How much of a difference will upgrading an audio interface make?

S

seaningtime

New member
Question is in the title.

I currently have an M-audio fast track, thinking of getting a scarlett 4i4 or Axe i/o, would this upgrade make much of a difference?
 
I'm a sceptic. Until you move to interfaces that deliberately change the audio passing through, my opinion is that any differences might be revealed with serious testing and measurement, but I cannot hear ANY differences between the various interfaces and mixers I own. The noise performance on low output microphones IS important, however, and I can detect better performance on some of mine, but given a decent input signal, they're all as near to identical I would fail a blind test. Others have a very different opinion, and they're equally convinced X is better than Y and are amazed I cannot hear it. Some will even slag off certain popular units.

In all the years we've discussed this, we've had people posting their mixes for others to comment on. I've never heard one where anyone has said it's great but you need a better interface - ever!
 
Give a listen for yourself.

Sweetwater interface comparison under $500

I would skip the voice and acoustic guitars and go to the piano and electric guitar samples since the performances are essentially "identical", (DisKlavier piano and reamped guitar). The voice and acoustic are the same person doing the performance, but that brings along tiny variations that you might think are from the interface but are due to slight changes from the performer.

I heard minimal differences (using the downloaded files). Certainly using the AIR button on the Scarlett made a difference, but that's an EQ bump. It should do that!
 
Only in function, not so much it sound. Different mics and to a lesser degree pre amps will have a bigger impact.
 
If these are indeed the interfaces described. then as Track Rat says - it's the ins, outs, formats and gadgets that matter - because I'd happily record with any of them. None stood out as good, bad or anything, and on the piano, for example with exactly the same source material - I could not tell the difference, at all!
 
It does make a difference. Sound quality can most definitely be increased at the audio interface. However, there would need to be a significant jump in the quality of the AD/DA conversion and/or the mic preamps before you would likely notice an audible difference. I went from an old USB Focusrite interface to an Apogee Duet for my mobile setup, and definitely noticed. The higher the signal to noise ratio the better. In many cases, you might not notice a difference in source recordings. However, it becomes more apparent as you start processing these sounds and amplifying the noise as you add plugins and effects.
 
So can you hear the difference in those tracks, and could you produce a 1 to 10 based on sound? Suely that is the thing. Has anyone got a side by side recording of an average interface compared to the magical ones, or do we need to read the spec sheet, form the opinion, then listen and discover we were right?
 
seaningtime said:
Question is in the title.

I currently have an M-audio fast track, thinking of getting a scarlett 4i4 or Axe i/o, would this upgrade make much of a difference?
Click to expand...
Well, you've left out the critical "who/what/where/when/how" parts, as in all the pieces that go in front of the little holes in the interface where the electronic signal enters. Are you in a great recording space, recording a good vocalist with a good mic, or plugging an electric guitar in directly? Etc., i.e., what are you doing with the interface?,

In general, the interface is the very, very last thing you need to worry about these days, especially in a home recording environment. The likelihood you have an environmental noise floor low enough that a current/modern interface, properly gain-staged with good quality inputs, recording in 24-bits, would introduce more noise than you're going to pick up in the room (or from your electric guitar!) is verging on myth, IMHO.
 
You buy an interface for its features. Not for its conversion quality. I remember a thread on Gearspace where a guy compared a Behringer to an Aurora and people overwhelmingly chose the Behringer. When the reveal happened, they lost their shit.
 
This ^^^

I have a couple of Firepods that I've been using since like forever. Both are becoming unreliable now, an so I have had to find a backup.

I searched and compared lots of interfaces, but I couldn't find any that had the same level of functionality that the Firepods have, i.e.
* all combo input sockets on the front and grouped together on one side
* all gain controls control on the other side
* physical mix control knob
* separate headphone and master volume knobs
* eight TRS outputs on the back, as well as control room out and another main out
* inserts on channels 1 and 2

While many interfaces had some or other of these features, none had all. The closest I could get was the Behringer UMC 1820. That's what I am now using, and I cannot discern any difference in audio quality between it and the firepod.
 
keith.rogers said:
Well, you've left out the critical "who/what/where/when/how" parts, as in all the pieces that go in front of the little holes in the interface where the electronic signal enters. Are you in a great recording space, recording a good vocalist with a good mic, or plugging an electric guitar in directly? Etc., i.e., what are you doing with the interface?,

In general, the interface is the very, very last thing you need to worry about these days, especially in a home recording environment. The likelihood you have an environmental noise floor low enough that a current/modern interface, properly gain-staged with good quality inputs, recording in 24-bits, would introduce more noise than you're going to pick up in the room (or from your electric guitar!) is verging on myth, IMHO.
Click to expand...

I am mainly using this in a live setting; guitar and vocals -> interface -> DAW -> interface -> PA

I'll probably do some recording, but mainly I'm trying to replace my guitar and vocal pedals with my laptop.

Have another question for you guys: It seems like sound quality is not so much of an issue with an interface, but how about latency?
Would a more expensive unit reduce latency? Or is the bottleneck mainly the CPU?
(I am using ASIO drivers)

Thanks
 
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The computer and the plug-ins you are using cause the latency. If you are mostly doing time based effects (delay, reverb, chorus, etc...) you can use the zero latency feature on the interface for the dry signal and set the plug-ins to 100% wet in the daw and mix to taste.
If you are using things like eq and compression, there is no way around the latency they cause.
 
