Interface - 8 Mic Inputs - Best one?

D

DeadlySurfer

New member
Hey,

So I'm currently doing a college course in the UK on music technology. I know a bit about interfaces etc, but I'm a self confessed newbie.

A friend and I are looking to start a small 'business', recording bands etc. When I say recording, I mean demo quality as it won't be in a studio, and we won't have much dinero to spend, but we wan't it to sound the best it can.

So I'm looking at upgrading my old Line 6 UX2 interface, to something that can handle band needs.

My requirements as I see them are:

8 mic inputs
Phantom power
2 Headphone feeds (If possible)
USB or Firewire (Whichever is best)
And a good quality all round sound (i.e preamps etc)

So I'm looking at the £400 mark really.
Two that have caught my eye are the Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, and the M-Audio Profire 2626.

Can anyone tell me which is best, or if there's a better one availible for the money?

And one quick question, with the duel headphone outs, could the musician and I be listening to the exact same thing? Such as them playing?

Thanks,

Jack.
 
DeadlySurfer said:
Hey,

So I'm currently doing a college course in the UK on music technology. I know a bit about interfaces etc, but I'm a self confessed newbie.

A friend and I are looking to start a small 'business', recording bands etc. When I say recording, I mean demo quality as it won't be in a studio, and we won't have much dinero to spend, but we wan't it to sound the best it can.

So I'm looking at upgrading my old Line 6 UX2 interface, to something that can handle band needs.

My requirements as I see them are:

8 mic inputs
Phantom power
2 Headphone feeds (If possible)
USB or Firewire (Whichever is best)
And a good quality all round sound (i.e preamps etc)

So I'm looking at the £400 mark really.
Two that have caught my eye are the Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, and the M-Audio Profire 2626.

Can anyone tell me which is best, or if there's a better one availible for the money?

And one quick question, with the duel headphone outs, could the musician and I be listening to the exact same thing? Such as them playing?

Thanks,

Jack.
Click to expand...

Ironicaly, I am in a very simalar situation to your self. Even upgrading from the same interface. Although, I basically record myself and produce my own music.

My first question is: what DAW are you using?
And, Do you have a vision on how you want the 'bussiness' to grow?

My whole view on the purchases I make, is that they are the best I can afford at the time, and probably more important; How far in the future I can predict the purchase will be usable before I out grow it.

I have a friend who uses a focusrite and he says that they are very solid interfaces, with very good pre-amps. At university we have a 2626 (which I was thinking about purchasing) A hear alot of people say that the pre-amps are very noisy. However I have got some very good reults for the unit. As well as that it has lots of room to expand beyond the interface itself. which may be important if you start thinkig about expanding your track count and getting some out board gear. Another one I would suggest is the MOTU 828 mkIII, I have no experience with this but alot of people here seem to suggest it. Another option is the presonus firestudio (which ever model suits you best), It seems to get alot of good reviews, and some very good pre-amps.

I chose to buy the new avid mbox pro, Belive me Im one of the first to say how much I hate Avid's ethics. But nothing can change the fact that a hell of alot of people use pro tools, and you WILL get alot of clients who chose to pay you to do their recording on the basis you have a Mac-ProTools setup. I chose to get a pro tools system, because It would do more good than bad to learn the program, and also when you have a client bring in a project or want to use a project you start in another studio. the combatibility helps a hell of a lot. Which would be a solid reason for you to go for the profire. If anything so you have that oppertunity there IF you need it.

And remembe, the purpose of pres in an audio interface are to sound as clear an transparent with as little colouration as possible. so they can deal with every scenario. If you want the pres to be apart of the chain as an effect in itself. your looking into adding other pre-amps for the job.

Sorry for the long posts, and I hope it helps you in some way.

Good luck
 
benherron.rrr said:
Ironicaly, I am in a very simalar situation to your self. Even upgrading from the same interface. Although, I basically record myself and produce my own music.

