Phonic Helix 24 Firewire

[davedrago.com]

Hey Guys!

I was wondering if any one has used a Phonic Helix 24 Firewire. I wanted to know if it was worth buying. Does it work well?
Hows the Software? Is it sensible or is it another piece of recording software that takes a few days to make any sense of?

I have an m-audio 1814 running with the octane and i think that it's very tempermental. Im looking for something that I dont have to babysit.

Thanks for your help!

If any one knows of on for sale that would be great too!

[parsley]

I've used one. There's noise at about -70dB on all inputs via firewire on mine. Not the end of the world for live recording, but I was disappointed to find it. Others (see www.cakewalk.com forums, 'gear' I think) have also reported this. Possibly for other reasons, but the only times I've had Sonar crash have been when the Phonic control panel is loaded, on 2 different computers.

There's a 3rd party driver - www.centrance.com I think - which promises lower latency etc. for about $50-70.

But it's the cheapest way i could find to get 16 channels of balanced mic/line input, and you get an analog mixer thrown in.

[davedrago.com]

thanks parsley

do you think it is still a good investment?

do you know of anything else comparable?
ive had a hard time finding anything, even in the $1000 range.

thanks again

dave

[jeronimo]

looks good to me...
if it's sound good, looks like a good option for cheap live recording gigs...

[parsley]

Originally Posted by davedrago.com

thanks parsley

do you think it is still a good investment?

do you know of anything else comparable?
ive had a hard time finding anything, even in the $1000 range.

thanks again

dave

For our application the mixer part was useful too - or so we thought. But it only has 4 auxes, 2 hard-wired as post fader. The buttons are small and their travel is small - not easy to see what's pressed in low light in a gig (maybe a minor point!). It might still be the cheapest way to get 16 balanced mic/line -> firewire.

The Alesis IO-26 + 1 or 2 Behringer ADA8000's is fairly cheap. It's just an interface, but might be quieter. Many people recommend the RME fireface but it's quite a bit more expensive.

Do you need 16 channels? (We did - drums, singers, instruments etc.). If only 8 you've more choice, e.g. Edirol FA-101.

It comes with a cut-down freebie cubase, which I've not tried. I've only used Cakewalk Sonar 5.2 with it.

[jeronimo]

On a small gig you can just swap the FOH console with the Phonic, send the FW direct outs pre EQ and do the live mix with the console.
On a larger system, I think an Alesis + ADA8000 would be better, since you you'll need a spliter anyways...
just my thoughts....

[dragonorchid]

I have used the phonic helix on both live mixing/recording and studio recording and think it is very functional. I use it with Adobe Audition 2.0 - which is an Awesome program I love and use as much as protools in my studio. I havent noticed much noise on mine - perhaps it's that Chinese made depends on the day and the factory it was made in scenario... but I must have gotten a good one.

[dkerins]

I actually just sold mine to get the MAudio Profire and 2 Beh ada8000's. The only real problem that I found with it was that the firewire send (even when fully cranked) was still soft in the DAW. I had to crank the gain in the DAW to just to get decent levels, and it started adding more noise to the tracks. Other than that, it was a solid unit, and very easy to use. I just like the idea of having a small rack of gear now, and it makes it easier to use for live recording. Hope this helps.

[Ashofapheonix]

Phonics are about the worst mixers made... build quality terrible sound quality terrible. They make behringer look good. Thats not a good thing. Your going to be taking a major step down.

If your front-end is tempermental, its most likely the interface and not the Octane. I'd get something else with ADAT, and keep your Octane.
I've had good luck internally with the EMU stuff, for mac users the Motu 8pre is another one worth looking at. and Of course theirs the Presonus Firestudio at 700 and that can do up to 26 I/O VIA ADAT.

[ekimtoor1]

I love my Phonic 24 and hear no noise, but that could be my ears you know. It works great as a live mixer and makes a nice recording.

Firestudio+Digimax was one of most nightmarish setups I ever had. Nothing but crap problems all the time.

