Hello all. I bet this is covered well in the $1000 or less "best interface category" but what about interfaces 1000 US or greater. Min req. 8 inputs 8 outputs, 2 to 8 onboard preamps, good clock and most of all RELIABLE, ROCK STEADY on win 7. ??? Hmmm. Its that win 7 thing. firewire or PCI or even usb. any advice? I am really looking at a reasonable 1500 to 2000 price figure I suppose. I jsut want something that will "always" work. I can't have crashes. Funny my old delta 44 was more reliable than either my motu or RME units.
Advice on reliable mid priced interface
- Thread starter Thurgood
- Start date
kidkage
Bored of Canada
I've heard good things about firefaces, and Steinbergs new interfaces.
All I can think of really
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Thanks for your input. I chose "mid priced" for fear of using high price and getting reccs for really high priced stuff. To be fair my current Rme fireface is behaving better with the new drivers and some common sense on my part. Nonetheless I suspect that Win 7 is part of the problem. Both my past Motu and Rme (past and present) really like XP a lot better. Both computers (one xp, one Win7) were streamlined for audio. I have been using PC since the beginning of my DAW era and I am used to them. Dare I say maybe a move to a Mac. Hmmm. I don't see a lot of improvement feature wise by moving from my RME while staying with a PC. For Mac the Appogee stuf looks good but that is getting expensive. I like what I have and Reaper as a DAW. I still had stability issues with Sonar and Cubase, mind you not persistant crashes just random. Maybe I just want too much.
chuckduffy
Well-known member
Can you talk about the issues you are finding with the RME? They are supposed to be pretty solid from all the comments I have read. It would stink to go off in search of something better, spend the cash and end up in the same boat. I went through 3 firewire cards before I found one that played nicely with my Focusrite safffire, and even now I have to track at one setting and mix at another - and I STILL can't use the lowest latency... But I went through several other interfaces and they were worse...
Thanks Chuck. I agree with your statement about chasing around for well.....ones tail. Issues: Blue screens. Lots. Now that is probably operator error and I think I have that sorted out so I am pretty happy lateley. The new drivers seem much better. I think I still don't have the thing setup right. If you are pretty up on firewire maybe I could bend your ear via PM for a little assistance. I do not want to go on and speak poorly about RME given the possibility that I am through my own ignorance making things go awry. Ok back to what I was saying. The RME folks and their forum were very nice and helpful. Plus one for the RME folks/product. Motu not so much but that doesnn't matter now as the MOTU is gone. 3 firewire cards yikes!! I have TI chipset card. As to latency I do not worry much as I direct monitor. That has its own issues when you want to monitor wet but I do not do that often and if so its usually reverb so a little "predelay" isn't so bad. I run my Fireface at 256 (buffer) and acheive about 6ms. I have run the RME at IIRC 16 without a problem but I usually don't. I usually mix at 256 and can easliy run 45 or so tracks with up to 80 plugins (mainly filters/eq/compression) and still have machine slack. I suspect that the RME is as good as similarly priced units (if not better) when set up correctly. Once again for the record my old Delta 44 crashed once or twice (literally) in 3 years. Not bad for something one tenth the price of my RME. Please get back with me on the Ok for a PM. I would like to ask a few questions.
Bobbsy
Boring Old Git
I could suggest a few really good interfaces, but...
...in my experience, reliability problems are far more often caused by driver conflicts than the actual hardware. By all means spend that money to improve audio performance but, for total reliability, you need to strip your computer of all unnecessary other software and processes and spend some time tuning it up to optimise it for audio work.
...in my experience, reliability problems are far more often caused by driver conflicts than the actual hardware. By all means spend that money to improve audio performance but, for total reliability, you need to strip your computer of all unnecessary other software and processes and spend some time tuning it up to optimise it for audio work.
chuckduffy
Well-known member
Hmm - blue screens, that is bad and I don't think I have ever had one. I have no specific working knowledge with RME, but I have many friends who have their gear for a long time and heard many good comments regarding reliability and stability. In my particular case - the onboard firewire in my desktop does not work at all (just weird static), a card with the DICE chipset caused crackles at ALL buffer sizes, and the TI works well but I cannot use it at the 64 buffer size unless I am working with almost pure audio and no VSTs. This works out ok for me for the most part - with the exception of edrums. I trigger vsts with a kit and it is impossible to play drums right with higher latencies than 64. Once the project grows larger I have to move up to 512 in order to mix. SO.... it sound like with the exception of the bluscreens you are actually in better shape than me
Blue screens normally indicate a very low level hardware problem - IRQ, DMA, memory and the like. Do you recall what the error reported is? Feel free to pm me, or post here as someone else may benefit.