Help with firewire interface

Steve Strickland

Steve Strickland

Well-known member
I've got a Presonus Firepod that I use for audio apps and FCP monitoring. It runs perfectly in all other apps, but in FCP, I'm getting a fluttering/buzzing during playback. I've done every tweak I can think of in regards to changing the sampling rate to 48khz. The weird thing is that the Firepod is a 24bit interface, and I can't find any way to change the bit depth to 16bit. The selection box in audio/video pref is locked at 24bit. I've also used the audio midi setup in utilities to change the sample rate with no luck.

Audio plays back perfectly when a sequence is rendered out to a Quicktime file, but inside FCP, it sounds horrible. Anybody have any suggestions?
 
I just checked thier web site, and yes, it states that it ONLY does "24-bit/96K analog to digital conversion".

You're getting good playback in QuickTime cause it's playing in it's native format. In FCP, you're dropping it into a DV Sequence that's set to make all audio 16-bit, 48kHz. So yeah, it's not going to play right unless you mixdown the audio. I think the keyboard short cut is option+cmd+R.

Even then, it may give you drift off from any pre-sync'ed video over time, if you're doing something like that.

You could use QuickTime or FCP or SoundTrack Pro to convert it to 16-bit, 48kHz first, then use it in your Seqeuence. Don't worry about quality loss, audio files don't lose quality nearly as easily as video files do.

You can probably set up an Automator applet or folder action to do all this for you in SoundTrack Pro or QuickTime Player. That way, drop you 24-bit audio files into a folder (or drag and drop onto the applet) and poof, in a few seconds, you have your translated files.

Or just do the mixdown audio function in FCP. Which ever method works best for you. I'd convert them all to my native editing format if I had a lot of these files to work with. If it's only one or two, I'd do the mixdown audio function.
 
Thanks for the help, BenB.

Unfortunately, I tried all the methods you suggested with no luck. My audio files are already 16bit 48khz, so converting/mixdown of the audio didn't really do anything. The funny thing is that Apple mentions the Firepod on their website page of third party hardware.

I'm at a loss. The other thing is that the audio sounds great through the headphone monitor. I tried a new set of TRS cables, but it didn't correct the sound.
 
Trash your prefs. Not sure why you're getting that buzzing sound. If your sound is already at 16/48, then it's not the normal suspects. What version of FCP are you on?

Try pulling up the Render Manager and deleting all your render files and re-render.
Try using FCP Rescue to trash your prefs.
Double check all the audio settings in all of the FCP prefs (user, system, A/V).

Very strange. Could you email me a copy of this problem audio file to test with? A very strange problem.

Oh, and what version of FCP are you on, and how many tracks of audio do you have in that Seqeunce?
 
There is no specific audio file that causes this. It's every file that I've ever put into Final Cut since getting the interface. It happens whether I use two or eight tracks of audio. I've trashed the prefs before and rerendered. It doesn't matter.

I just checked the Apple site and realized that the Firebox, the little brother of the Firepod, is listed as compatible with version 5.1, but not listed under 5.0. Of course, I'm running 5.0.4, so this may be the problem. I think I need to crossgrade anyway. I can still use 5.1 on an older PowerPC g5, right?
 
I need to revive this thread since I am having the same problem!!

What do you use to hook up your monitors to your mac pro (or g5)?
 
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