWO! You can hear it in the slap back effect created by the monitoring. It gets better with increased sampling freq, or at least it does with my system. Also be sure not to run effects that hog up CPU, increasing your latency issue. The preamp quality is the reason I went with the firestudio. The quality is stunningly better than I had expected, especially when running 96k. You can hear the audible noise floor go down when you switch into 96k.
Channels one and two are special in that they have inserts located at the back of the box and are also higher gain than the rest by +10db.
One issue that I have run into is the use of the spdif port. The firestudio control console is the software used to control the firestudio. While it seems to be straight forward it is confusing to know how to set it up to work properly. I have called presonus and they are willing to try to explain, but I still have not got it to work right yet, even though it did work once. I hope there will be the day when I can get it right.
On a positive note, I just got a Neuman TLM 103 and it is velvety sweet with the firestudio's pre-amp!

Power is provided via AC adapter that can be placed away from any audio cables. There are two phantom power switches(1-4,5-8) that are on the front panel. Makes it more useful for those of us who have ribbon mics that can get damaged with the phantom power.

24bit/96k with monitoring determined by your software.
Noise floor is -109db with 96k.

Remember this is no $2k preamp! Comes with outdated software for older macs and pcs. Software used to control the firestudio is misleading at times. Software can control the firestudio to be a standalone mixer when there is no computer.

This is a wonderful price for such a product. I give it an 11!

I really like this unit. I previously owned a FirePod and was very pleased with how good the mic pres sounded, especially for the price tag. Then when the FireStudio came out I decided to step up from the FirePod. Sonically, I can't say that there is much difference between the two units (if any difference at all), especially since they both supposedly use the same XMax pres. But the main reason I switched from a FirePod to the FireStudio is because of the FireStudio's superior routing matrix. The idea of having up to nine unique stereo headphone mixes to send to out performers in my project studio is just jaw-dropping. Talk about flexibility.

As far as the ease of use, everything is WYSIWYG. Trims and inputs on front, direct outs and inserts on the back. Couldn't be more simple that that. Also, the routing matrix software GUI is fairly simple although be prepared to squint a little bit since the icons and lettering are a bit small. But being able to create those nine separate headphone mixes and then being able to label all of your settings and save everything for later use is way convenient.

Again, I really like this unit. To me the sound of the mic pres are smooth and flattering. Very balanced and not hyped in any particular frequency range. Also, these pres are dead quiet, even with the trims turned way up. So the real challenge here is to try to describe something that just sounds good. The mic pres do seem to have a certain personality to them but only in a very subtle and pleasing way. Definitely not sterile or digital sounding, but not tube-ish either. They just sound like Class A pres with a lot of smoothness and they are very clean in an appealing sort of way. Vocals sound true yet rich, bass guitars sound great when plugged in direct, and guitar cabs sound complex and detailed but not harsh. At this point I decided to buy a Digimax FS to add on to the FireStudio for live gigs and I didn't feel like I could add that many extra inputs that sounded as good for the money elsewhere. I'd definitely opt for these mic pres versus some of the price-wise comparable mic pres in M-Audio, ART, Focusrite, Mackie, Line6, etc units. To get something in a different brand of mic pres that are more on par with the FireStudio's mic pres you'd have to jump up into the $1500 to $3000 range and compromise for either two or else four mic pres per unit versus the FireStudio's eight. That being said, I do intend on picking up an ADL600 sometime as an add-on, but there again we're talking $2000 for only two channels. For the money the FireStudio is just hard to beat.

So far so good. I'm running my FireStudio with my MacBook Pro (Intel - OSX Leopard) going into either LogicStudio(8) or else Mackie Tracktion3 (depending on what the job is). In both instances the FireStudio just does its job without any problems. The syncing is awesome, the data streaming is perfect and wicked fast, and the drivers are the best they've had to date. And since Apple wrote the Mac drivers for the FireStudio themselves, the FireStudio is simply plug-and-play on a Mac with no need for driver installations. You just plug in your FireStudio and you are ready to go. Again, talk about convenient. The only software installation is for the signal routing matrix and it has a small footprint and doesn't really touch the CPU. Simple and elegant.

Great customer service. Sometimes you may get put on hold for a while when making a phone call, but it is worth the wait. Special thanks go out to Brad Perkins in Tech Support for pulling some strings for me on something last month. He'll get mentioned in upcoming album project credits for sure. Let's just say that PreSonus is a generous company when it comes to their customers. Got to love a company like that. Always going the extra mile it seems.

Something I forgot to mention is how cool the MSR Rremote is when added to the FireStudio. Connects using the included Cat5 cable and that is all you need. The whole intercom feature alone makes it worth the extra cash let alone a dedicated Mono button for quick checks on phase issues. Also, having a Mute and Dim switch is helpful as well when in a room full of people who are trying to have a conversation. I also like having a button for different monitor pairs to do comparative listens on different speakers. Seems like I always have one hand on the MSR at all times and now I can't imagine working without it.

So overall I have become a huge fan of Presonus and the FireStudio. Great sounding mic pres and very reliable and user friendly as a FireWire interface on my Mac. Great OSX drivers as well. It is at the heart of my project studio and best of all my clients really like the results. For the money, this is the best thing out there and it truly sounds comparable to mic pres that cost two to three times as much. What's not to like about it?

This is a 1U rackmount recording interaface using the FireWire transport. It has no onboard effects. 8 mic preamps, with XLR connectors on the front, 48V phantom power which is switchable for channels 1-4 and 5-8. It has a metal case and is suitable for road use.

