Firebox : premiere impression

Citation :
djamoule says :
Hi,

I just bought a FireBox.

My problem :
I tried recording live stuff with the copy of cubase LE and recording
was good. But playing back makes clips and cuts.

What it is not :
The audio files recorded by cubase is ok so I assume the recording
process is correct.

My first thought :
My laptop is not powerful enough.
But CPU doesn't exceed 10% during all operations and the clips are
still there (never at the same moment) even with the latency at
maximum 25ms. Anyway my test for the moment are only on one single
audio track without any effect.

My second thought :
There's a problem with the firewire bandwidth and windows XP SP2.
I updated windows according to this :
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885222
and my windows is uptodate.

I also tried to play directly the audiofiles recorded in another
player but it didn't work also...

Can you help me ?

My config :

PC :
Toshiba Satellite M45X S351 with pentium m M540 + 1Gb of RAM
Internal 100Gb hard drive
Windows SP2 uptodate + firewire updated

Firebox :
driver 1.20.0.0

My test :
1 track recorded live with the copy of cubase LE provided at 44KHz

presonus says :
Hello,

Few optimization settings I can suggest.

1. Right clik on your FireBox icon in your system tray just to the left of
the time. Set the CPU setting to HIGH.

2. Right clik on your My Computer icon and select Properties. clik the
Advanced tab, clik the Settings button under Performance, clik Advanced tab,
then set to Background Services under Proccessor Scheduling.

3. If you have Service Pack 2 installed: Clik Start menu, Control Panel,
Windows FireWall, clik the Advanced tab and 'uncheck' the 1394 Connection
and clik OK.

4. clik Start menu, Control Panel, double clik into Power Options and set
the Power Scheme to Always On and set the other stuff to NEVER, clik APPLY,
then clik Hibernate tab and 'uncheck' hibernate, then clik APPLY and OK.

4. clik Start menu, Control Panel and double clik into Network Connections,
if you have a Wireless Network Connection, right clik and 'disable' this
while you are running the FireBox.

5. Within Cubase, clik Devices menu, select Device Setup, and select VST
MULTITRACK. There you have "number of disk buffers", set this to 10 and
clik APPLY. Also make sure you are set to the Presonus ASIO FireBox
drivers. You may also want to increase in related settings within Vegas.

6. Lastly, right clik on My Computer icon, select Properties, clik Hardware
tab, clik Device Manager button. In here, extend the IDE ATA/ATAPI
Controllers, double clik on the Primary and Secondary IDE Channels, clik
Advanced Settings. Here you will see Device 0 and Device 1, you'll see
"Transfer Mode" (which is usually set to DMA if available) and you will see
"Current Transfer Mode". Current Transfer needs to be set to UDMA(Ultra
DMA) mode. If either Device on the Primary or Secondary Channels are set to
PIO mode, this could be your problem. PIO mode is a older legacy and slower
transfer mode for older HD's. If either are set to PIO mode, you can change
this by either entering BIOS and setting the IDE Controllers to 'Auto' and
as long as the 'Tranfer Mode" is set to DMA if available, the Current
Transfer Mode should change. If not, in the Device Manager, as long as the
"Transfer Mode" is set to DMA if available, you can right clik on the
Primary/Secondary IDE Channel listed and 'uninstall' it. Once
'uninstalled', reboot your computer and it will refresh.

Lastly, beyond any of the above, if you are still having issues, reply to
this email with your contact number and a time I can reach you.

I am available M-F 'till 8pm central time.

Butch Richard
Interface Technical Support