[realmusicians] Re: Audio Interface Suggestions
- From: Chris Belle <cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: realmusicians@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 01:10:30 -0600
Hey DJx,
Getting 16 channels of i/o will mean you have to get two of thos
units you mentioned to work in tandom, or use lightpipe, and that
means 8 extra channels but only as high as 48k.
If you want to go higher than that, you sacrifice your channels and
can only use 4, if the unit supports it.
YOu also have to either use work clock, or generally make the prees
you are hanging off the lightpipe the clock master,
that's what I had to do with the m-audio profire I got and the
octane, and the control pannel was completely inaccessible.
Really, if you could swing it, I'd spring for a mackie onyx 1640i,
it's a sweet unit and you'll get true 16 channel firewire going
either way, with lots of routing options and completely accessible.
Fantom power on every channel, talk back, sub mixes, instrument
channels, the whole 9 yards, everything except motorized faders.
You'll end up spending nearly the same to get two units for 16
channels to daisy chain, or to get a unit which has two light pipes
so you can do two prees hanging off of it, and that'll definitely put
you up over what a onyx would cost you, and device aggregation is
comming, so you'll be able to have 32 channels with two mackies.
Perkins style eq, i truly love this board and interface.
Otherwise the only other 16 channel option I can think of,and that's
a combination of a lot of different types of inputs, not straight
nice line or xlr inputs you can do anything with is the tascam 1642
us I think it's a usb interface, for around 4 bills, I don't know
much about it, but I'd tend to be leary of 16 channels of i/o on usb,
and by the way, the mackie will go down to 32 samples asio buffer at
44.1, and that's hauling butt.
Drivers for the onyx work great under w7, and xp,
the only issue under xp is that sometimes you have to fiddle to get
it to share with other audio devices, but no such problem with w7.
Let's see 16 channels, 4 sub mixes, 6 aux sends, you can use effects
in your daw just like outboard effects mixed on the board, eq going
in or comming out,
what's not to like?
You'd think I was a mackie rep huh 'grin', I just like this board.
for a blind cat who wants to get a lot of work done, I know you said
accesss wasn't a deal, but for anyone wanting to get work done, it's
the bomb, Joel over at sweetwater told me some of the cats up there
dumped their 002 protools rigs for these onyx boards and were very
hapy about it.
But if you get one, don't cheap out and go for the lesser units,
those only give you two returns from the firewire to your daw, not a
full 16 going both ways.
YOu actually have 18 because you have an alternative routing for
listening when using all 16 channels for input.
If you are using your aux sends for simulated tape style mix down
with effects in your daw, you do have to share i/o with your
channels, same with sub mixes on firewire, but stil,
16 channels in most project studios is plenty to share and decide
what you want to do with them.
Now Phil love his saphire pro units, and I'm sure they're good ones,
and him and Tim and done some work on making control pannel accessible.
But for me, there's nothing like getting a project up on the board,
and doing a mix-down quickly with knobs, and having real headphone
aux sends for my folks without having to mess with snapshots, or
set-ups, yes, there are direct outs on this thing on de-sub
connectors, there is also control,
main, and mono dedicated outs if you don't want to use it as an
interface it's a regular board in every way,
your auxes can be pre or post eq, you've got tape send and return,
and your third aux is routable to your subs, I don't think I've
forgotten anything, low cut on each channel ofcourse if needed,
eq disabble, the eq is a 4 band with 2 mid sweeps, and shelves on the
high and low end,
well, good luck whatever you choose.
At 12:30 AM 2/22/2011, you wrote:
Hello guys, I'm wondering if anybody has any suggestions for an
audio interface that works well on the pc and with sonar? I'm
looking for good mic preAmps, 16+ inputs, rock solid drivers under
windows 7 x64 and modern computer hardware. So far I'm leaning
towards the FocusRite saffire pro40, but I'm researching to see if
there are any better alternatives before i take the plunge. I'm
looking in the range of 400 to 500 dollars. At this point, I'm not
too concerned with control panel accessibility, the unit itself is
what concerns me. Any suggestions?
Also, the saffire pro40 has 8 physical inputs, and then an adat
port. What would I have to get to add more physical inputs to the
saffire through the adat port? I've heard some mention of such a
thing, but forgot the name and have no idea what is good and how
much it'd cost.
Finally, anybody interested in a m-audio delta1010lt PCI card? 10
ins, 10 outs, 2 mic preAmps, 1 pair of SPDIF digital in/out, word
clock, midi, rock solid! It might not do well on newer systems, thus
why I had to exchange it, but if you know that it works on your
system, or if you already have one and you just want to add more i/o
to your setup (you can use upto 4 of these together), this card is
killer! The hardware is in great condition, everything works! Note
that this is the lt, not the one with the breakout box, but it does
have the 2 preAmps with switchable input gain/types.
Thanks for any responses/suggestions/info you can provide!
Regards, D!J!X!
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