Having successfully spawned numerous USB audio interfaces, Tascam and design partner Frontier Design Group now offer up FireOne for our consideration, moving up from USB to FireWire. Is it merely more of the same or should it command your attention?
It certainly makes a good case for itself. It's small and portable. It has two mic/line combo jacks, plus a switchable front-panel Hi-Z input for direct recording of guitars. It has phantom power and -18dB pad switches on both channels. It can currently record at 24-bit/96KHz resolution. It has Midi input/output on board, transmitting MTC. It has two headphone sockets with dedicated volume controls, allowing the engineer and the talent to have separate cue feeds. It has a footswitch jack, for perfect drop-in recording. It has an exceptionally tactile weighted, illuminated jog wheel to control your sequencer of choice (and the included Live Lite 6). It also has a further eight assignable function keys (16, if you bring Shift into the equation), plus sequencer transport controls. And there's the price: under £200.
Happily, the FireOne's lopsided bulbous form is surprisingly ergonomic. The transport control area is on the right-hand side and the audio interface is on the left. The big wheel and function knobs are nicely arranged to fit into your hand: resting your palm on the big wheel, you find your fingers automatically splayed out across the function and transport buttons, although how this hardware arrangement works for left-handed users is another matter. Our suspicion is not well.
The function keys can be assigned to whatever you fancy, courtesy of the control panel software. For instance, the backlight under the jog wheel can be set to pulse in tempo with the Midi clock. All the familiar apps are supported, including Live 6, Logic Pro 7, Cubase 4, Final Cut Pro, Digital Performer 4.6 and Pro Tools 7.
Recording with FireOne is straightforward. The gain knobs (up to 46.2dB) for each channel are at the top on the left, then the pad knobs, then the two headphone volume knobs, with two volume Mix knobs in the middle of the device to control the relative difference between hearing the live incoming audio and playback from your sequencer. The sound quality coming back from FireOne is fine: acceptably professional.
It's not all wine and roses. The signal metering needs keeping an eye on, as the 12-segment stereo meter varies its display from input to output depending on where the unit's Mix knob is pointing. On a per track basis, the signal metering is limited to two lights labelled SIG (signal) or OL (overload).
The advertised high-resolution 'up to 192KHz' is still 'planned for a future software update'. More seriously, there is no digital in/out functionality at all. It would also be better if the gain range of the mic preamps could be greater to accommodate weaker ribbon mics with minimal noise. There's also only one FireWire input, so daisy-chaining a FireWire hard drive for recording is not an option.
FireOne feels like the digital descendant of the cassette Portastudios. It captures the same sense of an enabling product, laying core functions out for the user in an easy-to-operate form. FireOne offers a good balance between utility and simplicity and only the desire for more inputs and outputs may necessitate an upgrade for most users.
Author: Jonathan Wilson
MacUser Online