rob aylestone
Moderator
I dug out a dirt cheap focusrite copy, my elderly Presonus and my Midas M32 - stuffed an SM57 into them and recorded, at a distance with the gains up pretty high. The result was not quite what I expected.
Confused about audio setup (mic+piano/keyboard)
- Thread starter marto
- Start date
Well lets look at this in the scope of the thread starter. The person needs an interface and the instrument primarily used is a keyboard. First, why not get one that comes with a Keyboard software and sample libraries I guess if you have a full keyboard rig this wouldn't be as important but it would be their limiting options too. Plus the SSL software package comes with Ableton, a keyboard centered DAW.
The SSL mic preamp in the interface is a better preamp than the focusrite to begin with and its not just in the 'special ' case of the SM7 which me and other studio techs put dynamic mic transformers in them when they came out in major studios and collectively figured out the solution to make them work with all equipment. The focusrite preamp fails on a lot of other mics. Go hook up an EV RE20 and its going to be the same issues.
Computer sound cards are all the same. The Apple ones are just as terrible as the PC and in all cases power supply quality comes into play in any unbalanced connected system. Which is the real difference since an Apple computer is just another different PC.
Latency is not an issue because you should be using hardware monitoring. Back in the days of the Maudio firewire protools boxes on an apple, I had to crank the latency up to 1200ms on those core2duo 1st generation intel Apple laptops just for it to run smoothly. No one cared, it worked. Just because it didn't print instantly to the screen or highly reactive meters means anything anyways. The only time when the monitoring button in the DAW worked correctly was on protools core systems because the cards are a digital mixer you added to a computer and it was switching hardware on cards. The only systems I saw that could do DAW monitoring was some MADI and Dante mixer/interface cards.
I never saw Asio4All to be decent. However its been a couple of decades since I seen someone mentioning it muchless say they are using it.
All these not so pro interfaces have a weak signal chain, so you are limited on the tracking gain level to begin with. That is why a lot of us settled on -10dbfs even though technically the best way is to go in at -4dbfs with a limiter. Which no one but Dangerous Music has came out with a converter with that signal chain built in. Granted, they call it "clip guard" but that is just a marketing buzz word for them.
rob aylestone
Moderator
Sadly, your knowledge of computer is a little lacking. As a live sound person, it is very well known that the audio out of a macbook pro is always a safe emergency solution, if a hardware interface fails - hum, noise and distortion is rarely an issue. Do this with a PC and it's a toss up if it works. At the very least, a DI to isolate the audio feed is pretty critical, as absolutely it is the case that all PCs are NOT the same. Experience for me is that certain brands are more problematic. Dell, for example. See one in a venue and you know any attempt to use the built in sound will be problematic. Usually nasty buzzes, and data noise superimposed on the audio. Do that with Apples and they are silent.
Actually, my knowledge is quite great. I'm sure I could dig out computer schematics, even the apple one. In laptops if they are using a charger, it will hum regaudless if its an Apple or a mac. Macbooks use a power supply, PC laptops are shipped with a charger. Technically either one would need a DI. Imacs have a simular power supply and in some cases would ground loop even through the USB/thunderbolt connection.
Oh now since I have time to comment on this video, its not a very good comparison because its the same mic preamp circuit so the difference parts used is the subtle difference.
We have to look at what your generic Focusrite has for a mic preamp. Because its most likely not what is used in the Focusrite. Because it sounds like the same transistor input mic preamp as the other two. You want another mic preamp that is the same as the other three? That would be a Beringer ADAT. Or a board? Soundcraft Studio/live, 300b or Pesonus Studiolive24. Focusrite went to an opamp based that have a total different behavior and sound. So your video is kind of invalid like a lot of them on youtube that compare X to Y not knowing they are the same circuit. The other types are the instrumentation IC and instrumentation ic with DSP.
Its like the bad capacitor comparison videos where they should have compared electrolyte type (mica vs. electrolytic, vs polyester, vs polypropylene, vs. polystyrene) and across different circuits however, you are not going to tell much between different caps of the same electrolyte type.
Another thing I noticed is most use capacitor coupling or transformer coupling which really isn't needed in a preamp for dynamic mics. The coupling caps themselves induce roll off and phase shift and insertion loss and some noticed the 200% improvement changing to a transformer coupling in an interface, because transformers has always been better AC coupling device when selected properly for the circuit. DC coupling is even better.
