Best Audio Interface?

[Big T...]

Which one of these would be the best all round audio system to get?

- Aardvark Q10
- M-Audio Delta 1010
- Echo Layla24
- Digidesign Digi001
- RME Hammerfall Multiface
- MOTU 2408mk3

They have 8 analog I/O's

Im running Windows XP and use mainly cubase VST & SX as well as Sonar 2 XL and Wavelab

[Stealthtech]

I voted for RME.....I would love to own one, but damn its expensive. I know someone who does and its flawless with 0 latency. Next in line would be the 1010. M-Audio makes some fine equipment as well.

[Big T...]

Expensive?

ive done some research and ive got it at the same price as the Layla24, Q10 and Digi-001. The Motu is $100Aust more and the Delta1010 is $350 cheaper...

[Stealthtech]

Originally posted by Big T...
Expensive?

ive done some research and ive got it at the same price as the Layla24, Q10 and Digi-001. The Motu is $100Aust more and the Delta1010 is $350 cheaper...

Well, expensive enough...I haven't seen it for less than $850 in the states. And, I wouldn't own a digi, or motu.

[Big T...]

really? ive heard many good things about the Motu

[Big T...]

what isnt good about it?

[Stealthtech]

Originally posted by Big T...
what isnt good about it?

Here are a few posts of many that turned me off:

The new HD MOTU stuff looks real nice, but I've had my doubts about their interfaces due to so many people complaining about their compatibility issues. I'm going to stay with my Layla and just get the Layla EXP to add on to it.

hiya, welcome to the wonderful world of MOTU. motu stuff is a pain in the ass and what I've heard about customer support and driver support is atrocious. Now mind you thank god I don't own any motu products but a friend of mine a few months back was having problems installing a 1224 expansion on a pci-324 card with a 2408. He asked for the assistance of the nubmeister since I'm quite familiar with troubleshooting DAW's. Now he did have a 2408 running under xp with the most current drivers at the time (i think wdm v.2.0) but once the 1224 was installed the 2408's audio was FUBAR'd but the 1224 would work fine. Nubs tried in vain for several hours to correct the problem to no avail. I finally had to say the most hated phrase in the audio engineers vernacular "call tech support" I guess I took him several days to get through and they finally figured out the 1224 with rom versions 1.1 and below would not work on a pci-324 card with any other breakout box attached! Now what really stuck in his craw is he bought it as an expansion box. The whole point of motu products is the ability to add breakout boxes through the firewire jacks on the pci-324 card. This of course means they didn't even test the units to see if they were compatible. So the fix finally was is they had to ship him a new ROM chip which he had to install. NUBS suggestion: at this point in time I am getting really sick of PC based DAWS. Save up and buy a stand alone unit or better yet a RADAR. Nubs his now setting his eyes on the RADAR. (IZ not OTARI) P.s. the Motu stuff doesn't sound so hot anyways, if you are looking at a mkII I suggest RME in the similar price range.

anybody else have one of these cards? i have windows me and cannot get it to see the drivers. i have tried installing several times. i downloaded the latest drivers from their website and trying installing them after copying them to the harddrive. anybody know what is going on?

Motu installation Locks up the Computer
When I try to install the pci-324 card, windows Xp recognizes the hardware, installs the gsif driver, then recognizes hardware again and trys to install the wave driver (which I need). Just as the progress bar finishes up the system locks up, and I mean dead stop, the mouse wont move, not the XP type of freeze where it only happens in the program.

What kind of problem does that sound like, once I know I could start troubleshooting with some direction (I dont expect a definitive answer). Could this be an IRQ conflict, or will IRQ conflicts allow you to install the hardware?
out of those choicesi'd get the delta 1010. the omni if you need ok preamps. with the delta i'd just buy a nice preamp. the only motu i'd get over the delta is the 896, but its like $1200 and motu's support is up there with digidesign, Close to none

i have heard ALL motu gear doesn't play nice with windows.

dude, i installed the 4-in-1's. i downloaded the latest BIOS, the latest drivers for everything in my system, i followed the MOTU installation instructions to a tee (strange as they are... install drivers BEFORE the card), i tried different PCI slots, i even tried reformatting and reinstalling Windows XP... all with no luck.

MOTU support SUCKS for Windows. I will never buy anything from them again.

Contacting MOTU via Email has yielded zero results.


But then again, someone is going to bitch about every piece of equipment out there.

If you really want to know....Ask Track Rat...He seems to have success with it and maybe its just user error. I have come to the conclusion though, that there support sucks.

[frist44]

RME multiface.

I had a delta, upgraded to the RME. It's worth every penny. After tracking a whole song and mixing, the difference it like night and day. The song done on the RME had frequencies that i hadn't ever heard before through the delta. I guess that's the reason most of their users speak so highly of their a/d converters. They convinced me.

Brandon

[Swede]

First44. What delta did you have? Just wondering since the 1010 has better specs than the multiface.

[Chris Shaeffer]

The Digi 001 won't do cakewalk and VST all that well. Digidesign has just released it's second beta version of an ASIO driver that lets other programs play with their hardware, but the MIDI outs aren't supported, yet.

I'd avoid the Digi unless you want Pro Tools for some reason.

Take care,
Chris