Mac interface selection

J

Jamie Jukosky

New member
Hi All,
I just got a new intel Mac and sold my Tascam 2488 because I found it a pain to import to computer for editing along with other minor complaints. I want to record direct to computer now and most people suggest MOTU for Mac. However, a couple friends of mine that do a lot of recording say that M-Audio has good drivers. So, I'm trying to make a decision between the M-Audio FW 1814, the MOTU ultralite, the Saffire pro 10, and the Alesis 26 i/O. I'd like the audio inputs that these units (don't really care about lightpipe at the moment) have and it would be great to use bus power if possible. If anybody has any thoughts about these units and whether one is better for Mac recording let me know. I'm going to start by recording in garageband or Cubase LE and when I have some more money maybe I'll get something else. I used to use an old version of Sonar but can't with my new mac. I'm trying to find a unit that isn't too much of a problem to set up and is very reliable. I've done a lot of research so I know the specs of these units, I just want to know how things hold up during a real recording session.
-Jamie
 
Hi Jamie

I have been using an M-Audio Delta 1010 interface with my mac(s) for ages. Very stable unit with quiet inputs & outputs (ie - no unwanted noise).
Problem is that there's no pci-e support for M-audio devices at the moment so it can't be used with the new intel macs. I have had advice that MOTU gear is the biz as far as stability goes, and the core packs come as pci-e if you're looking at that option.
I haven't had personal experience with firewire (being a resistant-to-change pci-bus dinosaur ;) ) but I haven't heard any bad reports regarding the MOTU firewire interfaces either.

http://homerecording.org/bbs/showthread.php?t=248786

Dags
 
I just got the MOTU 8pre to go with my old 896. It worked pretty well tracking my band to a MacBook this past Saturday. It's a tradeoff - the Ultralite has 2 mic/line pres, 8 total analog ins, and 10 analog outs; the 8pre has 8 mic/line pres, stereo line out, and stereo 'phones out. For my uses the 8pre is the better fit. If you don't need the multiple analog outs, the 8pre is worth a look.

I have an old M-Audio Audiophile 2496 in my G4 tower at home. The drivers are not the most stable. Every so often - usually when running multiple audio applications - sound gets garbled. I have to go through some gyrations involving the System Preferences panel to get it back to normal. This has colored my opinion of M-Audio's products.
 
echo products are awesome (i have two of the audiofires (a 4 and a 12 right now), but if i had a mac and only needed a couple of ins and outs, i'd definitely grab an apogee duet.
 
Do you really think the apogee is worth the money? It seems awfully expensive for 2 ins. I've never used apogee stuff before though. I've used a MOTU 828 with a PC laptop 6 or so years ago and had a lot of problems. I'm sure it was with the firewire card drivers though.
-Jamie
 
yes. by all reports it's an awesome sounding unit. it has the same converters and analog path as their ensemble interface and two pres as well. the converters and pres are reported to be superior to their more expensive mini-me a/d converter and the duet is a full-featured interface. if you're only going to be doing mono or stereo tracking, i think it would serve you well. if i were a mac user, i might already own one myself.
if you need more ins, i can also definitely recommend the echo audiofires-- i've been very happy with mine.
 
Jamie Jukosky said:
I want to record direct to computer now and most people suggest MOTU for Mac. However, a couple friends of mine that do a lot of recording say that M-Audio has good drivers.
Click to expand...

No, they don't. They have horrible drivers. They have, without a doubt, the worst Mac drivers of any vendor I've seen. For starters:

1. They do a crude hack for driver loading. It break a lot.
2. Their drivers have this problem that every so often, it will just suddenly start playing the same audio clip over and over. You'll switch to a different driver version and it will go away until the next software update, and then it's back. Stupid crap like that.


Jamie Jukosky said:
So, I'm trying to make a decision between the M-Audio FW 1814, the MOTU ultralite, the Saffire pro 10, and the Alesis 26 i/O. I'd like the audio inputs that these units (don't really care about lightpipe at the moment) have and it would be great to use bus power if possible.
Click to expand...

I don't know the Saffire series. I wouldn't expect the Alesis to be great, but probably not terrible. The MOTU should be really solid hardware in my experience. I would definitely recommend the MOTU out of that list.

I own a FW1814 and two MOTU 8Pre interfaces (which I think is probably based on the same core logic as the Ultralite, just with different analog electronic and probably fewer DACs).
 
dgatwood said:
No, they don't. They have horrible drivers. They have, without a doubt, the worst Mac drivers of any vendor I've seen. For starters:

1. They do a crude hack for driver loading. It break a lot.
2. Their drivers have this problem that every so often, it will just suddenly start playing the same audio clip over and over. You'll switch to a different driver version and it will go away until the next software update, and then it's back. Stupid crap like that.
Click to expand...

