SR/Live Fri, July 04, 2008

Baton Rouge, Louisiana (February 2008): PreSonus Audio Electronics announced its latest offering in professional firewire recording systems – the FireStudio Tube. The FireStudio Tube is a complete 24-bit/96k FireWire recording system.

The front panel of the FireStudio Tube is loaded with two “SuperChannels” featuring class A vacuum tube microphone and instrument preamplifiers along with full-featured analog limiters.
The tube preamplifiers use a high gain, military grade 12AX7 tube for maximum gain, low noise and high headroom. Neutrik combo connectors allow both XLR microphone input and hi-Z instrument input. Preamp controls include preamp gain and tube drive to achieve a wide range of sounds from smooth, clean and clear, to warm tube saturation. An 80Hz high pass filter is also located on the front panel to remove room rumble and unwanted lows.

The FireStudio Tube’s Limiter features a VCA-based ultra fast RMS and peak detection circuit used in the DigiMax 96K, which isable to catch the fast transients eliminating the possibility of clipping during recording while maintaining musicality. Controls for the Limiter include Threshold and Gain make-up as well as a Limiter in/out button.

Fast-acting LED metering on the front panel displays preamp input and limiter gain reduction for the two tube SuperChannels.

The FireStudio Tube delivers analog I/O for professional recording sessions, featuring 16 analog inputs including two tube SuperChannels on the front panel, eight class A XMAX microphone preamplifiers and six balanced TRS line inputs on the rear panel. Outputs include eight balanced TRS outputs and PreSonus’ a headphone output. MIDI I/O is also included on the rear panel for MIDI instruments, keyboards and controllers. The FireStudio Tube’s combination of microphone, instrument and line inputs is designed for a band to simultaneously record drums, bass, guitar, vocals and keyboards without any additional preamplifiers.

The FireStudio Tube includes a 16x10 FireControl mixer/router delivering up to five zero-latency custom monitor mixes easily and quickly. It also touts A/D/A converters with a dynamic range of over 114dB for clarity as well as synchronization using patented JetPLL jitter reduction technology. JetPLL incorporates noise shaping to remove audio band jitter. JetPLL ensures the high converter performance, resulting in better stereo separation and clearer audio. JetPLL delivers fast locking to any digital format through a wide range of frequencies and is tolerant of wide variations in clock frequencies. JetPLL ensures good clock performance when networking audio devices, thus creating stable and robust synchronization to the computer.

As with all PreSonus recording systems, the FireStudio Tube includes a complete suite of software featuring Steinberg’s Cubase LE 4 48-track recording and production software along with a number of third party plug-ins, loops, samples and virtual instruments delivering a complete music production solution.

“Sixteen analog inputs with ten PreSonus mic preamps are perfect for recording a band,” says PreSonus Director of Marketing Brad Zell. “Add tubes, great converters, JetPLL and multiple monitor mixes and you have everything you need for professional recording right out of the box.”

FireStudio Tube Features:

• 24-bit/96K firewire (IEEE1394)
• 16 inputs/10 outputs simultaneous record/playback channels
• 2 SuperChannels (tube microphone/instrument preamplifier with analog limiter)
• 8 XMAX microphone preamplifiers
• 8 balanced TRS outputs
• MIDI Input/Output
• 16x10 FireControl DSP mixer/router
• JetPLL Sync for improved imaging and clarity
• High performance A/D/A converters (114 dynamic range)
• ProPak software suite included