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Home » Computer Music » Audio Interfaces » Firewire » PreSonus Inspire 1394

PreSonus Inspire 1394

4x4 Fire Interface - Special Offer

Dolphin id:
7768
Product SKU:
Inspire

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4x4 Digitally Controlled Firewire Interface!

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The INSPIRE 1394 is a revolutionary FireWire Recording System featuring professional quality 24-bit/96k analog to digital conversion rate, four simultaneous inputs, software control panel as well as audio recording and production software giving you the smallest, most flexible, most affordable and all-inspiring computer recording studio ever!

What's Inside

The INSPIRE 1394 is loaded with state of the art components and technology enabling the easiest computer recording experience ever. The INSPIRE 1394 installs effortlessly on both Windows XP and Macintosh-based computers and works seamlessly with virtually all popular recording software including Cubase, Nuendo, Sonar, Cakewalk, Logic, Logic Express, Digital Performer and many others. The microphone and instrument preamplifiers loaded in the INSPIRE 1394 are designed to deliver ultra-low noise, high gain preamplification for all types of microphones and instruments needed for professional quality recordings.

Ins and Outs

The front panel of the INSPIRE 1394 features two custom-designed PreSonus microphone preamplifiers with +48V phantom power and two instrument Hi-Z inputs. The back of the INSPIRE features selectable line or phono (with RIAA filter) inputs great for all types of keyboards, samplers, drum machines and turntables. Outputs on the INSPIRE 1394 include RCA unbalanced and mini TRS jacks as well as headphone output.

Software Control Panel

The INSPIRE 1394 is completely controlled by an easy-to-use software mixer interface called the CONTROL PANEL. Controls include, input gain, phantom power, limiter (off/on), preamp boost (off/on), sample rate, headphone volume, main output volume as well as zero latency input mixing with playback mixing. This software control panel also serves as a mixer between your computer playback and your inputs for zero latency recording. The software control panel also features LOAD, SAVE functionality so that you can save and recall all of your settings from session to sesson.

Daisy Chain for More Inputs

The INSPIRE 1394 is equipped with two FireWire connectors enabling the ability to daisy-chain up to FOUR INSPIRE 1394's together for up to sixteen simultaneous inputs at 24-bit/96k recording rate.

ProPak Software Suite

The INSPIRE 1394 comes complete with the ProPak software suite including Cubase LE recording and production software, Sony's ACID XMC, Discwelder Bronze, Discrete Drums, 25 real-time effects plug-ins and over 3 GB of drum loops and samples giving you a complete and professional music production environment.

Features:

  • 24-bit/96k A/D/A sample rate
  • Four simultaneous input channels (Any 2 from the front and the Stereo RCA on the rear)
  • Two microphone/instrument preamplifiers
  • Switchable line input or phono input(with RIAA filter)
  • Software Control Panel and zero latency mixer
  • Window XP and Macintosh OSX compatible
  • FireWire bus-powered or powered externally
  • ProPak Software Suite

Video Overview

Artist Series Software

Studio One Artist is based on a cutting-edge 32-bit floating-point mix engine that is identical to that of Studio One in single-precision mode, delivering better audio quality than most high-end professional music-production applications. Studio One Artist has the same easy-to-use single-window interface and browser as Studio One—the friendliest user interface on the planet. This straightforward work environment allows you to track, edit, and mix in one easy-to-navigate window. However, you can separate the Console and Arrange views and can even drag them to separate displays. You also can switch to a larger Console view—yet another way Studio One Artist helps you work quickly while giving you maximum flexibility.

Specifications:

  • 24-bit/96kHz Sampling.
  • Full Digital control and recall from the Control Panel.
  • Low Latency hardware mixer configured from the Control Panel.
  • Mac (Core Audio) and PC (WDM and ASIO 2.0) compliant.
  • 2 Microphone/Instument inputs via separate XLR-1/4" TS connectors.
  • 2 Line Level (-10dB)/Phono inputs via Stereo RCA connector.
  • Stereo Line Level Outputs via Stereo RCA connector or 3.5mm TRS.
  • Stereo Headphone Output via 3.5mm TRS.
  • Sync Indicator LED.
  • 2 IEEE1394 (Firewire) ports at 400Mb/s capable of bus powering the unit.
  • Aux power input jack.
  • THD+N < 0.008%
  • S/N > 95dB

System Requirements:

Windows

  • OS: Microsoft Windows XP
  • Computer: Windows compatible computer with IEEE 1394 FireWire port.
  • CPU/Clock: Pentium, Athlon with 900Mhz or higher (1.5GHz recommended)
  • Memory(RAM): 256 MB (512MB recommended)
  • For multiple units, the equivalent of a 1.5GHz processor or better and 512MB of RAM or better is highly
    recommended. Processing power and RAM affect the ability to use multiple units at low latency.