My first question is: what DAW are you using?
And, Do you have a vision on how you want the 'bussiness' to grow?

My whole view on the purchases I make, is that they are the best I can afford at the time, and probably more important; How far in the future I can predict the purchase will be usable before I out grow it.

I have a friend who uses a focusrite and he says that they are very solid interfaces, with very good pre-amps. At university we have a 2626 (which I was thinking about purchasing) A hear alot of people say that the pre-amps are very noisy. However I have got some very good reults for the unit. As well as that it has lots of room to expand beyond the interface itself. which may be important if you start thinkig about expanding your track count and getting some out board gear. Another one I would suggest is the MOTU 828 mkIII, I have no experience with this but alot of people here seem to suggest it. Another option is the presonus firestudio (which ever model suits you best), It seems to get alot of good reviews, and some very good pre-amps.

I chose to buy the new avid mbox pro, Belive me Im one of the first to say how much I hate Avid's ethics. But nothing can change the fact that a hell of alot of people use pro tools, and you WILL get alot of clients who chose to pay you to do their recording on the basis you have a Mac-ProTools setup. I chose to get a pro tools system, because It would do more good than bad to learn the program, and also when you have a client bring in a project or want to use a project you start in another studio. the combatibility helps a hell of a lot. Which would be a solid reason for you to go for the profire. If anything so you have that oppertunity there IF you need it.

And remembe, the purpose of pres in an audio interface are to sound as clear an transparent with as little colouration as possible. so they can deal with every scenario. If you want the pres to be apart of the chain as an effect in itself. your looking into adding other pre-amps for the job.

Sorry for the long posts, and I hope it helps you in some way.

Good luck
Click to expand...

For DAW at the moment it's Reaper. I want to upgrade, but I've been waiting to get the new interface before realising the software I just bought isn't what I need.

And the business at the moment is barely a business really. To be honest, I'd be happy just recording people, I love doing it. I'd like to make a bit of money out of it, recording local bands and what not.

ProTools, yeah, it may be me being thick but in the UK I can only find LE and upgrade versions. For what I'm doing, I'm not gonna have people coming to me wanting ProTools specifically I imagine. Maybe in a few years, but at the moment it's small time.

About the preamps, when I said good quality I meant no noise, transparent, not to colour, sorry about that.

Thanks for the post though, I'll look into everything mentioned.
 
I use a Presonus Firestudio One which fits your description very well. It has 8 outputs aswell which you can use for whatever you like. Yes you can listen to the same mix on seperate headphones if you like.
 
Alright, thanks guys.

I've just read an article in a mag saying if your recording drums often, with multi-mics, your better off with a mixer.

Is this true? I've looked into mixers before, the USB ones never seem to be as good, and I don't fancy buying a mixer and multi-soundcard, just too expensive.
 
If you want to stick with line 6 they have the UX 8 interface. It's 8 channels XLR and 1/4, phantom power on all channels and you get the POD farm platinum plug in with so many amp and effect sim's you'll probably never use them all.
 
Hmm, I don't get the mixer reference. Are they referencing faders? Most of the preamp/interface combinations have mixers built in for monitor mixes and such. The control interface ist your PC. If they mean a console style control interface with faders and such, I don't get it why that should be better somehow.

You won't need more than 8 channels for a typical drum setup and with the Profire 2626 you can add another 8 (or more) channel preamp of your choice via optical adat if you really feel those 8 channels are limiting to you in any way.

I've had good results with M-Audio products (Delta 1010) and I own an old Octane 8 channel preamp which I like for its clean channels and features. The Profire 2626 also has those Octane preamps which give you about 50dB of gain per channel. I've read some people think they're noisy but I guess when you reach the point where you notice that noise, you're pushing the 50dB gain limit. I don't know about the converters but if they're the same as the Delta 1010's, those converters are ok.

