decision time, help!

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onetrackmind7

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hi,
after loads of intensive research i have boiled my choices for a sound card down to these four, i can just about afford all of them so price doesnt matter, everything else does though, i've got a fairly good desktop pc and need 8 or so inputs, have cubase as default, if you guys could tell me which option you reckon is best , the pro's and con's, all that jazz, that would make my week, cheers, love the site.

1. get adat in card and plug a behringer ada8000 into it then use di boxes for guitars and basses etc.

2. get an edirol FA101 or a maudio firewire 1814

3. get a delta 1010lt and use a yamaha mixer to preamp the other 6

4. get a digi 001 c/w pro tools le

thanks again
also if you have any alternative suggestions pls share them
 
Look into a Presonus Firepod. 10 in/10 out. You get 8 Mic pre's with phantom power on every channel with line-level inserts on each channel. 2 of the channels are instrument-level inserts. 2 channels via spdif. It's firewire, so you can use it with your desktop or a laptop in the future. Rack-mountable. Come with Cubase LE, so you know it works with the SX versions. I'm looking to upgrade to it, and I actually want the same things you are looking for. It sells for $600 - totally eliminates the need for mic pre's and a mixer. I've not heard a bad review or feedback on it yet. If you've never done business with sweetwater, you might call them up. They offered me 15% off my first purchase through them. Worth asking about - it would bring the firepod down to $510.

Here's the site: http://www.presonus.com/firepod.html

I don't have one so I can't give a personal opinion, but it definately deserves a look.
 
sounds good,
do you know of any sites that will ship to England but are american based as it is much more expensive over here?
thanks
 
Be careful buying from the US. The prices can look great but once you've added VAT and the extra delivery costs you don't always save money, and you can be waiting a few weeks for your toys to arrive. That's not to say don't do it but just take into account all the extras, it's not always worth it. Buying from europe is sometimes cheaper.

As for the main part of your question I use a 1010LT with seperate pres and a little mackie mixer for a few extra channels if I need them. This works very nicely for my needs but unfortunately it's all I know so I'm not in a position to make comparisons with the other stuff you've mentioned. I will say I find the mixer useful for other stuff though other than the extra pres- real time monitoring, routing monitors, headphone outputs etc.

There's an ebay seller in Germany who sells 1010LTs (brand new) for £150 (free delivery). That's the best price I've seen.
 
that seems to be a pretty common setup, so i guess it must work pretty well, what are yamaha's pres like? does anyone have to lug their desktop around if recording at a location or everyone without a studio has a laptop? because thats something i have been trying to figure out if i could do because i dont have a car, is it bad for computers to transport them?
cheers me dears
 
The Yamaha MG pres are ok, better than Behringer but obviously not great. I think in my limited experience they'd be at a similar place to some of the Mackies, but without that marketing hype cost.

My only reservation over the 1010lt is the unbalanced inputs. But that may not be a big deal.

My personal preference is for good, clean converters with balanced inputs, and preamps completely separate. I have a Delta 44 right now and will eventually add a 1010 proper or perhaps a MOTU 828 to make it up to 12 inputs to match my Soundcraft M12 desk.

HTH! BTW - Check around, there are one or two decent prices to be had in the UK, Digital Village and Turnkey are important to check out, and Dolphin Music were fast and cheap the one time I used them.
 
merry christmas by the way,
yeah i checked them out for the firepod and they are at about £500 but with the dollar being weak at the moment i can get it p&p included for £330 so its worth it, what do you think about power though, does anyone know about how easy it is to use an american product on english soil? also is firewire the same? i suppose it is but i better check.
ryan
 
FireWire is the same but you may need to check into the external power supply for it.
I'd email PreSonus support with your query in regard to that.
 
If it runs off the firewire port you're fine. An external adaptor will be for 110V so that's no good. Some equipment (such as Behringer UB and Soundcraft M series mixers) have internal switching power supplies that will work anywhere. Others have simple switches on the back you can change. A wall-wart is different though, because the device is expecting the electricity ready to use, it doesn't have any capability for control over it.

That said, a £5 multi-voltage adaptor will work for many things. Just check the ampage.
 
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