PreSonus FirePod

This is a rackmont. 8 preamps. 1 Clip indicator.
Generally the idea is a good one.. When the preamp work they sound good. But general overall there is so many problem with this thing. This is by far the worst piece of gear I have every owned.

connecting is through firewire.. They give a firewire cord. Which is to short and you have to buy an after market one that's longer. There is constant problems with communication from computer to firepod and vis versa..

Preamp quality is not bad. Only if you can get it working.

Power supply seems ok.

Tech specs seem good on the box.. and that's where it ends..
Shit. If you change the sample rit it does not work.

It comes with Cubase LE.. which I do not use and do not want to have to learn a whole new DAW to use.

This is the worse thing I ve ever bought.. Support is shit.. After 3 months of trying everything they mentioned. They finally said send it in. Well that's another 200.00 in shipping for something new that should work..For the love of God if you buy one of these you will regreat it.. I promise you that.

Installation was effortless. The manual is good. However sound quality got in the way of doing useful mixing using it.

Frequency response is very colored. Midrange frequencies are missing. Listening to familiar material makes them sound colder. Instruments that had reverb applied sound strangely less reverbed in the case where a lot of the referb effect is in the mids. Other than that, sounds brittle but free of noise. Bass response is good.

I returned it within a couple of days of buying it. Drivers seemed stable in my experience at least.

I never had to contact their customer support.

I rate this as unusable due to the audio quality issues. I play electronica type of rock including bass, electric guitar, analog synths. I've been playing and recording for 15 years. I returned this and got a Echo Audiofire 12. I needed a lot of inputs but had a couple of mic preamps I could use, so this suited my purposes. The Audiofire 12's sound quality is sweeter, not brittle, cold and colored as the Firepod.

ok... i bought this to record a 5 piece band. previously i had used a powered mixer and ran the stereo output to the 1/8" input on my computer. the firepod gives me the ability to mix those tracks after we've recorded and to apply effects to specific tracks. it helps too that it has 2 output busses. we run the main output to the powered mixer using it as a power amp and just run vocals to that for our singer, and then run the other tracks to the monitor bus which goes to our headphones. if you know what you're doing the features are perfect for live situations and recording.

it was pretty easy to set up, although i consider myself highly skilled in computing technology, and using a mac helps because it has preloaded drivers (no installing software off a cd). just plug it in, set it up in your preferred recording software and you're good to go.

midi interface works like a charm, along with spdif. power switch on the back might be my only complaint about this thing.

i'm not a sound engineer. i'm not a professional recording guru. but i do know that i spent $400 on a piece of equipment that gives me very good sounding "demo" quality songs with about 10 minutes of mixing and adding software effects. much better than anything i would've gotten from running from my old powered mixer.

i can't really comment a whole lot on comparing the quality of the pre-amps which most people seem to have a problem with on here, but i can say this: i have recorded in million dollar pre-amps and equipment at my college. i have recorded on the same neve board that AC/DC recorded their back in black album on. in each of these cases though there was a shitty engineer behind the controls, and that made the entire mix sound like it was done in someone's basement. there is no replacement for having someone that knows what they are doing at the helm.

so with that said, i'm really not the one that should be behind the controls on this piece of equipment either, but i do know that the firepod has helped me learn a lot and i believe that given time and guidance i could be able to produce professional quality recordings on the firepod.

some people have also complained about popping and clicking in their recordings. this happens when your computer isn't fast enough for the latency settings you have in your software (latency = dsp samples / project sample rate). although i have noticed that once i start getting pops and clicks from too few samples, even after raising the samples the clicks are still there, but unplugging and reconnecting the firepod solves this.

this thing has always worked great for me.

never had to deal with them really. the only thing i've done is upgraded the firmware which was quick and painless.

i think this is the second review i have written on here, so i don't write these a lot. after reading all the negative reviews, however, i felt i should put my two cents in because i believe this product is great. i have not had a problem with it, and i believe the people complaining about it are the people who don't know what they are doing.

to put this in context: i have a very good friend who i have let borrow the firepod from time to time. i consider him to be capable but no expert at computers and technology. almost every time he borrows it he has some sort of problem where he can't get something working or the sound isnt correct or he cant get inputs to work. he'll call me and i'll tell him exactly what he has to do to fix it. viola it works.

anyways the firepod is great. it might not be super professional, but capable in my opinion as long as you've got the technical know how and audio recoding and mixing chops to handle the job.

