I have been using the Firepod/Vegas combination for a few years with both desktop and laptop computers with great results. The only problem I ever had was recording dropouts when the wireless card is enabled. Just remember to disable your wireless card when recording and you'll be fine.

This is definitely a great deal for a nice multi-track interface that plays nicely with Vegas.

- Mark

I know, I'm getting a bit ahead of yourself.

Bob.

I'm a sound novice, so please forgive the newbie question:
This card seems to have everything an editor could want - and thensome! Firewire in and out; WAY more inputs than an editor could shake a stick at; zero latency: and 8 out puts for 7.1 surround.
Is this the cat's meow? or am I missing something?

That about covers it. Remember the with zero latency recording you can't put any effects on the track you are recording. If you have a fast system you can reduce the latency recording to about 4 or 5ms, which is undetectable for just about all recording situations, and even put effects on your overdubs while recording.

- Mark

Pretty much what Hulk said. Main use is for recording where it's pretty easy to find even 8 inputs are not enough. Good news is you can daisy chain three of these units to get 24 inputs.

Where you might need all those inputs is for a concert.
You'd think just getting a feed from the desk would be good enough but as I've discovered that can be a real problem. The mix is for sound reinforcement, to get a good mix in the hall. It might be that the drums don't need much or any amplification so no drums in the feed you get. Or what you get given is not even the house mix, it's the foldback mix and that can be missing vital things, like the MCs mic. Also most mixes for sound reinforcement are mono.

So the ideal is to split all the mic lines before they go into the house console and feed them into your own multitrack recorder so you can do your own mix in post.

Bob.

I tried using the Motu 8Pre: http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/8pre/ but encounter artefacts (the device changes sample rate all of a sudden) when the camera is attached to the 8Pre and the 8Pre to the laptop. According the vendor (Motu) this might be caused by bandwith limitations when both camera and 8Pre share the same FireWire port. I doubt that very much, but have no counterproof.
Anybody noticed similar effects?

Not specifically however I do use the M-Audio Firewire 410 with a firewire drive and a VCR and things on the one firewire bus can sure get really ugly if I don't take care to have all devices plugged in and powered up before booting.
I'd suggest putting each device on its own physical firewire port.

Ah, and also be warned about the dreaded Windoz sounds problem, this one can really mess with things. Windoz puts our all windoz sounds at 44.1Khz but you're feeding the audio device 48KHz, many glitches can occur as the audio device has to switch sample rates. Solution is to go through Windoz Settings and disable all sounds.

Hope one of these cures your problems.

Bob.

Eh...not really Bob, but thanks anyway.
Since a laptop haas only one FireWire port there is not much to chose from. That's why I connect the camera to the 8Pre, the 8Pre to the laptop.

And yes, all sounds are disabled. And I don't even record sound on the laptop. I use only Scenalyzer and use the main outs of the 8Pre to feed the audio to the camera's XLR's.
Original idea was to record multichannel for Digital Dolby, but I haven't come around to that yet. First things first.

What I have not tested yet is configuring the 8Pre on 44.1Khz instead of 48Khz. Since I do not record the audio anyway, this setting has no weight in the process I guess.

In case I go to Dolby Digital, I definitely need two laptops or use an USB or Cardbus (EMU) audio interface.

This last set up I used in a life recording session recently. I used the 8Pre as analog to digital converter, used the light pipe to feed the E-MU 1616M and the main outs of the 1616M to feed the camera's XLR's.

Choices, choices...

Cheers, Dries.

Do you need the Cubase software or can Vegas be used directly?

I don't think I understand your question.
To capture audio you need Sound Forge, Cubase or the like. To capture video with embedded audio you need Vegas Vidcap or Scenalyzer.

Thanks VideoJoe. I was curious if Vegas supported capturing directly from the device.
I have a Tascam unit that burns CD's and you can place an audio track on the CD
then import each one individually. I was hoping it captured all 8 inputs at once in Vegas
without usng another application. How do you save each track in Cubase and import
to Vegas?

I'm sure Cubase will let you safe each individual track as a seperate file you can add to the number of Vegas audio tracks you need.

Yes, I use my Firepod directly into Vegas. (And you are already familiar with the UI).

That's a good price at Sweetwater - I will be buying a second one because 8-channels just isn't enough for recording a stage production.

It says, at the Presonis site, that Cubase LE software will allow 4 channel simultaneous recording. Am I to understand, that out of the box, you can record 8 channels simultaneously using Vegas? Do you use VIdcap? How does this work?
How do you save separate channels? I can't picture this.

Vegas was originally written as a multitrack audio recorder.
Insert as many audio tracks as you need, arm them for record and assign the inputs those tracks are to record from and the file(s) they're to record to. Once you hit the master record icon in the transport control area (at the bottom of the T/L) all the armed tracks start recording.

Better yet you can have more tracks assigned to outputs, you can even have video feeding a monitor at the same time.

All this assumes your hardware can keep up of course but there's no limit built into Vegas itself.

The manual does cover all this fairly well. I don't have a Firepod yet but I've used Vegas 4 on a laptop with a Firewire 410 to multitrack, works a treat.

Just remember that each track is being written to its own file, more tracks = more files = more load on the disk i/o system. I'm not certain if Vegas 7.0e can record to polyphonic wave files or not, if it can that would reduce disk thrashing.

Bob.

Wow. Does this mean that I could do this with any Firewire mixer? Of course I prefer quality but sometimes you have to take the cheap route too.

I haven't read a post about any firewire mixer tha ships with ASIO drivers not working with Vegas. Take your pick, Alesis, Phonic, Mackie, MOTU. About the only problems I've read about was with some Yamaha kit but I think that was just getting the automation to work.

You do realise that Vegas also does Automation?
Like if you have a HUI it'll drive the motorised faders up and down and you can write the envelopes by moving the touch sensitive faders. Heck you can even use the scroll wheel on your mouse for this or a cheap gaming joystick to write surround panning envelopes.
Now you know why you bought Vegas!

If there's any Canadians interested in this box, I just got an email from Oakwood Audio in Winnipeg and they have it on special for $450.00

Mike

I wonder if these prices mean an end of production sale and a new version around the corner?

Last ear I used Vegas 6 on an old laptop to let some students record their singing for a music video. I had eight microphones into the Firepod, and a headphone amplifier on the output giving each singer a headphone so that they could listen to the original music while they sing. We didn't have acoustic separation between the mics, and we didn't have a Karaoke version of the original, but the kids had a blast making the video.

There's a Phonic Helix 12FW that will give me 8 channels for $299. A lot of useless effects and other stuff, but it sounds pretty good. (two of those 8 channels are shared stereo channels, so 6 controls for 8 inputs and 2 more hidden inputs. 10 total)
Or 14 analog inputs on the Phonic Helix 18FW for $459.
It just seems like some of those EQ controls may come in handy on some of the cheesier mics i own and the mixer is like a break-out box..