Presonus Firepod: where to record to?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

I'm looking to record 6-8 channels (from mics) onto my laptop via
firewire, & I'm looking at a Presonus Firepod.

I'm stuck with a bit of an unpleasant choice:
1) I can record onto my internal drive, but I only have 1, so it's
also running my system.
2) I have some external firewire drives, which I could also record
onto, but I'd be daisy-chaining it with the Firepod.

All the advice I've seen in this group (and elsewhere) says that it's
a bad idea to record onto your system drive. And... along with some
flame wars, some people suggest that daisy-chaining the drive should
work theoretically, while others say it would be safer not to record
onto a firewire drive, while using a firewire audio interface. But I
haven't found anyone describing their actual experience. (Reality &
theory often diverge.)

Is anyone using a Firepod with a laptop? If so, where do you record
to?
Is anyone willing to admit trying to record to their system drive
(laptop or not), with a Firepod? What were your experiences?
Has anyone tried daisy-chaining a drive off a Firepod, & recording to
it? What were your experiences?

It appears that Presonus has re-written the firewire driver to support
the Firepod; Does this still work well with other firewire devices,
when not recording?

Any reasonably similar experiences would be very welcome, as well as
any advice.

My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 8200 running XP Pro SP1 (not SP2!!)
1.9Ghz P4
1G RAM
internal drive 5400 RPM, 60G (The speed is another reason to stay away
from it if I can)
Externals are 80-120G, 7200RPM
1 built-in firewire port
2 USB 1.1 (which can't do the datarates I want)
Cardbus (&PCMCIA) (which I theoretically could use to add either a
USB2.0, or another firewire port to, if it actually made the
difference between working and not working.)

I also use this laptop as my DAW, and am _really_ looking forward to
not having to transfer data/recordings around.

Please reply to the group.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

No experience with the specific devices you mention, but I took no
chances and just bought a cardbus firewire adapter so I could put the
interface on one bus and the drive on another.

--
"It CAN'T be too loud... some of the red lights aren't even on yet!"
- Lorin David Schultz
in the control room
making even bad news sound good

(Remove spamblock to reply)

"PleaseReplyToGroupOnly" <group.post.2@topicbox.com> wrote in message
news:a8a14d3c.0411021024.13d19df4@posting.google.com...
> I'm looking to record 6-8 channels (from mics) onto my laptop via
> firewire, & I'm looking at a Presonus Firepod.
>
> I'm stuck with a bit of an unpleasant choice:
> 1) I can record onto my internal drive, but I only have 1, so it's
> also running my system.
> 2) I have some external firewire drives, which I could also record
> onto, but I'd be daisy-chaining it with the Firepod.
>
> All the advice I've seen in this group (and elsewhere) says that it's
> a bad idea to record onto your system drive. And... along with some
> flame wars, some people suggest that daisy-chaining the drive should
> work theoretically, while others say it would be safer not to record
> onto a firewire drive, while using a firewire audio interface. But I
> haven't found anyone describing their actual experience. (Reality &
> theory often diverge.)
>
> Is anyone using a Firepod with a laptop? If so, where do you record
> to?
> Is anyone willing to admit trying to record to their system drive
> (laptop or not), with a Firepod? What were your experiences?
> Has anyone tried daisy-chaining a drive off a Firepod, & recording to
> it? What were your experiences?
>
> It appears that Presonus has re-written the firewire driver to support
> the Firepod; Does this still work well with other firewire devices,
> when not recording?
>
> Any reasonably similar experiences would be very welcome, as well as
> any advice.
>
> My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 8200 running XP Pro SP1 (not SP2!!)
> 1.9Ghz P4
> 1G RAM
> internal drive 5400 RPM, 60G (The speed is another reason to stay away
> from it if I can)
> Externals are 80-120G, 7200RPM
> 1 built-in firewire port
> 2 USB 1.1 (which can't do the datarates I want)
> Cardbus (&PCMCIA) (which I theoretically could use to add either a
> USB2.0, or another firewire port to, if it actually made the
> difference between working and not working.)
>
> I also use this laptop as my DAW, and am _really_ looking forward to
> not having to transfer data/recordings around.
>
> Please reply to the group.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

PleaseReplyToGroupOnly (group.post.2@topicbox.com) wrote:
: I'm looking to record 6-8 channels (from mics) onto my laptop via
: firewire, & I'm looking at a Presonus Firepod.

: I'm stuck with a bit of an unpleasant choice:
: 1) I can record onto my internal drive, but I only have 1, so it's
: also running my system.
: 2) I have some external firewire drives, which I could also record
: onto, but I'd be daisy-chaining it with the Firepod.

: All the advice I've seen in this group (and elsewhere) says that it's
: a bad idea to record onto your system drive. And... along with some
: flame wars, some people suggest that daisy-chaining the drive should
: work theoretically, while others say it would be safer not to record
: onto a firewire drive, while using a firewire audio interface. But I
: haven't found anyone describing their actual experience. (Reality &
: theory often diverge.)

: Is anyone using a Firepod with a laptop? If so, where do you record
: to?
: Is anyone willing to admit trying to record to their system drive
: (laptop or not), with a Firepod? What were your experiences?
: Has anyone tried daisy-chaining a drive off a Firepod, & recording to
: it? What were your experiences?

: It appears that Presonus has re-written the firewire driver to support
: the Firepod; Does this still work well with other firewire devices,
: when not recording?

: Any reasonably similar experiences would be very welcome, as well as
: any advice.

[snip]

: I also use this laptop as my DAW, and am _really_ looking forward to
: not having to transfer data/recordings around.

: Please reply to the group.


Hello.

Although I record using Macintosh/MOTU equipment, my situation is
quite similar to yours. My laptop is a (now) "ancient" G3/500 iBook,
which has only one Firewire port and one USB 1.1 port. No expansion
slot. I have had great success recording to an external firewire drive.
You don't say how many tracks you are trying to record simultaneously,
and I would guess that the more tracks you need, the more precarious your
situation might become. I regularly record 4 tracks at 44.1kHz, 24 bit.
My files are huge because I am recording concerts of classical music.
Each track might be over one hour in length. When I first started out, I
owned an original MOTU 828, which had only 1 firewire port on it, and
MOTU specifically prohibited daisy-chaining from a firewire drive to it.
I tried to, and was unsuccessful. The solution was to buy a powered
firewire hub. That combination worked flawlessly. Now I own the 896HD,
which has 2 firewire ports on it and supports daisy-chaining devices. I
always put the MOTU gear first in the chain, then the HD. I also power
up each device separately: first the MOTU, making sure the Mac recognizes
it; then the HD, making sure it mounts on the desktop. I may be overly
fastidious here, but, so far, I've not had any problems with this set up
("knock on wood!!") There, now I've done it. I've guaranteed myself
non-stop trouble from here on out.

In all seriousness, the Firwire 400 protocol has served my needs
very well. It's not without its problems and attendant "voodoo," but any
problems I've encountered were dealt with in the specs and requirements
list of the hardware, as, for example, the issue with various firewire
bridge chipsets. (Are the all Oxford chips now? Back in the day, there
were TI and Lucent chipsets, and much incompatability.) Hope this helps.

Regards,

Lloyd

--
Lloyd Joseph Frank
Department of Music
University of Pennsylvania
lfrank@sas.upenn.edu