External Audio interfaces - are they really needed for electronic based musicians?

[Darryl Feldman]

Hi,

I am a semi-newbie and have an important question relating to my general setup and the use of audio interfaces in a mac / usb world.

My setup (hardware)
-MacBook Pro (mid 2015)
-iPad pro / iPad air 2
-External monitor
-Panorama P4 midi controller
-AKAI MPK Mini midi controller
-Blue snowball ICE usb mic
-AIAIAI over ear headphones
-Kanto YU2 mini monitors
-ROLI blocks lightpad & loop controller
-Focusrite Scarlett 212 audio interface

My setup (software)
-Logic Pro X
-Various apps on iPad (synthesizers, drum machines, instruments)
-ROLI studio

Use cases
Currently I am connecting all external devices directly via USB or in some cases bluetooth
-Connecting external midi controllers (Keyboards, drum pads, iPad) and recording into Logic
-Recording iPad instruments into logic
-Arranging and outputting songs from logic
-Recording vocals from external mic
-Monitoring audio with external headphones and monitors
Note: I do not want to record guitars or other live real instruments

Big and main question:
-What would be the main reason based on my setup to use the Scarlett 212 as an audio interface, is it basically redundant?
-If you have a similar setup do you have any tips to optimise for sound quality and ease of managing all the inputs / outputs

Thanks for any insights before I decide to get rid of my Scarlett audio interface!!

Cheers

Darryl

 

[mjbphotos]

To get the audio out of the computer - how you are monitoring. Otherwise you would be using the Macbook's internal soundcard.

 

[Massive Master]

Most built-in audio I/O are ridiculously bad. If you're doing *everything* ITB, I'd still argue that even only for the monitoring DA would be worth the upgrade.

 

[TalismanRich]

It also depends on the quality of recording that you want to achieve. If vocals are an essential part of your music, you should be using the Scarlett with a higher quality mic than the Blue Snowball. While the Blue will get audio into your computer, you're not going to get "pro" quality from a $50 USB microphone any more than you would get a quality mix by using cheap mulitmedia computer speakers vs a set of real monitors.