Didn't need it, yet.

The Firepod (now called FP10) is one of those rare devices which caught my sympathy. It's sturdy and intuitive to handle. The drivers are rock solid and very well programmed in terms of compatibility in my experience. (I already worked with a lot of external interfaces) And on top of that it sounds just great for the price. I wouldn't recommend using the Firepod's preamps with a SM7 or a ribbon mic and also wouldn't recommend pushing them past the 3 o' clock position if you mustn't, but apart from that those preamps performed nothing but well in my latest productions. The conversion is also better than you would assume for the price in my opinion. Overall, I think the Firepod is a clear winner.

this machine works ok as long as the computer it is using is fast enough. i had to buy and external hard drive for my laptop because the internal hard drive was not fast enough. after i got the new drive i solved most of my problems. it helps a lot to modify preferences in cubase le to get the most out of the firepod.

far from a professional recording. it is good for waht is meant though. you can record a live band easily, and have 8 distinct tracks to mix. i used a 8 track analog from fostex, and the firepod is way easier to carry around. this machine is great to make demos.

the machine works as long as the computer doesn't fall behind. i had troubles on my hp laptop with 1 gb ram, amd x64 3200+, and also on a new power mac with intel duo. it really need an external dedicated hard drive. Also i am starting having trouble with one of the 2 firewire conntections.

never called

easy to use and carry around. makes recordings quickly and with decent quality. good for amateurs like myself.... definetly not for a serious production!

When it works it easy.... but like others I have had endless hours with the red light of DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. I got mine off erbay 2nd hand...it takes ages for me to connect it to the computer...I think ive tried almost everything to do with the particular setting to get it work but it appears to me that the firepod just chosen when and when not to work.

yeh good for the few minutes ive had it goin.

no way

havnt delt with them

good when it goes but this red light of doom is really kicken my ass can anyone help me. my email address is Woody_tim@hotmail.com if you have any ideas.

Fairly straight-forward. Install the software, plug it in, and insert microphones. There is really nothing to it. But, of course, this could apply to every other firewire interface on the market so it is hardly a + for Presonus.

Sound quality? Let's go into the good, bad, and ugly of this contraption they call a "Firepod":

The Good? Well, it is quiet. That is pretty much agreed upon. It was always used to record rock so you probably wouldn't have heard much noise even if this unit was noisy. So, it deserves a thumbs-up for acceptable noise levels.

The Bad? The preamps, while quiet, have nothing special to offer. They are very dull and definitely get muddy in certain ranges. I have TWO Firepods to go by here (more on this later in the review) and both lacked the definition of better preamps. Someone said earlier that you should just "go buy it" and "as long as you are using $350+ microphones" it records like a champ! This is flat-out bull. Both Firepod units I have do not produce high-quality recordings, certainly nothing professional or defined. Sure, it sounds fine with one instrument, but when you start adding tracks, each one suffers from the lack of clarity of these preamps. It's a culmative effect. And, by the time you have added in all eight tracks, the dullness and lifelessness is definitely palpable. As far as mics used with this unit? Let me focus on the drum mics used for example only: Beta 52, SM57, MD 421, AKG 451, AKG C414, SM81 among others. Last I checked these are "good" mics. I actually borrowed several to test through the Firepod just to make sure I didn't have some bad mics or other issues. In the end, NONE of these mics had the brillance I have heard them have with other preamps. They all sounded generic and flat and needed a ton of EQ and other processing to get them to breathe as they should. Even then, it wasn't the same. Get them for demo work or non-critical live work - don't expect much more.