I come from an electronics engineering background. So I have a unique view to this all as someone that builds this stuff. I also throughout the years worked in the pro studio world until it kind of fizzled out. I also record myself from time to time in my studio at the house.
I didn't like the beringer ADAT preamps and I was the guy who came up with the preamp bypass mod for it about 15 years ago because the converter is top notch back then and is also used in high end converters like the 4 channel Burl Mothership converters. Even though I ended up sticking the same preamp circuit on it (soundcraft studio/live) it had a better sound due to the parts used in the soundcraft was better than the beringer.
Modifications is another subject, and use case. But I don't agree with Black Lion on stuff and a long time ago they diddn't believe me when I told them to never mod a certain SSL converter they ended up ruining a few hundred of them in the field. In that case, their 'upgraded' opamps which was more of a side grade in quality over taxed the power supply causing total failure of the converter. Most of their clock mods were unnessisary and the few units I came across that had a clock issue I ended up taking the ICs off the board, cleaning the excessive surfacemount glue they glued the chip down and resoldered the same chip back. So the clock chipset had nothing wrong, it was just installed on the board incorrectly that should have been caught at the factory if they had better quality control.
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Folkcafe
Active member
I completely get where you are coming from but also understand it comes from a perspective of a whole lot of experience. Both opinions are valid. Spend a little more and get something a little better. Lots of people come here and just don't have the coin.
Starting out, a noob just needs some basic tools to learn. What to advise them on what to get is factored in a number of things, least of which is their intended direction. Not everyone that does this is thinking they are going to be the next big thing. This is where the idea of "good enough" comes from.
I started out in my teens with 2 cassette decks, with one having sound on sound feature and a cheap Radio Shack mixer and microphone. I bounced tracks between both decks as my means of mixing and recording tracks. I learned tons about recording and how to prioritize my mixes due to the inherent generation loss. Much of the equipment was borrowed or really cheap. Here is the point, its and entry point to evaluate if this is something you are interested in or even any good at. This is also an underlying reason for a starter budget.
I'm not critical at all of your advice. It is a valid perspective that comes from the perspective of someone caught the bug and continued on. OP doesn't yet know that.
I understand some people can't afford the ultra high end stuff. I know several musicians started with a simple mixer jacked into computer sound cards and didn't have problems. Problem I see is people using reviews which are paid opinions over people who had to deal with them over the years. But the Focusrite scarlette I would never recommend it to anyone. Because of several things beyond a poor quality mic preamp. There are tons of other interfaces out there with better mic preamps in them. Even that cheap Chinese no name interface. Since they don't hold their value, a nice used one could be obtained at a more reasonable price and the only advantage of buying new is if you need to get some software to get you started.
marto
New member
Hey, so I received my mic and interface. Plugged it all in, downloaded "focusrite control" and the drivers from focusrite.
I installed reaper and cakewalk to try out both. Inside the daw I set the audio system to ASIO and the ASIO driver to Focusrite USB ASIO (following a tutorial I saw on ytb).
I'm now good to go right? I tried it out and I think the quality is good. I'm also using direct monitoring and that seems to work quite well.
I installed reaper and cakewalk to try out both. Inside the daw I set the audio system to ASIO and the ASIO driver to Focusrite USB ASIO (following a tutorial I saw on ytb).
I'm now good to go right? I tried it out and I think the quality is good. I'm also using direct monitoring and that seems to work quite well.
Right on Marto! Now, soon as you can, post a test recording. 30 seconds is plenty but we need sound at your chosen recording level (around -20dBFS) and ten secs or so of as total silence as you can manage, that will allow us to judge your noise floor and make possible suggestions if it is not optimum.
Does NOT have to be the last word in musical chops!!
For me at least the best format is an MP3 attachment that I can just 'drop into' Samplitude. Best of order please 320k rate.
Dave.
marto
New member
Hi Dave, you said -20dbfs but I'm not sure I understand what that is referring to. From my understanding that would be 20dB lower than the clipping point of my system right? Now I'm not sure what I'm meant to do with that 
.
In any case here is a quick recording of me singing and another one of "total silence". I can definitely hear my PC fans still when I turn up the sound to max but I wouldn't be able to tell how much is my fans and how much is noise or some other technicality I don't yet understand.
.In any case here is a quick recording of me singing and another one of "total silence". I can definitely hear my PC fans still when I turn up the sound to max but I wouldn't be able to tell how much is my fans and how much is noise or some other technicality I don't yet understand.