audio interface help please

[anth202]

Here are my choices:

Mbox 2
M-Audio Fast Track Ultra or Firewire solo
Presonus Firebox
Edirol UA25EX or FA66

Want to be able to record stereo drums (roland td-6 kit) and guitar (mono) at the same time. Also, I want to eventually be able to trigger drum samples via midi using bfd2 or something. I would prefer like pro tools because I know how to use it somewhat however I am open minded with other programs like cubase or nuendo. I have a firewire card already in my computer. I am a guitarist so I want a nice clear guitar signal ideally. May record vocals at some stage with shure mics. Any recommendations?

 

[blazingstrings]

Well you would need a minimum of three inputs to record a stereo drum track and a mono guitar part.

The Mbox 2 won't do this (Only Two in's).
The Firewire solo wont be enough in's ether.
The Fast Track Ultra will do three in's and then some(I think it has Six in's).
The Firebox has Four in's that would work(Watchout dgatwood is gonna come in shouting how bad it is).
The FA66 will do Four in's.
The Edirol UA25EX is only two in's.

So your options really are the:

FA66, Fast Track Ultra and the Firebox.

I like em all just depends on what you computer has for ports and such.

And Reaper is a nice way to go if your looking for something cheap.

 

[LemonTree]

If you have a td-6 I'd recomend something with midi in so you can use BFD/ezdrummer/superior 2.0 in the future and give you total mixing ability over the drums, which for me make up the foundation of any mix. Get the drums right and everything else usualy falls into place very quickly.

Maybe a konnekt 8 firewire?

 

[anth202]

okay it seems that it is between m-audio fast track ultra and firebox. I would prefer the m-audio because I like using pro tools however there are not many reviews on this product so I'm not sure how good it is. Can anyone shed some light on this? Also, is firewire going to be better for latency against usb 2 when using programs like bfd 2?

 

[dgatwood]

My experience has been that M-Audio's sound quality leaves something to be desired. A lot of cheap components. On the other hand, the FireBox pres are reportedly pretty underwhelming as well. Either way, you'd be significantly better off with even a fairly inexpensive standalone pre than the pres that are built into those devices, IMHO. Something to consider.

Translation: among those choices, either Edirol would be a hands-down winner in my book, but given your needs, the FA66 would be the better choice.

 

[dgatwood]

Maybe a konnekt 8 firewire?

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! That's a DICE II monstrosity. Avoid TC's FireWire hardware like the plague.

 

[blazingstrings]

My experience has been that M-Audio's sound quality leaves something to be desired. A lot of cheap components.

I highly disagree.

M-Audio always makes a solid product, And considering that I do work in the industry and have/had close friends at M-Audio and Edirol and my best friend was a consultant for many of their products and is for several big name company's that many here know and love.

I can highly recommend M-Audio And Edirol. Plus you will be able to use Mpowered which seems to be you DAW of choice

Seriously dgatwood what do you like???? I have a feeling you have high end taste.....Nothing wrong with that, but not everyone has a budget for RME and above....

 

[anth202]

i can't make up my mind. Is firewire going to have less latency than usb 2. I mainly want a clear signal for guitar programs like waves gtr3 and low latency to trigger drum samples. Good mic preamps would be a bonus, im not expecting that.

 

[blazingstrings]

You gonna get similar performance between firewire and USB 2.0. I wouldn't worry there. I have had decent results using a guitar plugin with USB 1.1 so...

 

[Outlaws]

The Echo AudioFire4 is right in that price range.. Excellent device IMO. I believe it will do all 4 analogs plus the 2 digitals for a total of 6 in/6 out.

 

[LemonTree]

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! That's a DICE II monstrosity. Avoid TC's FireWire hardware like the plague.

DICE II, same as my Yamaha N12 and it's solid as a rock

 

[dgatwood]

Seriously dgatwood what do you like???? I have a feeling you have high end taste.....Nothing wrong with that, but not everyone has a budget for RME and above....

I am/have been reasonably happy with recent hardware from Presonus, MOTU, Peavey. My experience with M-Audio has ranged from bad to terrible by comparison.

My memory of the M-Audio pres in my FW1814 is that they were a bit harsh in the top end compared with the others---not horribly so, but noticeable. I ended up buying a Peavey PV8 mixer and using that for additional preamps. I quickly regretted not buying a PV14; I consistently found myself favoring the $25/channel Peavey pres over the M-Audio pres.

Then, there was my old 1010LT. The sound quality was particularly bad by comparison even with the FW1814. Muddy, no real definition to the sound....

I also had non-stop driver problems with the M-Audio gear. With both the 1010LT and the FW1814, nearly every time I updated Mac OS X, I'd have to change drivers---sometimes upgrade, sometimes downgrade.

To date, the only kernel panic I've ever seen on my MacBook since I upgraded to Leopard was caused by what appears to be a locking bug in their FW1814 drivers.

The worst transition for M-Audio was when they started supporting M-Powered. I never did get any of those drivers working with my G5 setup, eventually being forced to downgrade from the 2.x driver to the 1.x just to get the thing to not constantly exhibit buffer underruns (independent of buffer size).