With the 2626 being an M-Audio product and M-Audio belonging to Avid, you have the possibility of going the M-Powered ProTools route, once you decide to change from Reaper to ProTools. I'm using Reaper and I don't feel like I need something else except that I might want to work on a ProTools project or feel comfortable within ProTools if an opportunity comes up. So I might buy a 2626 for my mobile rig, put the Octane into the 2626's adat-in and buy the M-Powered ProTools just for kicks to learn the ins and outs of it.

Cheers
Tim
 
The Tascam 2488 Neo Multitrack Digital Recorder is hard to beat in the 600-700 dollar range. I've used it both as a mixer for the PA and just as a recording device. It has decent sounding preamps, phantom power and onboard efects. I export to a computer after tracking but you can mix, master and burn a cd right in the Neo.
 
my .02

i've owned the 2626 and returned it to Guitar Center last week.

ok unit, slightly better than my Digi 002r in terms of preamps and conversion but far from a great interface. I didn't notice any noise on the preamps but sonically they sound very thin to me and the interface seemed lack alot of clarity and depth.

on the other hand the MR816x that i got instead kills the 2626...

clarity like you wouldn't believe! superb pre's and conversion, tons of depth and musicality.

i didn't think i would notice that much of a difference, i was shocked :eek:

check it out if you can i'm pretty happy with it :D
 
Well, I've had a look around, and I'm probably more confused now than ever.

I've read about people who can't live without their mixers, others that have gladly got ridden of them.

I guess the mixer option is more "professional", due to the huge boards you see in studios, and that's what we use in our tech course.

But for me, recording at most 8 mics at a time, or rather only really needing to use 8 mics at a time, I could get away with an interface? My problem is I always want the best, and rarely tend to settle for second best, even if it means getting nothing at all :rolleyes:

Something that I've been looking into is headphone preamps. There's me and my friend, and then say, 5 piece band at most, so we can all have a different mix that we're listening to live I assume? So for example, the drummer can hear himself, a click track and bass, whereas the singer can hear a general mix, and me and my friend hear the whole thing?
 
DeadlySurfer said:
Well, I've had a look around, and I'm probably more confused now than ever.

I've read about people who can't live without their mixers, others that have gladly got ridden of them.

I guess the mixer option is more "professional", due to the huge boards you see in studios, and that's what we use in our tech course.

But for me, recording at most 8 mics at a time, or rather only really needing to use 8 mics at a time, I could get away with an interface? My problem is I always want the best, and rarely tend to settle for second best, even if it means getting nothing at all :rolleyes:

Something that I've been looking into is headphone preamps. There's me and my friend, and then say, 5 piece band at most, so we can all have a different mix that we're listening to live I assume? So for example, the drummer can hear himself, a click track and bass, whereas the singer can hear a general mix, and me and my friend hear the whole thing?
Click to expand...

Well...

Boards aren't bad but can be prohibitive in certain ways depending on how you’re using them.

All DAW's have a digital version of an analogue mixer built into the software. The cool thing about a digital version is that you can easily recall settings, create automated effect, volume, and pan changes, etc... And it doesn't take up a lot of space. The other benefit of this digital version is that whatever changes you make can be reverted.

In the analogue mixing world you'd need to "track" those changes to "tape". Meaning if you want a track to raise or lower in volume (a common mixing technique) during a certain section then you'd need to "track" a "performance" of you adjusting the track volume changes much in the same way you would "track" an instrument performance.

Once it's done, it's done and reverting can be a head ache.

The other benefits of a mixer include an abundance of preamps, varied inputs, and aux sends for effects or monitoring mixes for the performers.

However most if not all of these functions have been incorporated into the majority of DAW's and interfaces.

I’d recommend that you start with a good 8 channel interface and forego the mixer.

RME, apogee, lynx are supposed to be the "best" but be ready to pay for it!!!

In my book and speaking from the personal experience of using m-audio and digidesign interfaces, echo and the mr816 are great starting places that don't really compromise on quality, reliability, or function.
 
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