Firepod problems..?

Frankiestylee

Right, so my presonus firepod is working grand with my laptop and cubase at home. I had band practice so I thought I'd give it a full run down and crank out our jam... wait for the oopsie...


... I set it up as usual, just using a single mic at the start to test it out etc, but the weird thing was it only seemed to record maybe 5 seconds after it would pick up a sound, and by the end of 3minutes of recording there would only be 20seconds worth showing up on the wave and it was all just garbled and undecipherable, yet it kept changing. It was nearly as if it was just taking a sample every 10 seconds or something.
I thought it might be the lag, but with everything shut down it still couldn't properly record one mono track.
On the cubase display the level meter responded properly, I could change the mic level and it was grand, it just went loco when I tried to record.
The firepod has a light to show whether or not it's in sync and this was always positive, so I've no idea what could have caused it.

I brought it home and set it up and it's working like a dream again, but I'd love to hear suggestions as to the problem so I don't go to my next jam and it happens again.

I didn't change any of the settings on cubase and as far as I can see there are no settings on the firepod to muck around with. I'm totally lost as to what went wrong. I tried numerous takes with various songs and still the same.

TelePaul

Were you using the same laptop in both cases? If so, that's VERY strange.

Niall - Dahlia

When you brought it home after the jam and said it worked like a dream, did you change any settings within Cubase or on the Firepod unit at all?

Sounds like a problem with the laptop to me anyway. Only thing I can think of is heating and/or vibrations. Was the laptop ontop of something that was vibrating alot? Near a bass amp or drumkit? Ontop of a warm amp? It shouldn't really have an effect unless it's really severe but that's all I can think of.

*edit* Read your post wrong

Frankiestylee

That's the strange thing, I didn't change any settings at all, I just plugged it in.

I don't really think it was the vibrations because I tried it when the room was dead silent and it still went weird.

I really have no idea, it's bugging me cause I don't want to go back to the lads again and look like a fool, plus it's an effort to move all the stuff.

TelePaul

I know you were very excited about this man so it sucks that it's not working. Any chance it was just a random bit of bad luck?

pinksoir

hold on. so its working fine when you are recording, say, just a single line of guitar at home or whatever?
when you are setting up for recording in cubase, are you setting the input on each channel to the right inputs on the firepod.

eg for drums:

kick - mono 1
snare - mono 2
rack - mono 3

etc etc.

if not, it could explain why its all screwed up, as all the channels would be set to the default, which is mono 1.

if you want to post exactly how you are setting up for recording, right from the hardware up to cubase we can do an idiot check and try find out exactly where its going wrong.
process of elimination and all that.

cheers,
pinky.

pinksoir

oh wait. i just re-read your first post and i see that you're pretty much using it as you would at home...

seems a bit weird alright. i dunno, logically it should work as well as it does at home...

must have just been bad luck.

Frankiestylee

Yeah I've no idea... I'm gonna leave this one to the magical bad luck mystery books until it happens again and I freak out.

TelePaul

To be honest mate, I'd test it ASAP. In the unlikely event that there could be something wrong with your 'pod, it'd be easier if you get on to presonus/thomann/whoever as soon as you can.

Frankiestylee

Yeah, I'd be of that mind too, but I've been using it non-stop at home and I haven't encountered any problems so I don't think it was anything actually wrong with the firepod, just something I overlooked or something