And then, there's the whole problem of many of their FireWire devices misbehaving in bizarre ways if they are not the first device on the bus (not power-related---they misbehave even with powered hubs). I've observed this with the FW1814 (S/PDIF goes dead), and one of my coworkers observed similar problems with the FW310.

And so on. Based on my (Mac) experience with them, I wouldn't recommend their interface products to anyone. From talking with other people who have dealt with them, I get the impression that my experiences were not unique.

 

[dgatwood]

DICE II, same as my Yamaha N12 and it's solid as a rock

The problem is that it's a roll of the dice. For some people, they work perfectly. For other people, they never do get them working. That translates to a significant risk of being stuck with a device you can't use if it ends up being incompatible with your next computer.

 

[LemonTree]

The problem is that it's a roll of the dice. For some people, they work perfectly. For other people, they never do get them working. That translates to a significant risk of being stuck with a device you can't use if it ends up being incompatible with your next computer.

That's what I LOVE about Yamaha support. They list firewire cards/chipsets that are compatable with their equipment and also a list of the ones to avoid.

I myself upgraded from 3 m-audio 1010's and a big board to the N12 firewire. It has been absolutely solid in comparison to the M-audio drivers and I agree the 1010 convertors are a puddle of mud.

I recomended the konnekt 8 because the singer/guitarist in my band uses one and all the vocal and guitar tracks are recorded at his before we do final mixing at mine on the N12 with cubase studio 4. Results so far have topped 3 high end studios we've used in the area over the past couple of years.

I should add I'm a PC users and have no knowledge of the MAC other than the fact that several years ago I thought about a crossover to PT M-powered but was soon put off by the fact it only supported one 1010 in a system at a time. I don't know if that's been rectified yet but it was the main reason I started looking at alternatives and found myself happily married to the N12.

From the Yamaha site:

1394 Chip Set Compatible with n12/n8
- AGERE FW323-05
- AGERE FW323-06
- TI TSB12LV23 + PHY
- TI TSB12LV26 + TSB41AB03
- TI TSB43AB22/A
- TI TSB43AB23
- VIA VT6306

1394 Chip Set NOT Compatible with n12/n8
- NEC D72873GC
- NEC D72874GC
- NEC uPD72874

 

[blazingstrings]

I am/have been reasonably happy with recent hardware from Presonus, MOTU, Peavey. My experience with M-Audio has ranged from bad to terrible by comparison.

And so on. Based on my (Mac) experience with them, I wouldn't recommend their interface products to anyone. From talking with other people who have dealt with them, I get the impression that my experiences were not unique.

I have to disagree completely, Nobody I work with has had any issues on a Mac when using M-Audio interfaces.........

Heck I use one everyday and love it(My Presonus I can't say love as its god but I hate front mounted XLR inputs..... Annoying to have cables were my mouse should be).

I've never thought of anything sounding harsh or muddy from m-audio....I fail to see how a sound card (not a pre amp or interface but a PCI converter card)can be muddy..... Please explain how that can actually happen because in all the time I have spoke to the people who make this stuff when ever anyone says "Muddy" none of them can figure out were people get that shit.

That has to do with what you put in front of the converters not in the conversion itself.

Peavey? Really? Your kidding right? I absolutely hate Peavey shit. Worst sounding boards and constantly failing. Total garbage.

It must be regional?

 

[LemonTree]

I've never thought of anything sounding harsh or muddy from m-audio....I fail to see how a sound card (not a pre amp or interface but a PCI converter card)can be muddy..... Please explain how that can actually happen because in all the time I have spoke to the people who make this stuff when ever anyone says "Muddy" none of them can figure out were people get that shit.

I wouldn't have believed it myself until I moved away from the M-audio convertors (410, 1010lt, then 3 1010 rackmounts). When I ditched them for the Yamaha my bottom end became much more defined and I could actualy hear where the problem frequencies were right off the bat. Add to that the whole top end just opened up. The N12 isn't hyped, the 1010 just wasn't as defined. I'm sure it doesn't stop there. It's not as if the Yamaha N12 is at the high end of the market but I have read from RME users on the Yamaha site that the N12 converters are equal to at least, if not better than their firefaces

 

[dgatwood]

That's what I LOVE about Yamaha support. They list firewire cards/chipsets that are compatable with their equipment and also a list of the ones to avoid.

...

From the Yamaha site:

1394 Chip Set Compatible with n12/n8
- AGERE FW323-05
- AGERE FW323-06
- TI TSB12LV23 + PHY
- TI TSB12LV26 + TSB41AB03
- TI TSB43AB22/A
- TI TSB43AB23
- VIA VT6306

Many people who have had problems with DICE II interfaces have been using TI chipsets---the most compatible FireWire chipset out there. The compatibility problems with DICE II devices have nothing to do with FireWire chipset incompatibility....

My guess? It is probably either PCI bus latency timers, IRQ steering, some bus-mastering device being a pig, or something similarly subtle, but AFAIK nobody has really nailed it down yet, and a lot of people have tried.