USB audio interface

[Geoff_Vane]

I'm looking for a USB audio interface. Every unit I googled, had some users complaining.

Any experience here, for a good unit?

Must haves:

USB 2.0
XLR mike in
High-Z guitar in (no fakeroni)
Line in
Low noise
Mixed monitoring
Zero latency
recognition by virtual guitar amps
no weird errors phantom 48V (switchable)

Spdif would be nice

have been looking at Tascam US 144 Emu 0404 etc.

 

[Waffleness]

I'm looking for a USB audio interface. Every unit I googled, had some users complaining.

I dont think you will find any peice of equipment that someone has not moaned about at some point, whether through user error or hardware issues.

USB 2.0
XLR mike in
High-Z guitar in (no fakeroni)
Line in
Low noise
Mixed monitoring
Zero latency
recognition by virtual guitar amps
no weird errors phantom 48V (switchable)

Spdif would be nice

I am going to assume some boundaries on the bold'd requests - zero latency isn't physically possible, just very low.

Recognition by virtual guitar amps (?!) there are hundreds of guitar effect processors, you won't be able to please them all, which one in particular do you use?

By weird effects, I assume you mean "one that works".

Low noise is very much dependant on what you plug-in to the interface, and how clean your up/down stream signal chain is. A low noise peice of equipment is only as good as the signal chain you put it in.

How many channels do you want?
Whats your budget?
Is firewire a problem?

 

[Geoff_Vane]

Okay, let's re-phrase, low latency.

Effect processors like IK multimedia's amplitube, waves GTR & Native Instruments Guitar Rig. That's the kind of stuff I would like to be able to use.

One that works, yes, without returning flaws or irritating habits.

Low noise as in a good SN ratio for the mike input in particular. Bad mike's will allways hiss, but a bad amp is a bad start.

Two channels max. Guitar and mike at most.

Firewire is either outdated and will not be continued (400) or so modern (800) that I don't have it. USB 2.0 is preferred.

 

[buckkillr8]

Firewire is either outdated and will not be continued (400) or so modern (800) that I don't have it. USB 2.0 is preferred.

Hardly outdated at all. It's actually the preferred method and will give you better results then any USB could ever do.

 

[Chili]

zero latency isn't physically possible, just very low.

Sure it is, zero latency is possible. Some interfaces will route the Audio In back to the Audio Out for Direct Monitoring. It stays in the analog domain and is therefore zero latency. The EMU 0404 is one such interface that does it.

Okay, let's re-phrase, low latency.

Effect processors like IK multimedia's amplitube, waves GTR & Native Instruments Guitar Rig. That's the kind of stuff I would like to be able to use.

One that works, yes, without returning flaws or irritating habits.

Low noise as in a good SN ratio for the mike input in particular. Bad mike's will allways hiss, but a bad amp is a bad start.

Two channels max. Guitar and mike at most.

Firewire is either outdated and will not be continued (400) or so modern (800) that I don't have it. USB 2.0 is preferred.

For two channels, USB will be fine. You've been looking at the EMU 0404 and I have the pci version, I think it will fulfill your requirements. Can't attest to the Tascam, no experience.

I don't think the interface will determine whether you can use a certain plug or not. That will be dependant on which DAW you use. And most DAW's use VST plugs, so if you have a vst plug, it should work with whatever interface you have.

Now, about "flaws or irritating habits"... most everything is going to have a learning curve and some may not seem intuitive. The 0404 took me a while to figure out. But once you get over the curve, the benefits are worth the effort.

Have fun,

 

[Aled_King]

I use the EMU 0404 and would highly recommend it. Very low latency, nice clean pre's and thus far I've had no problems with it.

Are you sure Firewire isn't the was to go if you are able to?

 

[Waffleness]

Sure it is, zero latency is possible. Some interfaces will route the Audio In back to the Audio Out for Direct Monitoring. It stays in the analog domain and is therefore zero latency. The EMU 0404 is one such interface that does it.

I understand you can have direct monitoring, but he phrased the question in such a way that "I want an audio interface with zero latency"

Sorry, I am just being pedantic

I would go for something like the presonus USB

 

[Geoff_Vane]

Chili,

I've been looking at the emu 0404. Some say it's not very lively for guitar and it is noisy. There is a guy on youtube saying that you should never buy one, that it is not functioning... I'm curious if anyone has the USB version here.

Buck,

The older Firewire ports are discontinued by Apple anyway. They have replaced it with a whole new kind of Firewire connector. They say USB 2.0 is just as fast as the older firewire...


My budget would be around $200 if good devices are possible. May go up to $400 for fantastic devices only.

 

[buckkillr8]

Buck,

The older Firewire ports are discontinued by Apple anyway. They have replaced it with a whole new kind of Firewire connector. They say USB 2.0 is just as fast as the older firewire...

Well there's your problem. Listening to anything MAC says. I was unaware you were running mac so if you don't have the firewire port then I can see you wanting to go another route, but USB has never been faster then firewire. Only in burst speed but do you wanna record in bursts? Doubtful.

Like the others said no interface, PCI, USB, Firewire etc. will ever get a 100% positive rating. Someone is going to complain about something. You need to take some of the bad reviews with a grain of salt. You don't know if some of those reviewers just had no clue what they were doing.

 

[Geoff_Vane]

No I don't have a Mac, but they have changed the firewire standard for a fact and I don't know if that isn't going to be the case for PC too. New handy cams for instance, don't have firewire anymore. And I read that a notebook often has a lesser firewire port, which would not amaze me regarding my cheap notebook.

 

[buckkillr8]

Nope just macs. Firewire isn't going anywhere.