I am with Rob and a the majority on this. We, son and I have used several interfaces over the last ten years, An M-A 2496 card, M-A Fast track Pro, Behringer BCA 2000, ESI 1010e and jumped between them on two computers. Never have we detected any sound quality differences,Shoot! Even the dirt cheap Behringer UCA202 has transparent audio playback. (though it has limited recording headroom)

In theory, a top end AI with very low distortion, jitter and noise will give better sound and stereo imaging but you would need to spend $6k or so on monitors and much the same again on the room to hear the tiny improvement...if then IMHO.

Latency is another fish. The interface CAN be part of the problem but most often it is the drivers supplied with the AI that set the lowest latency. Companies such as RME are famous for very stable, very low latency drivers.

There is a new range of F'rites, the Claret+ and all come with future proofing ADAT ports. Worth a look?

Dave.
 
It's funny how the ADAT light pipe carried on long after the machines died a death.

The title of this topic always made me think of Douglas Adams.

How much of a difference will upgrading an audio interface make?​

I think it's the same basic idea as this ......

“Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?” “How much?” said Arthur. “None at all,” said Mr. Prosser,”​

 
The big thing would be reliability. When you're buying the expensive stuff, there might be a slight difference that you might hear, but the expensive stuff lasts. At least it better. Build quality is better. And always buy new. I'm still getting over violating my own rules when I bought a used interface on Ebay. Every time, something is either wrong out of the box or goes wrong soon after receiving the equipment
 
There was a massive difference when I went from the line 6 UX1 to an apogee duet II, now I am using a focusrite 18i20 purely because I get more ins/outs the sound is not as crisp and the pre-amps suck balls compared to the apogee duet II (although they are perfectly useable!) but those minor drawbacks pale in comparison to the fact that now I have more inputs, 2 sets of monitors, a crappy mono speaker, a headphone amp, re-amping circuits all permanently wired in.

I don't care too much about that audio fidelity, it's only you who "may" notice the difference anyway, and it matters no more than half a percent of an entire mix and for only when you are listening on your system only. Heck... i bounce down mp3's for tests on different playback systems. I don't care one bit about fidelity. As long as a mix translates is literally the only thing I care about. 24bit/48khz is all I ever record at.

I do wish the 18i20 that I am currently using had the same powerful clean pre-amps that the apogee duet II had though. But I have a feeling if it did then the unit would cost over 2grand easily. I have a couple of cloudlifters so I never do run into issues but it would be nice if I didn't have to use them. Upon saying that, I'm not even sure I would need those clean powerful pres anymore, my opinions have changed since back then. I am striving for warm/thick recordings pretty much every time now. But I remember back then I was so happy that I had an interface that would finally run just an sm57 without having to turn the gain up to max and bringing in a lot of terrible noise. So I was very easily impressed, and in part a lot of that (massive jump in sound quality) statement I made earlier may have partly been an illusion. But I am fairly certain that there was an actual increase in fidelity. For all I know if could have literally just been a better speaker lineout signal though, and not the actual ad/da conversion. I felt like I was noticing more details of the mix. (I think, lol)
 
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Warm and thick are exactly why I think we're not talking about preamp performance but audio treatment. I've no issue with wanting to do this, but I just want clean gain from a preamp. I don't like the idea at all of altering the sound because that's an effect and I have in one hand the desire for sonic transparency and in the other, maybe, something to dirty that transparency up a bit. Maybe before I die, I will have the acoustics, the room, and the speakers. My mic collection does everything I need in tonal choice, my speakers are a constant and have been for years, so I know what I'm hearing. My speakers could be technically better and different sounding, and one day I may have to buy some new ones - but until then, they are a constant I can judge by. I've never had to turn up the gain on a 57 to anywhere near max. I'd suggest if you are recording spiders farting and need that kind of gain, maybe a mic swap would be more sensible?
 
I don't need to turn up the 57 to max anymore, that was when I was using that old crappy Line6UX1 and even the UX2. Even on max I think I used to hit peaks of like -35dbfs lol. with a noise floor that was louder almost than my actual recording.

But if I am relying on the 18i20 preamps only, the pre-amp gain does need to be near max if recording clean straight in, that is If recording an acoustic picked guitar lead section which is common for me.
If I'm strumming and the mic is within a few inches I can get away with half gain. Thing is, with that DuetII you can shove a 57 in the hallway and use it as an ambient mic. its night and day, and I would much rather use the 57 than a different mic that requires less gain, because I can place the 57 exactly where I want it, and the 57 handles close miking better than all of my other mics.

I have had more success with the 57 than with my other 10 or so mics, it's the cheapest I own too. I'm putting it down to the fact it's dynamic and saturates by itself hence not so clean, doesn't have spiky transient response, has rolloff below 200hz making it perfect for close miking for up front and direct sound, and is fairly directional.

But I get what you mean, I'm talking about treating the signal on the way in, and not the AD/DA conversion quality.

Choosing a diffferent mic for transformer saturation is not so different to choosing an external pre to treat a signal on the way in, in my opinion. Recording with clean pre-amps is safest, but if you know you are going to be saturating the signal in the box for thickness and to take away that spiky quality then it's better to use real transformer saturation on the way in, than to use inferior ITB emulations.

I've learned that I need to record thick/warm otherwise my source recording sounds like a tinny harsh mess when I pull the low end out with a digital EQ (fabfilterq2), and notes played lower down the guitar sound too thick, while notes played up higher sound too harsh, and I need to compress it more. This is what makes saturation/analogue styled EQ's critical for me if I record clean straight in. I'm not trying to emulate analogue because I'm some kind of stoneage weedsmoking hippie, I am doing whatever I can to make the track easier to fit in the mix.

Have you not noticed that if you get a pro recorded track that you can almost pull it in any direction with aggressive digital EQ and it still sounds pretty decent? Try doing the same with a clean spiky digital recording! It kind of rips your ears to shreds. . .
 
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