Absolute best interface for Logic Studio? NOT CHEAPEST!

[turboneal]

What is the absolute best interface for Logic Studio? Not best for $800 or $1000 or even $2000, what is the BEST? Best sound quality, etc.

With my limited computer knowledge, and searching Musician's Friend, etc the Apogee Ensemble and Mackie Onyx 1200f seem ok, but isn't there something more professional?

I work "overseas" but eventually want to start a studio among other things. I plan on doing a room treatment in part of the house to start off, but will eventually build or convert to a "real" studio.

But pretend I had an empty "professional" studio and I needed an interface- what do I buy?

Next question will be: What board? Are Euphonix and Mackie controllers the best or is there something better? Where are the 50 fader boards I see on "making of" DVDs, etc?

I will be sinking life savings into this. Do I have dreams of getting rich? No. Please don't waste time trying to convince me to save money or going a budget route, etc. (Although, if each piece of the "best" gear is $50k each, I will have to re-evaluate)

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Cheers,

-Neal

[antichef]

No perfect answer to that question, as I'm sure you know -- problem is there aren't too many folks around here who can effectively speak on the subject, and I'm certainly not one of them. Also, once you get beyond a certain threshold of quality upon which reasonable people would concur, you get into matters of taste/preference, and those are non-linear, and so don't allow for a "best" designation.

I can say this, though -- bundling the various functions that an interface provides into an interface always involves some compromises, and so if you don't want to compromise, you should consider not using an interface, and instead building your system out of best-in-class separate components for each of those functions (which still need to function as a system, and so there may be compromises to be made there, too), and you've got some learning to do (and I can't teach you ).

Just from reading, I can say that Crane Song http://www.cranesong.com/ provides some well regarded components that appear to fit into the model I'm describing - that might be a good place to start inquiring.

[KineticSound]

Originally Posted by turboneal

With my limited computer knowledge, and searching Musician's Friend, etc the Apogee Ensemble and Mackie Onyx 1200f seem ok, but isn't there something more professional?

You won't find the "absolute best" at Musician's Friend. No offense to them, but they're not usually selling to the Hit Factory or Sony Studios. They're selling to the hobbyist or project studio owner. That said, Apogee is about as close as you can come to perfect, IMHO. The Ensemble is a very pro-level unit. The "Symphony" system goes even further.

Originally Posted by turboneal

Next question will be: What board? Are Euphonix and Mackie controllers the best or is there something better? Where are the 50 fader boards I see on "making of" DVDs, etc?

You're probably seeing either large-scale analog consoles, like those from SSL, or you're seeing full-format control surfaces, such as DigiDesign's Control 24 or ProControl. With the exception of perhaps the Control 24, you will not find something like this at a retailer. They're built to order.

Originally Posted by turboneal

I will be sinking life savings into this. Do I have dreams of getting rich? No. Please don't waste time trying to convince me to save money or going a budget route, etc. (Although, if each piece of the "best" gear is $50k each, I will have to re-evaluate)

Not even close. A custom SSL console alone would likely be over $100,000.

Originally Posted by antichef

once you get beyond a certain threshold of quality upon which reasonable people would concur, you get into matters of taste/preference, and those are non-linear, and so don't allow for a "best" designation.

+1 to that. At the level you're describing, your first tasks would be 1. Education: Learn the fundamentals before you go taking money out of the savings account. Not only so that you'll be able to enjoy your hobby more, but also so that you can go into your purchasing stage with enough knowledge about what you want to accomplish and how things will work together. 2. Design: having a collection of amazing gear means nothing if you don't have the proper space arranged in which to utilize it. If you're budget is over $50k, then I would suggest hiring a professional to manage the design and acoustic preparation.

At whatever level you enter it, this is a hobby and/or business that can be a lot of fun. Please don't take my comments as discouraging, but we all here want you to have a realistic concept of what you're proposing to get into (at the over $50,000 level, I assume this will not be simply a hobby for you). Understand that if this is a business venture, you can achieve great results without the need to blow through hundreds of thousands of dollars. Also, the most important priorities are not always the most "fun". We love gear, but the greatest gear in the world needs to be used in the appropriate space with the appropriate level of expertise in order to produce professional results.

