Showing posts with label firepod. Show all posts
Showing posts with label firepod. Show all posts

PreSonus HP60 6-Channel Headphone Amplifier/Mixer Review

PreSonus HP60 6-Channel Headphone Amplifier/Mixer
Average Reviews:

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If you play live and your band is constantly complaining that they can't hear themselves in the mix, this is the perfect product to solve that. Lets back up...if you are a vocalist trying to hear yourself or to do harmonies, it is almost impossible if all you have is the main mix in your phones. This device allows you to take, say, the direct feed from your vocal channel and plug it into a stereo input...for each channel. The three singers in my band each have an output that they are able to mix into the main mix. The result: "more me" since my vocals are boosted above the other vocals and instruments. And you can't believe how much better you can sing when you can actually hear yourself.
Of course, the other vocalists can hear you too, but they can mainly hear themselves, so everybody can sing their parts without getting disoriented by the other vocalists
You get two stereo inputs for all the channels, and you can mix them together, so you could theoretically have a backing track mix on A and a click track on B. If the drummer needs the click, mix heavy toward B. If you are a singer and dont need to hear the click, mix heavy toward A. Then, boost your own personal direct signal from the mix board so that your vocals stand head and shoulders above the other stuff. NOW you can hear!!!
This is one of those products I'm constantly inventing in my head that don't exist, except that this one does, and with more features and flexibility than I ever would have imagined. Plenty of volume in the headphones, nice clean sound, and you can hook up six headphones to this thing, each with individual A/B track mix and "more me" mix input. Pricey, but worth it. This thing is a game changer. As the guy who usually gets the middle David Crosby part in the harmony matrix, I no longer get confused, off pitch, or lost. Bring it on...I can sing ANYTHING now...

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"Turn my headphones up!" "More me, I can't hear myself!" "Turn down that click!" It gets old. Change that tune with the HP60 headphone distribution system. The HP60 is more than just a half-dozen headphone amps, it's a field-tested solution to a host of common headphone-monitoring problems. Let's start with "turn my headphones up." Each of the HP60's six headphone amps has its own level control and puts out 150 mW, which is loud enough to drive the alligators out of the Louisiana swamps. If they can't hear this headphone system, they're stone deaf. More likely they'll scream, "turn it down, you're killing me!" Problem solved. Now let's solve "turn down that click." The HP60 features two sets of line-level, stereo inputs that are routed to all six headphones, a Mix control that sets their relative levels for each headphone output, and a mute switch for each headphone. So you can feed the main control-room mix to channel A and the click to channel B and use the Mix controls to individually raise or lower the click relative to the main mix for each musician. Problem solved. As for "more me," in addition to the two pairs of main stereo inputs, you get an external stereo input pair with level control for each headphone channel. A Mono switch lets you sum the left and right inputs. So you can send each of the whiners a feed of just their instrument or voice and can control the level separately for each. Problem

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PreSonus Eureka Pro Recording Channel Review

PreSonus Eureka Pro Recording Channel
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
The Eureka has gotten a lot of buzz. The box feels solid and substantial. It comes with gain, hard/soft compression, three band parametric eq, and master volume. The patch order of the eq and compresion can be switched, depending on your needs. Other useful features include phase inversion, variable impedence, and a saturation knob. A backlit analog meter can display incoming signal level or gain reduction. Inputs and outputs are both TRS and XLR. An effects insert point is included. An optional digital output card is available.
I bought the Eureka on the recommendation of a trusted music salesperson (yes, they exist) to power my Royer 121 ribbon mic. There were no preamps anywhere close to this price that he would consider recommending. As it turns out, he did me a great favor. The Eureka does a very solid job with the Royer mic (although I haven't heard the Royer on anything else, so I can only speak to the pairing of the two). Better yet, it gives me new options for almost every other piece of gear I own. I have an inexpensive Precision bass that really benefits from this box - the compression and preampe give it the fullness of a better instrument, while the eq helps to control the noisiness and unevenness between strings. The variable impedence allows users to try those DIY tricks on Shure SM57 mics without pulling out a soldering iron. Other budget-to-midrange mics also benefit. I run my Mojave tube mic through the Eureka to control peaks with good results. I haven't found anything that doesn't benefit at least a bit from the Eureka. I have even heard of mixes being run through the Eureka (one side at a time) to remove the dreaded "digital chill". Between the quiet operation and the versatility of the Eureka, it is no wonder that it is quickly becoming a "best kept secret" among many home recordists and even sine professionals.
Downsides: The knobs are close together and seem vulnerable to being bent. Three sweep eq's with no shelving eq are less than I'd prefer, but they do their job. The optional digital card can take signals from two Eurekas run in tandem, but the signal from the second Eureka must pass to the card in the "analog domain" before it is converted to a digital signal. As with any analog gear, favorite settings must be written down instead of being saved to memory for instant recall. None of these issues is a deal-killer - they just illustrate how hard I had to work to come up with any complaints at all.
If you're looking for a way to bring your home recording quality up a notch, or a way to give old gear a new lease on life, the Eureka may be just the ticket. Its quality sound, versatility and bang-for-the-buck put it in a niche that will make many bugdet-minded recordists very happy.

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PreSonus FireStudio Project 10x10 FireWire Recording Interface Review

PreSonus FireStudio Project 10x10 FireWire Recording Interface
Average Reviews:

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I purchased the Firestudio Project a year ago and have been thrilled with its performance.
The external LEDs are a huge plus for setting your levels, and the eight XLR/quarter-inch inputs are very convenient. You also have phantom power available for all inputs.
The latency with this unit is minimal with a PC running Vista in a stripped down form as recommended by one of the major music retailer web sites.
Cubase LE is fairly simple to use, and it's easy to export your individual tracks for use in other DAWs like ProTools, if you intend to mix in a studio. Another note regarding Cubase: out of the box the program defaults to 16-bit recording, and you will definitely want to change the bit depth to 24-bit, particularly if recording in a noisy home studio environment. The noise floor, especially on vocal recordings with high gain on a condenser mic, is considerably higher with 16-bit. So, make sure you have a computer that is beefy enough to handle 24-bit because it does use more system resources.
The FireStudio also comes packaged with some nice VST plug-ins including instruments by Halion, some of which are pretty passable like the Jazz Piano.
When researching interfaces, my biggest concern was compatibility with hardware, as I had read some horror stories about interfaces not working with FireWire drivers correctly on certain PCs or Macs. This one worked perfectly out of the box with a store-bought HP desktop, so my experience was great in that regard.
My only complaint is that this unit was supposed to come with the Presonus EyeQ software - a multi-band EQ and spectrum analyzer, which was pictured on the box, but not in the box. I've read that others got left out of the EyeQ party as well, and I have e-mailed tech support but not yet gotten a response after one week.

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