I am building a small low budget studio. I need to support 8 mic inputs to my CPU. I am looking at the Presonus Firepod or the Motu 8pre. I am wondering what software these firewire interfaces support. I know Motu if DP and Presonus is Cubase but can either of these work with other software such as protools or can the presonus firepod work with DP.

Hello Delc!

I currently am looking for a new preamp for my home studio as well and have done a lot of looking around and I have also considered Presonus and MOTU as options.

I currently own a Presonus Eureka Channel Strip. It is only one channel but it has the built in compressor and parametric eq. I even have the optional a/d card for it that allows me to record at 192 kHz sample rate. I am very pleased with this unit and the overall quality of Presonus products.

The problem with what I have is that I'm limited to one channel recording with it (which isn't a problem since I mainly record vocals). I have my Eureka running to my interface via S/PDIF. I am looking at what my next upgrade would be, interface-wise.

As far as the comparison between the Firepod and 8Pre, I would probably go with the MOTU On this one. A better comparison would be between the MOTU and Presonus Firestudio. The Firestudio is similar to the Firepod, but better, and more comparable to 8Pre. Between the MOTU 8Pre and Firestudio that would be a tough choice, but I would probably even then lean toward the MOTU.

I have my eyes on one particular MOTU piece that I would suggest you t ake a look at. MOTU Traveller is a VERY nice unit. It features up to 192 kHz sample rates and it has many I/O options. I recommend checking it out.

As far as any of these unit's compatibility with programs is concerned what you should look for is which drivers each unit operates with and compare that to what drivers are compatible with the program you plan on using or to what is compatible with your system.

Hope this helps.

It doesn't matter what software you use with either of those brands of hardware. I believe the only one to watch out for is Pro Tools. Pro Tools generally only allows you to use Digidesign hardware, however there are a few exceptions, I believe.

If you want to use ProTools, you have to have certain hardware. If you use the M-Powered version of ProTools, you can use certain M-Audio expansion cards/firewire/USB interfaces. Visit the Digidesign website to find the list of acceptable hardware interfaces:
http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=35&langid=100&itemid=4901

We run the Delta10-10 Rackmount system (you need to be able to install a PCI card in your PC or MAC, so it only works with PC or the G-series towers for MAC) and we use a Focusrite OctoPre LE for our mic pre's. We get a pretty decent sound, we just don't know how to mix, so that is our downfall Anyway, hope that helps clear up the ProTools questions.
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Bob Seifert, SEIT
LiveSine Productions
Drummer of 3up3down