The Ugly? Used with a Mac Powerbook, the unit consistently POPPED and CRACKLED, introducing all sorts of digital noise, when used for any length of time. Changed every setting I could, fiddled, called Apple, nothing. This would happen after the Firepod was recording after 20-30 minutes. It would be fine functionally up to that mark and then just degraded in sound. We would literally have to power down, let the Firepod cool down (it tends to get hot when in use for awhile) and then try again. Think you want this situation during a live show recording? Want to try and explain it to the band you are recording?? I have and did - there are many other things I want to do with my life.

Final Verdict? When you are paying about $75 a channel for a pre, don't expect to sound like anything you hear commercially. You can't with this unit. That quality is simply not possible with this unit.

Now, maybe I happened to get the two stinkers that Presonus released between the end of 2004 and the beginning of 2006....but I'll let your common sense tell you otherwise.

Now, it where it gets interesting! I have had both Firepod units I bought GO COMPLETELY DEAD on me within a few months of use! Not one, but two that gave me the RED LIGHT of DOOM (if you own it you know what I mean and, if you don't, you soon will). Unbelieavable betrayal of my trust in Presonus and its product.

Bought Firepod #1 in August of 2005. It died in January of 2006. I was in the middle of a session - had no time to lose - bought Firepod Unit #2 to complete the live recording commitments I had. Firepod Unit #1 went into its box, ready to go back to Presonus.

I got totally swept up in work that it wasn't until Firepod Unit # 2 broke down in FEBRUARY 2006 (yes, only six weeks later) that I felt completely violated by these rank-mountable turds.

I can understand one unit going down. But, two? Within the span of one year? How many ways can someone say "unreliable"?!

For units that go for $599, the very least they should do is work, even if that is only at an acceptable level. Getting so-so performance and THEN getting kicked in the nuts with shoddy quality control is a right-left combo I wish on no one who reads this review.

Because of the above, I had the chance to get to know Presonus quite well dealing with these two deceased units. It wasn't a romantic affair either. For brevity's sake, I will enumerate in list form:

1) Very hard to get in touch with. Don't even bother calling the customer support line - they SIMPLY WILL NOT ANSWER. Call the sales line and use it as a backdoor into support. I guess they will pick up the phone if you want to BUY something but not if you need the very thing you bought serviced!

2) Customer support was very terse and generally unapologetic concerning the two dead units. Although they did not explicitly say it, they came thisclose to saying that I must be doing something to the units to make them fail. I told them that Firepod Unit #2 was only six weeks old, had never been manhandled and only left the studio once - this barely got an "Umm, OK" out of the tech guy! They agreed to fill out PA's on the units and have them serviced.

3) Customer service follow-through is weak. To this date, I have received only one unit (yes, it now works but for how long I wonder). I am STILL WAITING on the other. I don't even want to get into that - the amount of frustration is overwhelming. I do see light at the end of the tunnel with the second unit but it has been an extremely bad experience for me.

Customer Support at Presonus? You might want to try getting the factory telephone number in China where they make them - they are probably more likely to pick up the call and I am almost certain they will have more sincerity and sympathy for you as a customer. Of course, you might have to brush up on your Mandarin or Cantonese to get your point across but, in the end, you'll be a more well-rounded person in the grand scheme of things!

If these units were stolen, it would be a relief. It would spare me the time and effort of listing them on ebay to unload.

I would not buy a third Firepod and, as a result of the customer care, I will not buy another Presonus product. Once bitten, twice shy, thrice an idiot! There won't be a Round Three with Presonus for me.

If you plan to buy one, good luck. My heart goes out to you. If fact, if you still want one even after reading this review, check out the Firepod listings on ebay soon, you might get the very units I have written about. They will have been serviced and fixed by the grand fellas down in Baton Rouge so they will appear like great buys and you will hopefully give me positive feedback before the cycle repeats. Caveat Emptor!