Macintosh

  • OS: MacOS X ver. 10.3.7 or later (Tiger 10.4.2 recommended)
  • CPU/Clock: PowerPC G4/800Mhz or higher (G4/Dual 1 GHz recommended)
  • Memory(RAM): 256 MB (512MB recommended)
  • For multiple units, a G4 1.25GHz processor or better and 512MB of RAM or better is highly recommended. Processing power and RAM affect the ability to use multiple units at low latency.
Image: PreSonus Inspire 1394

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PreSonus Inspire 1394 Reviews

1/10

Presonus Inspire

— Roger Jelbert October 7, 2008

My experience with the Presonus Inspire was short and traumatic. It was delivered promptly and I got down to trying it right away. It installed ok, although the drivers on the cd were out of date and I decided to download the latest ones straight away. Then onto testing.
The pre-amps didn\'t have a lot of gain and with a dynamic mic (I was testing with an AKG D3700 and a Shure SM58)it was neccessary to turn the gain up full. Still not enough so the \"boost\" button was pressed. A serious amount of noise then appears. A regular motorboating sound, a hum and digital whine. This is recorded and is not just in the momitoring. I spent several hours testing with different software, leads etc to no avail. After 4 days I emailed Dolphin asking to speak to someone from tech support to discuss the problem. Instead of allowing this they choose to refer me to \"the manufacturers\" repair facility which I belive is a separate servicing company. This would be beter I was told. They were helpful but slow - \"very busy here\" They eventually - after hearing a demo recording - agreed it was noisy and should be returned for repair.
At this point I asked Dolphin to send me a replacement as I could envisage the weeks passing by. I offered to send the faulty one back to them or the service dept. I said if the replacement was no better I would return that for a refund. I was then told I was not elligble for a refund anyway as more than 7 days had past! So I pointed out that I had contacted them after 4 days and followed their advice. Fed up I insisted on a refund and this was accepted. It\'s packed up and going back tommorrow.
During testing I found that running the Presonus Control Panel causes the motorboating noise. Mic channel 2 does not respond to the boost button. Noise with no inputs reached 20db below peak on channel 1 and 35 db below peak on channel 2 in Musicmatch12.
I won\'t know now just how faulty this unit was as I couldn\'t get a replacement except on unreasonable terms. If you only use an interface like the one I had on a close mic\'d instrument or close up rock singer maybe you will never notice but if you want speech at spoken word level it\'s no good. My yardstick for comparison throughout was an AudioBuddy preamp into a Soudblaster card, 44.1/16bit and the results were perfectly. acceptable in all respects. I don\'t reccommend the Inspire or Dolphin aftersales.
Platform:Acer 5680 laptop,2Ghz duo,2Gb ram, Belkin PCIMA firewire adaptor.XP Media Centre Edition SP2.

9/10

Great unit for getting started

— Richard Platt February 15, 2007

After many years of playing guitar, I decided to get into home recording on the PC and record a few tracks. I bought the Inspire because it allows you to plug your electric guitar straight into the 1/4" jack sockets. This is very easy to do and using Cubase LE which comes bundled you will very quickly be recording your guitar.

However, I have yet to record a guitar sound that I am happy with when plugged in directly to the Inspire. So out comes the credit card again for my next purchase: A shure SM57 mike! Now I'm making some progress. I position the sm57 right in front of the grill on my amp, plug it into one of the XLR inputs on the Inspire and start recording. This is more like it. The recording really captures all the tones of the guitar and amp just as I want.

Now onto vocals. The helpful chaps at Dolphin Music convinced me to buy a Behringer C1 condenser mike for this purpose. Unfortunately my vocal talents are not my strong point, but the C1 and Inspire do a great job of capturing the sound.

If you're new to sequencing progams such as Cubase, it may take you a while (As it did with me) to get up to speed. But if you persist, you will be rewarded. You can make your own drum and bass tracks using the MIDI editor, and the Virtual Instruments supplied, add in your own guitar and vocal audio tracks and before you know it you are making some damn good sounds.

Highly recommended.

Show all reviews »

9/10

Great unit for getting started

— Richard Platt February 15, 2007

After many years of playing guitar, I decided to get into home recording on the PC and record a few tracks. I bought the Inspire because it allows you to plug your electric guitar straight into the 1/4" jack sockets. This is very easy to do and using Cubase LE which comes bundled you will very quickly be recording your guitar.