That's really strange dgatwood. I haven't had any trouble with my 1010 on Mac OS9 or OSX and its been used on about three different models of mac as well. My biggest disappointment is that M-audio haven't brought out a PCI-e board to connect to the breakout box for newer intel macs and haven't replied to any emails regarding whether this is in the pipeline.

But I would have to agree that MOTU would probably be the best choice as they have consistently kept up with audio interface technology and seem to have rock solid drivers (Mac) for every piece of gear they bring out.

Dags
 
Dags said:
That's really strange dgatwood. I haven't had any trouble with my 1010 on Mac OS9 or OSX and its been used on about three different models of mac as well. My biggest disappointment is that M-audio haven't brought out a PCI-e board to connect to the breakout box for newer intel macs and haven't replied to any emails regarding whether this is in the pipeline.
Click to expand...

My 1010LT stopped working on at least four software updates in the time that I owned it (mostly during 10.3.x), and when I say stopped working, I mean I had to download a new driver because it would play the same audio clip over and over in a neverending, increasingly loud and distorted fashion until I yanked the power.

I finally ended up downgrading to a release of the software that predated the Pro Tools compatibility upgrade, as that seems to be when things went really dramatically south; I had sporadic problems even before that, but nothing that compared to the worthless 2.x versions of the drivers.

Oh, yeah, and they disabled the ability to put the computer to sleep as long as their driver was loaded because they couldn't figure out power management.... Yikes. AFAIK, sleeping is still disabled (read "broken") in their Delta drivers to this day.

Good times. I recommend learning about drivers by reading the versiontracker comments. Some of the comments are particularly telling....

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/18046
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21938
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/24612

You'll probably recognize some of the comments in there as being surprisingly similar to my experiences with my Delta 1010LT and my FW1814.... Scary, isn't it? The same recurring problems across pretty much their entire line of drivers....
 
Last edited:
dgatwood said:
My 1010LT stopped working on at least four software updates in the time that I owned it (mostly during 10.3.x), and when I say stopped working, I mean I had to download a new driver because it would play the same audio clip over and over in a neverending, increasingly loud and distorted fashion until I yanked the power.

<snip>

Good times. I recommend learning about drivers by reading the versiontracker comments. Some of the comments are particularly telling....

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/18046
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21938
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/24612

You'll probably recognize some of the comments in there as being surprisingly similar to my experiences with my Delta 1010LT and my FW1814.... Scary, isn't it? The same recurring problems across pretty much their entire line of drivers....
Click to expand...

:eek::eek::eek::eek:
Jamie - I'll restate my last point in my last email - I would have to agree that MOTU would probably be the best choice as they have consistently kept up with audio interface technology and seem to have rock solid drivers (Mac) for every piece of gear they bring out.
(and dgatwood's experience certainly seems to rule out M-audio as a long-term, trouble free option)

I'm hoping to upgrade to a mac pro at some stage - I'll definitely be going down the MOTU pci-e path when I do.

Dags
 
Dags said:
:eek::eek::eek::eek:
Jamie - I'll restate my last point in my last email - I would have to agree that MOTU would probably be the best choice as they have consistently kept up with audio interface technology and seem to have rock solid drivers (Mac) for every piece of gear they bring out.
(and dgatwood's experience certainly seems to rule out M-audio as a long-term, trouble free option)
Click to expand...

M-Audio's drivers were really rock solid when I got the 1010LT. It started going south when 10.3 came out, but mostly just occasional issues. It wasn't until Digi (the Pro Tools folks) bought them that their drivers went from mostly working but occasionally problematic to complete excrement. Take from that what you will.
 
I have experience with two firewire interfaces for the mac, the Presonus Inspire 1394 and the MOTU Traveler. I started with the Presonus - for the price, I think it's very good - the pres are clean, and it's easy to work with. The pres didn't have quite enough gain for some of my dynamic microphones, and I wanted to run more than two preamped inputs at once (you can have up to 4 inputs, but two of them don't have pres) so I got the Traveler, and I've been using that primarily ever since. Overall, it's very good, and I found MOTU's support to be top notch.

Except for the lack of gain, I think I like the preamps on the Inspire a little better.

Both units are bus powered, and that's good for two reasons -- 1) convenience, not having to worry about plugging in the interface, and 2) running in laptop-battery-only mode makes for clean, quiet, power and allows me to find the best locations in house to record in (none of which are very good). If your mac is not a laptop, then bus-power may not be much of an advantage, however.
 
The thing that concerns me about the Apogee Duet is that all the connections are on flimsy breakout cables. Really a bad choice, in my opinion. It would have been much better to have the connectors on the unit itself. A couple accidental hard yanks in the wrong direction and you are going to be calling Apogee up to order a new breakout cable, and I bet they won't be cheap.
 
Is the duet bus powered?

Part of the reason why I picked up the audiofire 12 is because it's mains powered. Call me weird, but I've always liked the sound of converters (and other audio gear) that's fully warmed up but I don't care to have my pc powered all the time.

With the audiofire in the rack I just leave that on all the time and power the computer up and down as needed.
 
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