Okay... all that said, I'm going to have a little fun with your proposal. Let's say I had a $50,000 budget and wanted to create a kick-ass pro setup in a dedicated space. Right off the top, $20,000 would go toward design, construction, and acoustic treatment. Then my shopping list might look like:
1. A completely decked-out Mac Pro. I think there's an 8-core option now with something like 16GB of RAM. Plus, a secondary hard drive for backup data storage. Add a nice big display, and we'll say we've spent about $5k there. Add Logic Pro 8, and the tab's up another $500.
2. Apogee converters/preamps. Depending on how many channels I would record at once, I'd probably want 24 channels of good quality conversion. Three Ensemble units would do the job. $2k each.
3. FW-1884 Control Surface. We'll assume we're mixing in the box and just need a good control surface to streamline workflow (and flying faders to impress the clients). Add two FE-8 expanders to handle our number of tracks. Outlay = around $2,500.
4. Tannoy Reveal monitors. Just for the near field monitoring. About $1,200 for a pair. Plus another $4-5k for some custom monitors built into the control room... maybe Adam's or similar.
5. Neumann U-87. "Marquee" microphone. $2k.
6. Collection of good quality mic's for various uses: Shure KSM-32, KSM-27, SM-57 (x6), pair of SM-81's, AKG D112, AT-4033, and maybe a Royer ribbon. Total: $3k.
7. Avalon AD2022. IMHO, one of the best preamp units I've ever heard. Even though the Apogee's will work for drums, etc., you've got to have at least two really high-end channels. $2k.
8. Avalon VT-737SP. Something unique; all-around for vocals, DI bass, snare, etc. $1,750.
9. Argosy console for the FW-1884 (below). Need an ergonomic way to work, plus the "flash factor" for the clients. $1,500.
10. Lava lamp. $15.

That comes about an even $50,000 ($20k for design & construction + $30k for the best equipment I can think of). Thanks, that was fun.

[tojo]

YES KINETIC SOUND you just made my dream studio.

although a good part of the fun for me is doing my best with what I can do.

[KineticSound]

We can all dream, right?

[Dave_M]

I knew I fergot something... must get a lava lamp or two

[Chili]

Hey Kinetic, that was fun indeed. My only suggestion is to change the Apogee's for Lavry converters. The OP is looking the absolute best.

[KineticSound]

Originally Posted by Chili

My only suggestion is to change the Apogee's for Lavry converters. The OP is looking the absolute best.

You know, that wouldn't suck. I think I had enough left over for a better lava lamp, too, and I might swap the Adam monitors for Genelec's. But I digress...

To the chef's point, though, I agree that you get to a threshold in the home studio market where the quality of the conversion blurs with the individual character of the unit and the tastes of the engineer. Honestly, my ears aren't good enough to tell you the perceived sonic differences between a Lavry unit vs. an Apogee unit vs. U/A, etc., etc. I think that plays back to the original post and antichef's response: There is no best, per se. There are units that meet the threshold of what is considered "great," and then there are subjective differences as to what you prefer beyond that.

Damn... now I'm sounding serious.

[Chili]

Originally Posted by KineticSound

You know, that wouldn't suck. I think I had enough left over for a better lava lamp, too, and I might swap the Adam monitors for Genelec's. But I digress...

To the chef's point, though, I agree that you get to a threshold in the home studio market where the quality of the conversion blurs with the individual character of the unit and the tastes of the engineer. Honestly, my ears aren't good enough to tell you the perceived sonic differences between a Lavry unit vs. an Apogee unit vs. U/A, etc., etc. I think that plays back to the original post and antichef's response: There is no best, per se. There are units that meet the threshold of what is considered "great," and then there are subjective differences as to what you prefer beyond that.

Damn... now I'm sounding serious.

I absolutely agree.... if it is a choice between Apogee and Lavry, the room it was tracked in will be the biggest factor. Money spent on the room will have the greatest impact on the quality of the sound.

[genesisariana]

APOGEE.


noticed that was followed by a period!!!

[turboneal]

Hi guys, thanks for the insight. It is looking pretty much unanimous for the Apogee Ensemble so far... or "components better than an interface."

I would like to keep the discussion going a bit longer though-

Actually the Mackie Onyx 1200F and Mackie Control Universal Pro were recommended to me first. I have read bad things from people on this board, but they all seemed to be PC, Windows users using other software than Logic.

I have last years macbook pro running 4G RAM and will be running Logic Studio. Eventually I will have a Mac Pro also running maxed out RAM.

SO- is the Mackie stuff crap altogether or can it be amazing on Mac/ Logic especially if combined with an avalon or two?

Thanks again for all of your help,

-Neal

[KineticSound]

Well, the Onyx interface and the Control Pro are completely different things. The rack-mounted Onyx preamp would compare to the Apogee in that they perform the same functions, but on much different levels. Nothing against the Mackie preamps (I've owned two different Mackie units over the years and they've worked fine), but the Apogee is in a whole different class. Frankly, I wouldn't see any reason to combine one of the Onyx units and an Apogee unit in the same setup.