If the new business model is to export manufacturing to China only to have it soon-after serviced in the good ol' U. S. of A, then Presonus is clearly leading the way. It seems the MSRP is only referring to getting you a working unit out the door of GC, Sweetwater, or your vendor of choice - anything after that is inevtiable disappointment.

To conclude and put this to rest (or, if you feel alseep through this admittedly-long review), let me recap:

Buy a Firepod if you are looking for a sub-professional sounding, guaranteed to need servicing, backed by flashy but apathetic eight-channel Firewire unit. This is the unit you want!

For a digital recording interface, this thing is pretty easy to use, the drivers installed with no problem, etc. Inputs and outputs showed up in Sonar just fine. My only issue is that sometimes it can be clunky to switch between projects recorded at different sample rates. Even stranger is that the behaviour does not seem to be consistent...

Well I'm sorry to say this, but I just don't think these preamps sound very good. It sounds like I threw a blanket over my microphone. In an A/B test with my M-Audio Ozone preamps, the high end and general clarity was much better on the M-Audio. Who knows, perhaps I have a faulty interface.

On the other hand, considering I got 8 preamps and 24/96 firewire for $600 they are good enough for my use, which is recording live shows of my bands.

I have a Focusrite Saffire Pro on order, if it ever ships I will compare those preamps to these. My expectation would be that the Focusrites would be better than the M-Audio and the Presonus, but we'll see.

Seems sturdy enough, and I love the Neutrik combo connectors on the front - super cool. The one thing I wish the Focusrite had.

I give an 8 because this is really studio gear, the knobs would not survive an incident on stage, so I have to be careful around it (and not let the drummer anywhere near it).

Surpisingly, they were decent. I contacted them about the sound quality and they had really good suggestions, although none changed the sound of the preamps, they were very good tips for optimizing the computer for audio in general. They also offered to exchange if I thought it was a faulty unit. So, my kudos to the email support from Presonus. I don't think I have a faulty unit, I just don't think the preamps are very good.

I'm using this for mobile recording of live shows of my bands, and it has worked quite well so far. I'm hoping the Focusrite saffire pro will have a bit more quality. Maybe Presonus will loan me a firestudio to compare against the Saffire Pro (assuming Focusrite actually ships these at some point).

Easy to set up, using Logic 7.2 OSX 10.4.7 on a powerbook g4 1.67gHz with 2gig ram and a 7200 internal drive, tracking to a firewire 800 external drive.

Manual is fine, if oversimplified.

Current firmware, OS updates etc.

These units started pops and clicks about 6 months ago. Before that they could have been functioning in the same way, but I never noticed due to all the noise of our live shows. I have gone over every software setting, hardware config, and have even had Apple replace my powerbook to solve this problem, and still no real help from Presonus.

Pops and clicks in recordings (and if left to record long shows it degenerates into noise) are simply unacceptable even in a lower quality unit. In order to be viable, they need to do their job, and do it right.

They always turn on and give sound, though it is terrible with the pops and clicks. Aside from that, they have functioned in a basic manner.

I never gig without a backup.

Here's the rub. I bought these from Sweetwater, and dealth with their tech support first. We went through software settings, hardware settings, swapped the order of the units, tried them seperately and together. Nothing fixed the problem. I dealt with Butch at Presonus who went through all of the same excersizes Sweetwater did, and eventually he said it was probably my computer. I have a backround in IT, and I have been a recording engineer working with digital medium for almost 10 years. I didn't think this was hte case, but took his word (hey, he's the guy at Presonus, right? He must know.)

So I got Apple computers to replace my Powerbook (no small feat) and still the problem persisted. When I contacted Butch again, I was told "I can try, but I can't make any guarantees." What? I spent over a grand on two of these units, and if he can't help me make them work, then they should be replaced or my money refunded!

