M-Audio Octane - anyone tried one?

  • Thread starter Thread starter kid klash
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kid klash

kid klash

The original Mr. Nice Guy
If you've tried one, what did you think of it?
 
I refuse to publicly admit that I bought one but still haven't had the time to really check it out. :eek:


Oh, whoops. :o
 
I've used them before, I like them. They have a fairly good sound. I've just been doing live recording for it though so quality has not been as formost an issue for it but so far, I really dig them and think they are fairly rockin for the price.
 
I ordered one Monday... should arrive today. It'll be interesting to find out how much headroom it has, and how clean it is. I'm also looking forward to trying out the M-S micing feature built into channels 7 & 8.

The December issue of "Electronic Musician" has a review of it too, by the way.
 
Any of you guys give this thing a try, yet? I'm thinking about it as a possiblity for expanding my Tascam FW-1884, and there doesn't seem to be very many reviews online. I don't want to have spend a fortune on a 8ch pre, but if this thing is a POS, I'll definitely spend a little more...

Anyone have any other suggestions for an 8ch ADAT pre?

Thanks,

Rick
 
M- Audio Octane VS Studio Projects SP828

Piggybacking on the same question.....

I have around $600 to spend for a pre suitable for decent home recording applications. Right now I track into my Yamaha AW16G, export tracks and do all my mixing in a PC environment. I really like the Yamaha, but the pre's are not very good.

The M-Audio Octane and Studio Projects SP828 both have 8 channels for about $600.

Does anyone have experience with either or both of these units? If yes, I would appreciate your opinions or any other advice.

Thanks,

Bart
 
I LIKE it!!!

I've had my Octane for a week or two now, and I've used it to track a drum kit. I'm impressed... VERY clean and neutral-sounding (very little coloration, if any). Plenty of headroom too. I love the simplicity of doing an M-S stereo recording (overheads in this case) with the built-in matrix on channels 7 and 8...

I tracked a '69 Precision (passive) through the instrument preamp too on channel 2, and it also sounded very clean and natural.

The lightpipe link worked perfectly... no fiddling required, and it's a whole lot more convenient (and cleaner looking and sounding) than running eight separate analog patch cords.

The A/D converters sound excellent too... just for giggles, I ran the output of my DB-60 digital metronome into the A/D input of channel 1 to "stripe" a click track onto the project, and it worked flawlessly.

I'm very pleased with this preamp, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a great-sounding "8-pack" of mic preamps with two separate instrument inputs, M-S stereo mic'ing matrix, eight great-sounding A/D converters, phantom voltage, phase reverse, pads and other features, with analog and firewire/lightpipe outputs.
 
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Hey Kid... Thanks for the info. I think I'll definitely be looking into this in the next month or so. I have a big recording project coming up and it'd be nice to have the additional 8 inputs to play with.

Rick
 
I too just got one. It was impressive indeed. Very clean sound, the instrument inputs brought out additional life from my DI guitar tracks. Very low noise even at max gain. Haven't tried the MS feature since I don't have a figure8 mic yet. The thing looks and feels solid with quality switches and pots/knobs. My only gripe was that the max gain isn't all that much. I had to really crank the pre's on a couple lower output dynamics I tried to get a healthy signal. I could see a problem running ribbon mics through this pre on a quiet source. At least there's no noise at the max gain setting. I would recommend it.
 
reshp1 said:
I too just got one. It was impressive indeed. Very clean sound, the instrument inputs brought out additional life from my DI guitar tracks. Very low noise even at max gain. Haven't tried the MS feature since I don't have a figure8 mic yet. The thing looks and feels solid with quality switches and pots/knobs. My only gripe was that the max gain isn't all that much. I had to really crank the pre's on a couple lower output dynamics I tried to get a healthy signal. I could see a problem running ribbon mics through this pre on a quiet source. At least there's no noise at the max gain setting. I would recommend it.
Click to expand...

Congrats! I've been using an SP B3 in the figure 8 mode for the M-S mic'ing, and for only $159 (including shipping and a shock mount from Humbucker), I'm really knocked out by the sound quality of this mic. I've recorded several low volume guitars/amps with a Sennheiser e609 silver through the Octane also, and haven't run into ANY preamp noise issues.
 
I wonder what the differences are in the preamp chips between the Octane, Tampa and DMP3?

Terry
 
tkingen said:
I wonder what the differences are in the preamp chips between the Octane, Tampa and DMP3?

Terry
Click to expand...

Good question. I was going to buy a few more DMP3's (GC had them for $100 a few weeks ago), but the feature set of the Octane was pretty dazzling, and the price was right ($549 at GC with my ASCAP discount), so I ordered one and haven't looked back since.
 
kid klash

what do you use as a sound card?

and since you ahve the octane now, whats your setup for drums?
 
gitrokr said:
kid klash

what do you use as a sound card?

and since you have the octane now, whats your setup for drums?
Click to expand...

The Octane goes via lightpipe into one of several ADATs.

For drums :
Kick - AKG D-112
Snare - Shure SM-57
Overheads - Studio Projects B1 and B3 in an M-S configuration

I used to mic the toms with Sennheiser MD-421's, and the hat and overheads with Shure SM-81's, but with the B1 and B3 in the M-S configuration, I don't feel the need for so many mics. It's simpler to set up and I have less phase issues to deal with. ;)
 
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