The "Which Audio Interface To Go For?" for between £100-£200 thread

[ecc83]

"Am i being silly thinking of Cosmetics,"

I would say yes, a bit. These days modern plastics make things possible at prices we could only wish for years ago. Ok such things will not stand road use perhaps (my son has a Korg AX3G multifx box, very "Toys R Us" but it has some quite incredible sounds in it for a nifty!).

I could wish my Fast track pro were 20% bigger and had better knobs but that would probably double its price.

BTW ref the E-mu 0404. Started back to work today to find the chief designer has not one but two of the damn things hooked up in the lab!(needed an optical D/A, A/D 24bit 96kHz, not sure why). One is his own and he says it just gets on with the job very clean and quietly. They are also rather larger than I thought and a nice chunky unit altogether.

Dave.

[ImpactProducer]

thanks for the quick response I will deff use U in Future, i Will give feedback of how it responds to my demands. Thankyou

[ImpactProducer]

I am thinking of Cosmetics on My Audio Interface, Because allthough it will just Convert D - A , I will be using it as a monitor control, And I will be looking at it and touching it all day (Every day) so my interface has got to look and feel good,

[TrevCircleStudios]

Originally Posted by EdRyan

I will let Dave explain the reason why -18dB is a good idea. The floor is all yours

Already been done in a number of places (the search function really is your friend chaps): Recording Audio Levels

[ImpactProducer]

I just got my Audio Interface home, - (Lexicon Ionix U22) - Within Half an hour, - I was gutted.

First I was dissapointed with the Asio Drivers, I could not select an Exact Buffer setting in Samples, there were just Preset setings where the buffers had been set for me, ,ie,- Slow, Medium, Fast ,Extra fast, it was cool if i was Recording ie, Low input Latencys, But for playing my Keyboard, The Output Latencys were Higher than what I could get with the Standard , ASIO DX full duplex Drivers, that came with Nuendo,

My Second Problem is that The Divers or the Interface seemed to be very unstable, - My CPU/ASIO , Perfomance, meter in Nuendo was all over the place, even when just idle, it was much higher than it was with the standard ASIO driver mentioned above, With 1, instance of Massive Loaded up ,On My favorite patch, it was nearly , 3/4 full,

very annoying,
This has scared me away from audio interfaces,
Do all specific ASIO drivers for Interfaces use a large amount of Processing Power,
Is it coz My PC is Rubbish,

Intel CELERON D , 2.8 ghz
1 gb ram,

Thankfully -- Digital Village -- Let me return it,

Im now thinking of buying a PCI , M audio , Delta or AudioFile,

I really Dont want to be Using up My Valuble PROCESSING Power running My Interface , I just want 24 bit Sound, and Low output Latency for playing my Keyboard,

any Sugesstions would be grately Appreciated,,

Paul

[happygrouch]

Hi I wondered if anyone here could reccommend a good interface for me.
I'm using a USB mixing desk into a laptop, with a pair of Rokit KRK RP5's as monitors, and running Cubase. I'm looking for a firewire one preferably, without too many inputs or outputs.
Also, are there any interfaces that have a USB input, and is it worth it, or should I just plug the desk straight into the laptop?

any help would be greatly appreciated!

[ecc83]

Good morning Happygrouch,

Your post is somewhat confusing. What is wrong with the usb mixer setup you have now (and, WTF IS it!)?

All such setups are 16bit only AFAIK and I would not want that restriction but you can easily get a usb AI to run it 24bit 44.1kHz. I don't really see much advantage in going for Fussywire if you only want a few ins and outs and FW can be problematic especially with laptops.

The only AI I have heard about with a usb INPUT was an Edirol device that ('twas said!) could daisy chain units. FW AI's usually have a second port for such linking but you only want a few ins and outs!?

All that said, the Behringer FCA202 gets a suprisingly good rep and at £70 or so is about as cheap as FW is going to get.

Dave.

[happygrouch]

Cheers for the reply

The desk is a Peavey 14 USB, I need an Audio Interface mainly for the monitoring because its useless running it out of the internal sound card (noisey as hell!) I might run vocal mic's straight into it when recording too, when it doesnt need much mixing or effects from the desk..

I was going to to go for a firewire one because i heard it was better quality and the fact that in future i might buy a Mac Mini and have heard firewire works better...but if you're saying that theres not much difference then fair enough.

So do you think it's worth getting an interface with USB input to connect the desk to, or is that just complicating things..

Thanks for the advice though dude (Y)

[ecc83]

Still a bit bemused here "dude"!

You say "monitoring is noisy" is that direct from the laptop "card" (not suprised!) or via the usb loop back on the Peavey?

If the latter then I would give them a call because I have 3 usb AI's, a Behringer BCA2000, M-Audio fast track pro and a Behringer UCA202 and all give very acceptable output quality.

The biggest drawback to the mixer is ('cos it don't say otherwise!) that it is 16bit and probably 44.1/48kHz only. It really is far better, especially recording live stuff, to have the dynamic range "elbow room" that 24bits allow.

No, there is no intrinsic quality difference between usb and FWire. Fire wire scores over usb for large numbers of tracks going both in and out. Usb 2.0 can handle 16 inputs easily and 4 outs plus MIDI.

Whatever you go for get a written returns/refund agreement and if you DO decide to go Fussywire, get that signed in blood!

Dave.

[DV Daz]

Originally Posted by mutilatedlip

Has anyone seen these?

Desktop Konnekt 6

I have a Mackie Onyx 400F, and it's racked in a case, and often gets in the way.

For monitoring at home and mixing, I'd like a little desktop interface, preferably with really, really good quality.

I quite like the look of the new TC Konnekt.

Any comments?

I have the Konnekt 6 and very pleased with it. Sound is excellent, best in it's class. If you can live with only 2 ins and outs this is an awesome little interface.

[mutilatedlip]

The new Steinberg/Yamaha desktop interface looks cool.