I called my Sweetwater salesman to discuss offloading these lemons and getting a pair of MOTU Travelers. I've had it with Presonus' crap.

This unit is not worth buying simply for the fact that if you have problems, Presonus will hang you out to dry. Aside from that, if you happen to get a unit that doesn't pop and click you are lucky.

Go buy a MOTU Traveler or a Mackie 1200f.

Very easy to use as long as you download the latest drivers from presonus which are more reliable than the ones that shipped with my unit (older cd). Dead simple, but then I'm a pro studio engineer with a background in equipment that makes this thing seem like a child's toy. However..... it works, and work very very well.

Here's where I'm surprised at the responses. Sound quality is partly subjective, and partly cold hard facts.

Facts: virtually no internal noise. Disconnected from input cables of any kind, output cranked through my high end power amp and monitors, inputs all cranked, only the tiniest little bit of hiss. MUCH less than with my soundcraft board. If you think this is noisy then either you've got noisy source mics or cables, a faulty firepod, a crappy output amplifier for your speakers/phones, or haven't compared firepod noise a/b style with an 8 input mixer with 8 mic pres all cranked doing the same thing with similar mic pre gain specs ie 55 or 60 db mic pre gain.

personal opinion - this unit sound absolutely terrific. Having compared it's sound to what I've created in the past, in major studios with far more expensive equipment both analog and digital, I find that the only real difference is just in my mixing techniques and levels due to how my personal engineering and producing taste has changed over the past few years. I must say that I found drum mics couldn't always be used with the presonus pres unless I did what you're supposed to do which is use the mics' level pads to lower their output power. If someone is overpowering their firepod mic pre with a kick drum mic then they're not using the mic right, or don't have a good enough mic to have a pad on it, or have the firepod input level too high, or don't understand the difference between the overdriving of the mic pre with the breakdown of the capsule of their microphone in the kick drum. It works perfectly for me. HOWEVER, I do mix down my drums in a mixer and only track the kick and snare to the firepod's inputs directly on their own channels, everything else is in a stereo drum mix. Then there are two overhead drum mic tracks. That leaves two channels, which is why I have two firepods daisy chained together for recording, like any pro must do.

Excellent sound. Plenty of power from the phones output, love that "these go to 11", thx Nigel. the ability to use outboard insert gear on channels 1 and 2 is great, wish it was available on more channels.

Pres are crisp but warm, the typical class A mic pre sound that presonus does so well. Very good, very solid state, but very good. Takes well to eqing with a good board or with my UAD-1 gear or my waves ssl4000 which has one of the nicest software eqs in the business.

nothing gone wrong yet, no sync problems yet, excellent. dead simple.

haven't needed it yet, however they release new drivers as needed and have good faqs on their site. for that I give it a 9.

just get one. don't listen to people who don't know how to record.

BUT, don't expect it to solve all your problems and be dumb simple. you must learn how to record. This is pro audio gear that it affordable enough for some joker to buy it and think they can record their band easily.

not so easy though... learn how to use mics properly, get GOOD mics, nothing less than $350 please per mic for studio recording unless you get sm57s/58s or beta 57s/58s. This product is good enough that it will show the problems with your existing gear, and more importantly, with your existing engineering techniques.

The firepod brings you into pro recording quality gear, and just like with really good studio monitors and amps, it shows you your mistakes as blatantly as it shows you your successes. It's all I would use for this mid-level recording target group. It's all anyone with a project studio should get for this low a price. Nothing else comes close without costing much more, especially for the eight excellent class A mic preamps. I'd classify them as closer to 60db of gain, not the conservative 55db gain listed. That's typical of presonus, a great company will always be conservative with their product's specs. Much better than saying it's got 60db of gain when it measures at 80db s/n ratio or something dreadful like that (behringer tube 100 anybody?).

This is a great recording tool, one that you can't go wrong with as long as you learn to blame yourself and your microphones (and their usage), NOT your preamps or your interface.