Presonus Firebox, seen but not heard

Audacity 3 Help Forum macOS
1

I found various references to similar problems in the archive, but couldn’t find the answer.

Mac OSX 10.13.6
Audacity 2.3.0
PreSonus Firebox(firewire) ->. Mac Mini or MacBookPro i7, 16GB RAM
MIDI and Audacity setup set 41100Hz

Setup: tape deck(lineout) → PreSonus Firebox(firewire) → Mac

Systems preferences sees a PreSonus FIREBOX(1911) and a real live signal.
Audacity sees PreSonus FIREBOX(1911), but when I start recording, I get a flat line.
Quicktime-economy won’t allow me to record, but it does is a live signal.

I would appreciate any advice. Years ago I successfully did a similar turntable->preamp-> same-Firebox->Mac(some program)

Thanks,
Darwin

2

Have you given Audacity permission to use the PreSonus Firebox? (See: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/no-signal-from-usb-turntable-mojave-solved/50763/6)

3

I think this is a problem with what channels the ancient Presonus device and drivers present to the application.
To summarize,

  • SystemPreferences->Sound sees a live signal from Presonus device.
  • Quicktime just works, but has few features
  • GarageBand saw the Presonus device but no signal seemed to get to the App. I finally got it to work by having it join Channels 3 and 4, and then choosing them. Only at that point did it see the signal, and that took a while.
  • Audacity sees the device but no signal. I can’t find how to get Audacity to use specific Channels. It might be that the Apple Midi app will join those channels, but I haven’t figured that out.

(Arg. Is there a way to edit the subject line? Presonus not Personus)

4

Audacity does not (yet) support channel mapping. If you need to use channels 3 and 4, then you will need to set Audacity to record 4 channels, then delete channels 1 and 2 after the recording ends.

Done.