[headwerkn]

our band has one for live PA and recording. it's most redeeming feature is that it is about the cheapest way to get 16 mic inputs into your DAW. but that's about it.

the pres aren't unusable, just pretty benign and characterless. i find them lacking a bit in gain too... often you're pushing them hard to get decent signal.

the eq is lame, just very inefficient, you're grabbing 6-10dB to carve out spaces that take 2-4dB on other mixers.

firewire works well but lately our unit has been losing the firewire connection to the DAW randomly, costing me the ability to record gigs and generally me off.

the Mackie Onyx's would be far better options but the 1640+firewire board is twice the price of the Phonic. the other option is to get a regular live mixer with direct outputs that you can mult off from and use a firewire interface with 8 analogue ins and an ADAT input (MOTU 8Pre, Presonus FireFace, etc) and something like this (SM Pro Audio - A08) and you've got 16 inputs.

[james.ca]

I had a look at them ages ago and found the support site was useless .No way , right in that area alone put me right off.
I spend a bit more, in audio is one market you do get what you pay for .
Just because it's all shiney don't make it gold !
James

[Claude G.]

What about the OLD Phonics..? They look nothing like the modern Phonic-Helix. Are those any good??

[rackdude]

well, i have a firewire-24 mkII and you know, its good for the price. I got it for $450 off of ebay, and it's done great. I have a alesis multimix-8 usb, and alesis has much better preamps. But heres the thing, I needed 16 tracks to go sepparately into the DAW, how much cheaper can you go? and this was when the multimix firewire costed $800, and it only had 8 mic pres on it. Now, I learned how good of a buy it was because of other reasons. One: its big. I'm young, and I needed to establish legitamacy to get customers, and this is a hella ez way. It worked. It looks professional and it doesn't say Behringer. what else... O ya, did you mention, you can record live? I mean, that hooked me up with ppl paying for me to go see them live, n just have me put my mixer infront of the house mixer. EZ cash. The DA is not perfect, I mean, if you have good headphones or its high on the main you will hear some fuzz, but hell, it's good enough for you to monitor for a cheap price. With this, I was able to DA good enough to sell some beats for about $400. It's totally paid for it's self. I don't know if I love it, but everyone that is not an audiophile thinks it's the greatest thing ever. Put some good loud monitors next to it and no one but you can realize the crappy preamps.

And that leads me to my last point. It has direct outs. When you have better outboard pre's, you can bypass them unlike other mixers in this range. So you can actually get your Avalon (or w/e) to go through this to get a hella spectacular channel.

I think it's great for the application of looking big, recording live, and getting good loud DA for playing VST's. For actual audio recording, you will need some preamps, but don't worry, it has direct in's :)

[rackdude]

theres one on ebay rite now for $250, cant beat that price for 16 channels of ad/da

[james.ca]

I'd be carful with them
I was over at there site months back . i found no direct contact with company only answers for problems were from a used group . I also notced a couple of net retailsers drop the line as well
Look and do some R&D before spending any coin on them
you don't want get stuck with product without any real compnay suport for the product
James.ca

[denmanjum]

I would like to start out by saying, this is not my first time around the block. I've been doing this for a while. Here is a list of units I've either owned or tried.
1. Isis.... this was my first card a long time ago.
2. Yamaha i88x
3.Mackie Onynx Satellite
4.Konnekt 24 D
5.Motu 8 pre
I'm presently recording with the Phonic Helix 12 firewire MK II
The biggest problem I've had with the other products was the driver stability.With the Phonic,my system never crashes and I always get very good recordings, I do use different pre amps for vocals but that's it. I've never had one problem with this unit.
There is a school of thought out there that says you have to have very expensive equipment to sound good, that's a big myth. The most expensive is not always the best and if you're any good at all, you shouldn't have to rely on expensive gear to make you sound good.
A lot of time it's all about a little tweaking and a lot creativity and patience.

