Alesis IO|26

I have just received a new piece of kit for the Studio. I really needed to replace my aging USB audio interface, so I have replace it with a new Firewire Alesis IO|26. This new piece of kit offers 26 inputs, 8 of which are XLR/jack inputs with phantom power and decent mic preamps. The device also has 8 output which I can eventually use for re-routing audio to a analog summing mixer in the future. Another feature that really drew me to this unit is the 8 outboard insert points found on the from panal.

My PC didn't have a firewire interface though so I had to get one of these, but they dont cost a lot. Installation was relativly painless. The only problem I had was that initially XP didn't recognise the device on the firewire bus. After a quick browse through the Alesis website, I found a troubleshooting booklet. To fix the problem I had to download an OS patch that fixed an issue with firewire devices. So if you are reading this and you have just bought one of these devices and it wont work you need to install this hotfix. Now this is installed, everything is working as expected :-)