However, I have yet to record a guitar sound that I am happy with when plugged in directly to the Inspire. So out comes the credit card again for my next purchase: A shure SM57 mike! Now I'm making some progress. I position the sm57 right in front of the grill on my amp, plug it into one of the XLR inputs on the Inspire and start recording. This is more like it. The recording really captures all the tones of the guitar and amp just as I want.

Now onto vocals. The helpful chaps at Dolphin Music convinced me to buy a Behringer C1 condenser mike for this purpose. Unfortunately my vocal talents are not my strong point, but the C1 and Inspire do a great job of capturing the sound.

If you're new to sequencing progams such as Cubase, it may take you a while (As it did with me) to get up to speed. But if you persist, you will be rewarded. You can make your own drum and bass tracks using the MIDI editor, and the Virtual Instruments supplied, add in your own guitar and vocal audio tracks and before you know it you are making some damn good sounds.

Highly recommended.

9/10

PreSonus Inspire

— James White August 8, 2006

I've seen this described as "a little bigger than a pack of cards"- well, this must have been a big pack of cards but at 4.5 x 14 x 14 cm it's still tiny.
It's small enough to carry around with a laptop, and because its bus-powered you can run it off the computers battery, though if your computers anything like mine, not for very long (especially with phantom power).
It does come with a transformer, and for best performance you should probably plug your laptop in anyway :)
The lack of buttons and pots makes it look really sleek, tho’ the phonos sticking out the back somewhat spoil the aesthetic.
The sound quality is pretty good. Probably not as good as most more expensive pro-audio interfaces, or the most expensive mixers but detailed enough. I’ve used it to record voice, birdsong (don’t ask why) and the piano, and it is just about to be put up against choir and organ – we shall see.
If your looking to make very top quality recordings, or need to use more than two mic’s then this probably isn’t for you. But f you want a two channel, basic and very portable bus-powered interface, at a great price, then this one is definitely worth considering!

9/10

Presonus Inspire 1394

— Kevin Bodman July 28, 2006

Being a newcomer to the world of audio recording, this was a difficult choice to make. There are quite a few, what I would call entry-level units, on the market from the major manufacturers. I needed a unit that would be able to record a microphone, guitar and maybe a drum machine at the same time. There are a number of reasons why in the end I chose this unit.

2 Main Channel inputs which can be either Mic (phantom if required) or Instrument. Some other units only provide 1 input capable of handling a guitar Hi Z

2 line inputs (or one stereo)

Capability of recording all 4 channels simultaneously, Some other units have loads of inputs but only capable of recording 2 at a time.

I’m not paying for loads of inputs that (at the moment) I don’t need, like spdif, adat etc.

It has expandability; up to 4 of these can be linked to provide 16 channels of simultaneous recording.

It has loads of bundled software with it.

Everything sets up easily, just like their handbook and website says. Within one hour, I had set up the software and hardware and tested it by recording into Cubase LE 2 simultaneous tracks of me singing and playing the guitar.

So I’m extremely happy with my purchase its an excellent entry level unit that can be expanded, its robust, easy to use, and relatively inexpensive.

I only have a few minor complaints, The firewire lead supplied is 6pin to 6pin which is ok if your PC has a 6pin on it. But I think a lot of people, like me, will be using a laptop and inbuilt firewire connectors on laptops are often 4 pin, so you may have to get another lead or a pcmcia adapter. Luckily I had a lead.

The other thing is that the speaker output is unbalanced which I am lead to believe is more prone to interference than balanced.

So overall I’m inspired.

8/10

inspire!

— matt avery April 29, 2006

this a great little box! its built to last too! when i pulled it out of the box i was stunned by how heavy and sturdy it was, i was expecting something flimsy due to its price tag. anyways, this little box solved a lot of my problems. i was having troubles getting usb audio to work on my imac correctly so i just gave up and gave in to get one of these. the pre amps are O.K. i dont use them very often though as i mostly use outboard pre amps. but they are definatly usable. the software control panel is amazing. i never thought about controlling phantom power and gain from inside the computer like this before. it also keeps the unit clean from knobs and switches that can be broken. i also like to believe that this keeps the unit temperature down (i owned an m-audio quattro, now those things get HOT!) the limiter actually is good too, nice to just keep inputs from clipping. ive yet to daisy-chain the inspire but i plan on it when i need to expand to 8, then 12, then 16 inputs. i really like the idea of daisy-chaining and expanability on such a budget unit. the packaged plugins are very usable and ive actually been making use of them lately in recording projects. im not using the cubase le included, just because im used to logic express. all in all, this box is an amazing deal and great for learners or even pros for a nice at-home interface! definatly another pro-sumer release from presonus.

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