The Control Pro is simply a control surface, allowing you to remotely control Logic's internal mixer without touching a mouse. There's no audio being passed through the control surface - it's simply sending MIDI command messages. Logic understands Mackie HUI commands, so I wouldn't foresee any compatibility problems if you wanted to use a Control Pro (and maybe a Control Extender Pro depending on the number of channels you plan to use) in your setup.

If you plan to separate the interface/preamps from the control surface, you might get more bang for your buck looking for a used TASCAM US-2400. They're not made anymore, but still available on the secondary market and have 24-channels of automated mixing with motorized faders and a decent set of transport & encoder controls.

Just curious, what's the purpose of the setup? (What type of music are you planning to track, how many musicians at a time, for what final purpose, etc.?) What's the budget? What sort of mic's are going into these high-end channels? What's the recording space look like?

To reiterate what I and others have pointed out already, what acoustical treatments have been made to your space? If your space sounds mediocre, plugging a U-87 into an Apogee preamp will simply give you an amazing reproduction of the mediocre sound...

[turboneal]

Thanks kinetic, but your comments seem to be getting a little off topic? I would like to stick to Interface (and I guess, Mic Pres) and to a minor extent controllers on this thread. I sent you a PM which hopefully, will clear up some of your other questions. I will check out that tascam 2400, thanks for the suggestion.

The ensemble sounds like it will be the starting point, but how would I run 30 mics through it? Seriously, I would like the option to run 20 tracks of drums alone... Probably one for bass, 6 for guitars, 1 for vocals at once and sometimes other instruments and/or background vocals, etc. (simultaneously of course.)

Perhaps there is a company that could build a custom interface with 30 channels, 24 to 30 XLR inputs, and Mic pre's as good as Ensemble, and the "conversion" of the Ensemble? Even if it cost as much as 8 Ensembles, it would be so many less wires to deal with... And a 30 fader board to firewire to it would be nice, if it wasn't already integrated. Is that science fiction? Is there a better method? I really appreciate any info on this subject, as it is the biggest unknown looming over my future studio...

Thanks for any help,

-Neal

[KineticSound]

Originally Posted by turboneal

The ensemble sounds like it will be the starting point, but how would I run 30 mics through it? Seriously, I would like the option to run 20 tracks of drums alone... Probably one for bass, 6 for guitars, 1 for vocals at once and sometimes other instruments and/or background vocals, etc. (simultaneously of course.)

Perhaps there is a company that could build a custom interface with 30 channels, 24 to 30 XLR inputs, and Mic pre's as good as Ensemble, and the "conversion" of the Ensemble?

I PM'ed you back with a few other thoughts... In the particular description you gave, I would think that you would reserve a few channels for your own (or engineer's own) favorite preamps. The Ensemble has digital inputs running at the same time as its 8 mic pre's***, so you could simply route the S/PDIF or Optical output from a high-end preamp into the Ensemble. This effectively makes each Ensemble a 10-input unit, but two of those inputs will need outboard preamps.

The other option would be to stack three Ensemble's and one AD-8000 (one of the Symphony units). The AD-8000 is an 8-channel interface/converter only, so you can patch in whatever outboard preamps you like. As you patch in external pre's, you want the same quality conversion that the Ensemble pre's get treated with, and the AD-8000 gives you exactly that. If you decide on something like the Avalon 2022 as an outboard preamp, I'd pick up an AD-8000... the Avalon's don't have digital converters on board and thus the above solution I mentioned wouldn't work in this case. On the other hand, if you went with something like a Focusrite Platinum and added the ADC Card, then it could go directly into the Ensemble.

*** EDIT: Neal brought to my attention my mis-information. The Ensemble units feature 4 mic pre's and 8 overall analog in's in addition to S/PDIF and ADAT I/O. My apologies for the misprint.

[Muyukiguki]

http://http://www.solid-state-logic....trix/index.asp




Get one of these. I have no experience with it, but I'm sure you will make just about everyone here a little jealous...

[Music Bear]

Originally Posted by turboneal

What is the absolute best interface for Logic Studio? Not best for $800 or $1000 or even $2000, what is the BEST? Best sound quality, etc.

I have been asking many people that same question, and the answer I hear most often is Apogee Rosetta 800 192 (with Firewire). So that is what I ordered. I got mine for just a tad over $2,500. Supposedly a good price. I haven't used it yet (the studio is almost finished) but I will be reporting back here when I do.