Recording and Production in the News

Orpheus now supports Windows Vista64

Cambridge, UK: Prism Sound is pleased to announce that its multi-channel Orpheus Firewire computer interface is now fully supported on Vista64 as well as other 64-bit operating systems.

Orpheus FireWire interface

The Orpheus installer for Windows always included 64-bit versions which could be used with XP 64-bit edition. Following extensive tests by Prism Sound's research and development team, the company can confirm that Orpheus fully supports Vista64, allowing seamless integration with the latest 64-bit Digital Audio Workstations.

Graham Boswell, Prism Sound's sales director, says: "The main advantage of using 64-bit processing is that users can access more RAM; Vista64 allows up to 128GB RAM. This means you can run more plug-ins and applications than as possible before. In addition, applications that are specifically optimised for 64-bit processors show a significant increase in performance. Orpheus users can now take full advantage of these benefits."

Launched in 2007, Orpheus is a 1U, 19-inch rack-mount 192kHz-capable unit that is designed to appeal to both recording professionals and serious project studio owners. With Orpheus, Prism Sound has succeeded in creating a computer-based Firewire interface that retails at an attractive price point without sacrificing many of the features and the quality of its top-of-the-range products, like the ADA-8XR.

Orpheus offers eight simultaneous balanced analogue inputs, four line-level jack inputs and four auto-sensing mic/line Neutrik combi jacks that will accept either jack or XLR connectors. The high quality mic preamps allow the signal at the mic-level inputs to be boosted by up to 60dB (in 1dB increments), and each analogue input has its own auto-aligning Prism Sound Overkiller built in, to prevent signal overloads before the A-D conversion stage. There are also a switchable SPDIF/AES-EBU stereo digital input and an eight-channel ADAT optical input, allowing the Orpheus to handle a maximum of 18 simultaneous inputs to a computer-based recording system hooked up to the unit's main Firewire connector. A built-in mixer is included, driving eight analogue outputs, allowing users to monitor input signals with zero latency, insert analogue summing mixers, or control multiple stereo or multi-channel monitoring systems directly from Orpheus. Prism Sound's respected high-quality, low-jitter digital clock source is also built in, along with synchronous sample-rate conversion and SNS noise-shaping, permitting accurate real-time re-clocking or sample-rate conversion, or high-quality dithering of 24-bit material down to 16-bit for CD mastering.

Orpheus is fully software-controllable via a cross-platform control application (available for PCs running Windows XP, Vista or Macs running OS X). This makes it ideally suited to computer-based musicians who want to work with modern computer-based DAWs but wish to maintain the quality of signals from analogue recording sources or processors in the digital production environment.

"As 64-bit processing is taken up across the industry, DAWs will be able to record and playback more channels simultaneously - the perfect complement to a rack of daisy-chained Orpheus units," Boswell adds.