VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Aural Exciter 45]

I have a home voice over studio. Rig is Shure KSM 32 condensor mic into Aphex 230 into Fire Box which is 6 pin firewired into Studio PC built by Full Compass specifically for voice over work. PC has XP SP3 and Adobe Audition 2.0

I've had this setup for just over a year.. and have been chasing what I thought was either noise being generated by the 230... or "fan noise" coming from my PC and being picked up by the mic. I tried sound barriers, noise gating, dipping out frequencies, etc etc to overcome this noise to no avail.

Yesterday I just happened to have the headphones turned up quite high and turned off power to the 230 and lo and behold the hiss was still there. Just to be sure I disconnected the balanced cable between the 230 and the firebox and the hiss was still there... apparently it's being generated by the Firebox. All this of couse with my Adobe Audition 2.0 software in record mode.

I did a google search on Firebox hiss and much to my chagrin, found various and sundry complaints about this hiss issue with the Firebox.

Any other Firebox users out there with hiss problems.? Is there a way to eliminate the hiss. I haven't talked to or emailed Presonus tech support yet but plan to in a moment.

If there is no fix or workaround for this... what would the recommendations be for a replacement (quiet) A/D converter?

Thanks for all advice

[Hart]

I have a firebox. I can hear a hiss out of the headphone amp at high volume but it's never shown up in a recording as far as I can recall.

It's been a long time since I set it up but it seems like I had to tweak a few things to get it to play nice with Audition.

So the noise is there regardless of what input or output you're using?

Here's a few random thoughts that I'm sure you've already messed with but I'll throw them out there anyway:

Which audio driver are you using as default in Audition? Seems like I had to switch to the Presonus ASIO driver and mess with some of the settings in the Audio Hardware screen in Audition. Maybe try adjusting the sample rate to make sure the firebox control panel and Audition agree.
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Hart Voice Overs Blog
Brian Hart Productions

[Lance Blair]

I had one of these pieces of "equipment"

Get. Rid. Of. The. Firebox.

They are really noisy (digital whine) and unstable in most setups. The mic preamps are low gain, noisy, and just sound awful...you have to go line in on these things to use at all.

They don't even record at 96kHz as they falsely advertise. They just double the sampling. There's a driver upgrade online to get to 96kHz...but it induces really loud digital whine.

By far the worst piece of gear I've ever bought.
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[Hart]

by far the worst? Wow.

I guess I'm on the other end of the spectrum as I've been pretty happy with mine overall and I like it much better than some emu and M-audio stuff I've had in the same price range.

I wonder if they have quality control issues or something.
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Hart Voice Overs Blog
Brian Hart Productions

[Frank F]

Greed is the issue with the Firebox, low quality parts mean higher profits (according to Presonus). There are a few "fixes", but I doubt if the cost would be justified as you could buy a new rig for the price you have to pay.

Good luck.

Toodles

F2
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Be thankful for the bad things in life. They opened your eyes to the good things you weren't paying attention to before. email: thevoice@usa.com

[donrandall]

I did some checking around online and decided on the Focusrite Saffire.

Very nice. Easy to set up. Everything worked perfectly right from the beginning with no hassles of any kind and I can't find one thing to complain about. I wish everything I ever bought was so good!