Audio Interface Choice - Need some help
So yeah, im gonna be guying a new audio interface in the next week or so but im not sure which one to go for. Im limited to the fact that it HAS TO BE USB because my Macbook doesnt have firewire and i cant afford a new MBP.
It must have more than 8ins for recording drums. And must have outputs to run a pair of KRK Rokit 6's on. Looking to spend £400 or less.
So far ive got the
Presonus Audiobox 1818VSL - £385 (1st choice)
Focusrite Scarlett 18i6 - £215 (2nd but doesnt have 8 mic ins so not to keen on the idea of it)
Lexicon i/082 (Never heard of them before, so sceptical)
Do you guys recommend anything else that would be similar or should i go with the presonus, it would be awesome if it had 8 mic pre's.
I brought a Tascam 1641 used for £190 a few weeks back, that has 8 pre's 6 lines and 2 channels of SPDIF. Tracked a few live gigs with it using Reaper, great for the price
Edit : now replaced by Tascam US1800 which is about £290 new
Last edited by Danny1969; 22nd October 2012 at 07:29 PM.
Are tascam any good? It looks quite cheap?Originally Posted by Danny1969
Tascam products are very good, well built and supported. It's the pro division of TEAC.
The Focusrite is the best sounding out of those.
Tracking 8 tracks of drums at once via USB to a Macbook is going to be interesting.
How old is the Macbook?
Honestly I don't think it is going to be a stable system.
USB isn't the most reliable for multitracking and nothing stresses a laptop like multi-track recording.
You will be pushing to get it reliable over USB with a current model Macbook Pro.
A non-Pro Macbook must be a few years old.
How fast is the HD?
How much RAM do you have?
I track 24 tracks of 24 bit 44.1 to an old Latitude XT on a regular basis. I've recorded well over 100 live gigs with this system. Tracking audio isn't taxing, an old processor 512Mb ram and an external drive are more than fine.
im running an 09 "Macbook" with Logic Pro
4gb of Ram
2.26 Ghz
250gb Sata HD
Tracking with 10 tracks running firewire (MOTU 828) into my colleges old G5 Power PC Powermac with 2gb of Ram runs fine so i think my laptop will hold up?
My laptop is 1.2Ghz \ 1Gb ram so I think your be fine
Quite ^ So long as you don't put a reverb and comp' plugin on every channels and expect one mSec monitoring latency!
There is no intrinsic probelm with usb even for low latency keyboard work (perhaps the most demanding usage?) the problem was with the AI makers and the drivers. RME have cracked this as have NI (who got some RME input on the drivers it is whispered?).
It would seem (I am not digitally cute) that FireWire was "easy" and was used initially for AIs, usb being confined to the lower end of the market. However, many FW AI makers were lazy bastards even so and the early days of Fussywire were a nightmare of chipset problems*. It was decided/discovered that the Texas Instrument CS would almost always fix FW (but not always. Some TI equipped laptops just did not have enough MOBO resource).
It also did not hurt the AI makers that they could charge a bit more for FW kit over the same channel count for usb!
*Rare, but if you ever have a ground loop problem with a FW AI you are probably stuffed and need to go usb!
(Do not know macs but turn off anything you don't need. Internal soundcard and especially any Wireless services)
Dave.
Last edited by ecc83; 25th October 2012 at 04:55 AM.
As stated , so long as you don't bung a load of effects should be ok.....
A band I was in recorded the drums into a standard macbook, from memory he used a Digi 002, so was probably firewire but no problems aat all....
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