J

[hintertech]

Originally Posted by ;1841392

I would like to start out by saying, this is not my first time around the block. I've been doing this for a while. Here is a list of units I've either owned or tried.
1. Isis.... this was my first card a long time ago.
2. Yamaha i88x
3.Mackie Onynx Satellite
4.Konnekt 24 D
5.Motu 8 pre
I'm presently recording with the Phonic Helix 12 firewire MK II
The biggest problem I've had with the other products was the driver stability.With the Phonic,my system never crashes and I always get very good recordings, I do use different pre amps for vocals but that's it. I've never had one problem with this unit.
There is a school of thought out there that says you have to have very expensive equipment to sound good, that's a big myth. The most expensive is not always the best and if you're any good at all, you shouldn't have to rely on expensive gear to make you sound good.
A lot of time it's all about a little tweaking and a lot creativity and patience.

J

Phonic has done well with the Helix Series ,the recording FW does not use the pre amps so the recording is pre ,this can be switched .The interface is extreamly stable and presents very low latency even at high bandwidth multitracking,the firefly 808 series ups the specs to little comparable in the market at any price.The interface chipset (bridgeCo)specs out all high end dacs and adc and their asio drivers are the most stable I have used .Phonic are addressing some of their mixer issues ie seperate phantoms and cleaner opp amps .Well said denmanjum.

[mrufino1]

The soul band I play in uses it to do sound and record all of the gigs into reaper. It works great, no problems with it. Is it a neve? No, but it works just fine for what we need. I don't notice any noise on the preamps. As for gain, I have so much gain it is not funny. I am constantly padding mics down, what levels are you shooting for? If you are shooting for -18 in your digital system, as is now widely suggested (being equivalent to 0 Vu) you should be having none of those issues. That's another thread (and there are good ones out there abotu tracking at low levels). I would guess that none of the gains on our board are up above halfway, and most are well below that. The build quality is not super tough, but certainly no worse than the mackie and behri stuff that is in the same range. It is in a roadcase, so it stays protected, and so far has worked very well for us. As always, with audio and firewire, you are best served with a firewire interface with the TI chipset- I have had no problems with stability of the driver or anything when using my pcmcia firewire card (which has a TI chipset). You can hear some examples at TOTAL SOUL PARTY!.

[Downbelowu]

I have owned A phonic 18 for around 2 years now for strictly recording via Cubase and the Unit works great. Great sound quality, Very low latency with the addition of a shorter firewire cable and has been dependable. On the Other hand what I have come to find is that only the xlr's inputs sound good. The 1'4" jack inputs are their for I don't know why, but they sound like trash. So I have a Phonic 18 and when In all reality it should be called a Phonic 8. Good for the Money but If you need more than 8 Tracks go for the Phonic 24 which I believe has 12 or 16 Xlrs.

[toad008]

hi i am taking my dear time shopping for a digital mixer
i want the zedr16 really bad but the price is too much
anyways
can you cascade two of the phonic helix 24s together???

Thanks!
-sage aka toadie008

[headwerkn]

Depends how you mean cascade... you could certainly have two connected up to your computer... in MacOSX you can aggregate audio interfaces together so they can be seen as one CoreAudio device within an application. Not sure about the PC world... but that's one way to get a 32 in/32 out FW interface.

Also, I'm pretty sure you'd have to run each Helix on a separate Firewire buss... I'm pretty sure a single FW400 connection would tank out on 64 audio streams.

[kwoddie]

A newbie here. Nice forum. Seeking some help.
Just got a phonic helix 18 universal board (firewire and usb) but have been unable to connect it to my pc. Downloaded firewire drivers version 2.44 and 4.1.8 and usb driver version 4.1.7 but none of them has noticed the board so far! My pc has no antivirus and firewall is turned off. I've tried turning off both the pc and the mixer and turning them back on, uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers but no success so far!
My setup:
PC: Dell Optiplex 330
Intel Celeron duo 1.6ghz, 1GB Ram, 160GB drive
It runs Windows XP pro SP2
Bought ADS pyro 64R2 PCI firewire card

Contacted phonic support and they've told me to try the same things I've tried without any success.
Any ideas