The front panel consists of (L-R): The phantom power switches, the XLR inputs, a set of knobs for each channel's gain, a main volume knob, a headphone out volume knob, and the headphone jack. There is a power switch with an indicator, and a sync indicator light.

The front panel is laid out fairly decently, but it's sometimes hard to see which channel each gain knob controls.

Interestingly, you cannot daisy chain 2 FireStudios. This mode is not supported by PreSonus. Their suggestion is to purchase the surprisingly cheaper DigiMax FS unit, which connects to the FireStudio using ADAT cabling.

The FireWire interface in general is fairly reliable. I had one unit go bad when it would no longer sync with the computer.

It is not recommended to put this unit on the same FireWire bus as an external hard drive. Many users have complained about audio dropouts and poor performance.

The unit does not get along well with antivirus products, other interface drivers, or any other software in general on the computer. My otherwise perfectly stable installation of WindowsXP SP2 would not allow the unit to connect. I had to install a virgin copy of XP SP2, install the drivers, and then connect the unit - only to find out that Guitar Rig 2 would not play nicely with their drivers, resulting in insane amounts of CPU utilization. Once connected, though, it works fine and performance is decent. Latency is an issue; on a 3GHz Pentium 4 system, the buffer size must be adjusted fairly high, resulting in >50ms latency. Monitoring in the DAW is not an option. Fortunately, its own internal zero-latency monitoring function works well.

The preamps are to die for. The jitter elimination technology they use works. They sounded great on everything thrown at them, which was every instrument in a rock band and then some.

The first two inputs are also instrument inputs. They sound okay, but nothing special. There are also SPDIF coax in/outs, an AES/EBU connector, ADAT/lightpipe, MIDI, 8 outputs, line inputs for channels 1 and 2, and send/returns for channels 1 and 2.

The Control Center software is confusing and hard to understand. This is to be expected with a unit with 26 ins and outs, but they could have done a better job with it. At the time of this writing, there is no way to configure ADAT/lightpipe channels 9-16 with the software.

On the plus side, it's fairly simple to create multiple custom mixes in the software, making "more me" monitoring scenarios possible. Bandmembers will love this feature.

Using the optional MSR (Monitor Station Remote), one can control the outputs of the unit, sending it to different speaker sets. One can also turn individual speakers on and off. Of note is the control room buttons - mute, sum to mono, dim, and talkback. You can use the interal mic for talkback, or connect your own.

There are two (!) headphone power amps in the MSR unit, making for a total of 3 with the FS unit itself. The MSR also features the "big knob" for main volume. The big knob is a digital control, however, and feels strange in where the volume actually comes up - as if it were a linear taper pot instead of an audio taper one.

The unit is AC powered, with a dedicated power supply. The power cable actually screws into the unit, making for a secure connection. Make sure no one trips on the power cable if you take it out.

The phantom power is true 48V.

The unit is capable of most sample rates and bit depths up to and including 24 bit/96KHz operation. Each mode has its associated costs in latency. At 24/96 operation, latency was measured at around 40ms.

Direct monitoring is available on all channels.

The drivers for Windows are so-so, and PreSonus has been fatally slow in releasing new ones. The drivers are sensitive enough as it is to computer configuration, and some DAW packages have more problems than others (namely Sonar). Cubase seems to have the best luck with the unit, although Digital Performer and Logic on the Mac side have been known to have good luck.

The initial release of the drivers was in October 2006. There has been one official release of drivers since then, updating them for Vista compatibility and for the release of the MSR. Software defects are present in these releases but some users report stable function.

I choose to give a poor rating for this category simply because of the lethargic driver release issues. Many users were left out in the cold, having purchased an expensive unit they couldn't use.

There are "lite" versions of Cubase LE, Reason Adapted, Amplitube LE, BFD Lite, Drumagog LE and more included with the unit. None of them are particularly useful, unless you don't have any recording software at all.

It is also possible to operate the unit not connected to a computer at all, provided the monitor mixes have been set up beforehand.

This is an awesome unit, with a phenomenal feature set. Hardware like this used to cost thousands, and it doesn't anymore (because it's made in China now).

However, the unit has been plagued with quality issues. First run units had a hissing noise in the channels that would manifest when the inputs were unmuted; some people had a "swooshing" noise in the outputs; some had higher than expected noise in the main outputs.

I am on my third unit, the first one having had noise in the channels when unmuted, the second unit simply not syncing with the computer anymore. Warranty service in the first case was good; a replacement unit was sent to me and I sent the defective one back (with a credit card hold, of course).

The second unit was a different story. I managed to obtain an RA number after several emails, and finally a mildly disgruntled phone call, and sent the unit to them on my dime, which they then swapped with a B-stock unit within about 3 weeks (although they claim RAs can take up to 10 weeks to process). This would have been unacceptable were I running a business.

Unfortunately, PreSonus is the only player out there with this feature set. The only other player in this arena is the brand-new M-Audio ProFire 2626, which is a carbon copy of the FireStudio - it even has the same preamps - so I don't expect quality to be any different there. If there were a comparable MOTU or Fireface unit that had as many ins and outs and a remote, I'd seriously consider dumping the FireStudio for it.

But there isn't a product out there that does what this one does. I just wish it did it more reliably, and the company was more attentive to its customers in terms of driver releases and warranty work. If the quality were there, and the company fixed the software so that it worked with all the major DAWs and plugins - I would rate it a perfect 10.