 

[noisewreck]

Effect processors like IK multimedia's amplitube, waves GTR & Native Instruments Guitar Rig. That's the kind of stuff I would like to be able to use.

OK, Guitar Rig and Waves GTR come with their own interfaces. Amplitube does too, I think. Pick one. You can't please them all.

 

[intomusic]

Chili,

I've been looking at the emu 0404. Some say it's not very lively for guitar and it is noisy. There is a guy on youtube saying that you should never buy one, that it is not functioning... I'm curious if anyone has the USB version here.

Hiya,

I've got the E-MU 0404 USB interface. Works fine for me on my MacBook. Set it up in a few minutes and started recording using a simple set up - Behringer condenser mic and GarageBand 3. It has given me good recording sound so far and is easy to use. But this is from the perspective of someone who generally listens to lo-fi indie folk stuff...nothing too sonically big!

But the thing with reviews is, you never know what computer reviewers have, what equipment, what sound they're going for etc. They just write a review saying it's rubbish or great. From what I've gathered here on this forum, there are so many dependants - your instruments, mic, software, room etc.

But I fell prey to the cyclical and maddening plethora of reviews...

 

[Bristol Posse]

in the $200-400 range your not going to get anything fantastic but you can get OK converters and Preamps, Pre Sonus, Emu, M-audio have fairly well liked units in this proce range
USB is going to be more prone to pops and clicks than Firewire because of the way the PCI Bus is managed by the system versus a dedicated Firewire management chip (Which is why FW is prefered and gives a much higher data throughput than USB 2.0 (I've seen anything from 50-1000% better sustained throughput vs USB 2.0 depending on system configurtation and what else the system is managing at the time))

For 2 inputs however USB shouldn't really give you a problem on a reasonably specced computer (PC or MAC)

Most of what determines how good the sound is going to be is going to be the rest of the recording chain and the accoustical treatment of the room. You can get good results with a cheap interface and very good micing techniques even in a bad room but it takes a heck of a lot of work.

Oh and I bought a handycam from Sony last week and they definitely have not abandonned FW

 

[KineticSound]

The older Firewire ports are discontinued by Apple anyway. They have replaced it with a whole new kind of Firewire connector. They say USB 2.0 is just as fast as the older firewire...

But they don't comment on the load to the host CPU made by USB2.0. It's also confusing as the tests don't mention continuous data flow vs. burst, etc., etc.

Before anybody declares that FireWire 400 or 600 is dead or dying, understand that any FireWire connection can be retrofitted to a lower FireWire connection through a simple adapter. 600 and 800 also pass current for buss-powered devices (e.g. Apogee Duet); 400 does not. If you retro-fit a lower connection, you're simply passing data at the lower transfer rate.

To Geoff's credit, he has a well thought out list of prerequisites that his interface must do. There are a multitiude of options out there for him. Waffle's also correct that there's no ultimate interface that everyone will be 100% happy with, but Geoff's listed some good options that would work just fine. The 0404 is good; The Tascam 122 or 144 are very solid as well; you might also check out the Lexicon U22.

 

[Geoff_Vane]

First, thanks to you all for the swift replies and all the effort.

My subconcious system is narrowing down to E-mu 0404 and Tascam US-144.
Don't ask me why. Is either preferred here? The E-mu 0404 seems to have some guitar amp sim in it's package allready. I don't know anything about which recording software that comes with these interfaces, is best...

Suppose you guys can talk me into Firewire, which interface is then suited for my whishes? I'm so affraid of my cheap laptop firewire...

 

[dgatwood]

The older Firewire ports are discontinued by Apple anyway. They have replaced it with a whole new kind of Firewire connector. They say USB 2.0 is just as fast as the older firewire...

FireWire 800 is 100% backwards compatible with FireWire 400 devices. You just need a different cable. The advantages of 800 are that if both ends are FW800, it's four times as fast (800 Mbps in both directions simultaneously instead of 400 Mbps in only one direction at a time) and that the connector is a lot more robust.

 

[dgatwood]

Oh and I bought a handycam from Sony last week and they definitely have not abandonned FW

The only video gear I've seen without FireWire is at the very bottom end. Everything even semi-pro has FireWire, and everything pro is exclusively FireWire or SDI. At best, most camcorders with USB can only stream low quality webcam video via USB. For full quality, you end up copying files off the camera and using it as a glorified flash drive. At that point, you might as well use a flash-card-based camcorder and a FireWire reader. In my experience they're several times as fast as USB readers, which in turn, are several times as fast as using any camera as a USB reader....

 

[dgatwood]

Before anybody declares that FireWire 400 or 600 is dead or dying, understand that any FireWire connection can be retrofitted to a lower FireWire connection through a simple adapter. 600 and 800 also pass current for buss-powered devices (e.g. Apogee Duet); 400 does not. If you retro-fit a lower connection, you're simply passing data at the lower transfer rate.

That's not quite correct. There is no FireWire 600. There's just 400, 800, and 3200. You might be thinking of the FW1600 standard that never saw the light of day in real-world silicon. FireWire 3200 can also signal at S1600 speeds, but AFAIK, there are no plans to build any FireWire PHY silicon that does S1600 without supporting S3200 at this point. It might have been considered at one time.

FireWire 400 does pass power if you use a 6-pin cable. FireWire 400 does not pass power if you use a 4-pin cable. The 400/800 is a speed rating in Mbps, and has nothing to do with the number of pins. FireWire 800 has 9 pins, not 8.

FW800 and FW3200 both use the same cable. They changed the cable design both for faster throughput and because the FW400 connector was somewhat flimsy and thus prone to people forcing the cable in backwards and frying hardware. Of course, FW3200 has not yet shipped in any hardware, AFAIK.

 

[Waffleness]

*cough* USB 3.0 *cough*