Presonus Firepod and Ubuntu Studio

The Presonus Firepod is a popular and inexpensive firewire audio interface. That's great, but what I really care about is that it works perfectly with Ubuntu Studio.

Drivers are always an issue with PCs because of the wide range of hardware that they need to support. Sometimes they don't support all of them that well. Contrast this with Apple computers that run on proprietary hardware and don't suffer from quite the same fate. Driver issues with Linux and Windows can be extremely frustrating, although Linux is improving quickly.

Luckily, the FreeBoB drivers that come with JACK support the Firepod very well, making it the perfect choice for an affordable home studio or live recording rig running Linux (LRRRL--say that five times fast). I've been using my Firepod in Ubuntu with great results for the past few months. Before that I used it in Windows with Nuendo and its performance was the same. I prefer my Linux setup and if you want to know why, read my article detailing the FOSS DAW.

The Firepod has everything you need and nothing else. Actually, I haven't needed the spdfs yet. If I had some digital, "outboard" gear like a cd player or field recorder I'd definitely be using them.

8 XLR/quarter inch inputs with discrete preamps and phantom power

2 spdf ins

10 quarter inch outputs (2 for monitors)

2 firewire ports (chain multiple pods for more inputs!)

headphones jack

main (monitors) level knob

headphones level knob

inputs and playback mix knob 

1/4" ins 1 & 2 are instrument level and 1/4" ins 3-8 are line level. There are two phantom power buttons, each for a group of four inputs. They are grouped ins 1-4 and 5-6, so if you have the 1-4 phantom enabled, the first four ins are all sending 48V out to your microphones. This can be limiting if you anly have a couple condensers and still want to use all 8 ins.

The preamps on this are solid. They don't color the sound and only amplify their own noise to audible levels when they are cranked all the way up. The clip LEDs are helpful when you're setting up recording levels and the inputs/playback blend knob makes it very easy to nestle yourself into the mix while you're tracking.

I hope this article gave you a good reason to try out Ubuntu Studio and presented the capabilities of the Presonus Firepod. It's a simple and functional interface that gives back every cent you pay for it.*

If you are looking for a lower cost or you don't see yourself needing ten inputs any time soon, try out the Firebox which is the same idea in stereo input form. Conversely, if you need more inputs you can chain many Firepods together, although I am not sure if this is supported in Linux.

Please leave some comments with testimonials about your compatability successes and failures between Ubuntu Studio and different audio interfaces so others can purchase wisely! Below is a link to al ist of FreeBoB supported hardware.

* not literally