Recording - July 2010 - 52

B Y M I K E M E T L AY

Like its predecessor the Firebox (reviewed December 2006), the PreSonus FireStudio Mobile is a 1/3–rackspace box in the “Max Rack” form factor that’s common among other PreSonus products like the HP4 headphone amp and the TubePRE preamp. But the resemblance is mostly skin deep; this new interface offers updated flexibility, more power under the hood, higher-quality sound, and a radically different I/O complement— one that in my opinion will make a lot more users happy than the Firebox’s did. In brief: The FireStudio Mobile is a 10in/6-out FireWire 400 interface with 24bit/96 kHz capability and a built-in DSP engine that lets you use a customized mix even with no computer attached (see below). Useful extras and bundled control-panel and DAW software make it a complete solution for small- to medium-sized music rigs.

power button for both of the front-panel inputs. All the pots are stepped in tiny increments, noise-free in use and with a good feel; if I paid close attention to their markings, I could reproduce settings accurately, although nothing like what you’d expect on, say, a mastering equalizer. I like these pots, maybe simply because to an audio engineer, stepped pots feel more expensive and high-end. Delivery at the rear On the rear panel, you’ll find that the I/O complement is completely reversed from what was present on the Firebox. This is the

digital synthesizers; their anemic output needed some boosting before the FireStudio Mobile was really happy with them. The front panel instrument inputs work well for this, but one stereo synth eats them both and doesn’t leave you with a place to plug in a mic or a guitar. The rear panel also has a DB-9 connector for a breakout cable that adds MIDI I/O and a coaxial S/PDIF I/O pair on RCA, two FireWire 400 jacks, and an input for an included wallwart power supply (useful when FireWire bus power is weak or not available, as on 4-pin laptop ports).

PreSonus FireStudio Mobile
Road-ready interfacing with powerful extras and room to grow
It’s built into a rugged all-metal chassis and gives the overall impression of a piece of gear you shouldn’t have to be frightened about tossing into a box for a live gig... or, for that matter, missing the box and having it land on the floor. (I apologize for not droptesting the FireStudio Mobile, but there are limits on what I can get away with in the review process.) Putting up a good front The front panel sports two inputs on combination jacks that accommodate either a microphone or a high-impedance musical instrument like a guitar or bass, each with its own gain control and small but bright 3-step LED meter (green for 40 dB down, yellow for 6 dB, red for 0)—a nice improvement over the Firebox, which had only Clip lights. The front-panel XMAX preamps have gobs of gain (80 dB, more than enough for wimpy guitar pickups or old ribbon mics) and a clean, neutral sound that doesn’t mess with your mics. For a toolbox interface, this is what you want, since “vibe” is as easy as running a specialized preamp or channel strip box to a set of line inputs. There’s a pot for the main mix level, a 1/4" headphone out with its own level pot, a blue/red sync light to show whether your FireWire connection is up and clocking properly, and a tiny blue-lit 48V phantom
52
RECORDING JULY 2010

big news, hardware-wise; whereas the Firebox was a 6-input/10-output box (mainly to support work with surround monitor systems), the FireStudio Mobile is a 10-input/6output box, with multiple stereo monitor mixes available for its maximized input track count. There are still 8 balanced 1/4" TRS connectors, but they’re six inputs and two outputs rather than the other way around. These inputs take line-level signals and have relatively little gain; you’ll want to use a DI box or a preamp if feeding them signals from devices designed for the –10 dBV “prosumer” level standard rather than the +4 dBu standard for pro gear. I ran into this while testing the interface with some 1980s-vintage

Internals, software, and documentation The FireStudio Mobile’s internal DSP engine doesn’t include onboard effects like a confidence-monitor reverb, but does allow the box to manage multiple audio routings to and from the DAW, as well as up to three customized zero-latency monitor mixes, one each for the mains, phones, and S/PDIF. One set of mixes is retained in memory when the interface is powered off and/or disconnected from the computer, making it a handy portable mixer/cue mix distribution box. To set up these these mixes, you use the bundled Universal Control software. It centralizes control of multiple PreSonus interfaces
Recording - July 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - July 2010
