Mixer or Audio interface?

[spirit523]

My current setup is 2 keyboards with midi and usb out, and laptop running Studio One Pro, M-tron Pro, Halion 4, and a bunch of other free and paid sound fonts, vst's or whatever the proper term is. My question: How to best connect things up. Do I go small mixer? Or given the crappy soundcard in my laptop, is it better to go audio interface. I do not have any need for mic, drum, guitar inputs. I just need a nice neat way of being able to record to the daw with the two keyboards and internal soft instruments at the same time with reasonable sound quality. I also have a pair of M-Audio BX-5 monitors that I need to hook up as well.

Maybe like a 4 input, 2 output? I would hope that I could get something decent for under 200$ either new or used on ebay. I would guess that the nature of the home recording beast is such that folks are always upgrading and selling off old equipment.

Also, a recommendation for a source that would show a simple hookup of these components. Maybe in block diagram form?

I think the term newbee was invented with me in mind.

Thanks

 

[Steenamaroo]

Hi there,

If I understand correctly, you want to record midi data only, and then use software to create sounds?

If this is the case then you don't need a mixer or an audio interface, as both of these handle analog audio input. (Line level, instrument level, or microphone level.)

If any of your keyboards use the traditional midi connector, then you need a simple midi interface.

If they are all usb, then you shouldn't need anything.

When you say 4 input-2 output, that'd suggest that you are recording four keyboards simultaneously.
If you plan to use one keyboard at a time, then you really only need one midi input.

With regard to your monitors, ideally you'd have a reasonable quality audio interface to plug them into, but if that's literally all it's going to be used for, I don't know that I'd bother.

What we need to know is this.
Are all your inputs definitely going to be midi, what kind of connection are you dealing with, and how many do you need simultaneously?

 

[Shadowamd]

I would stay away from the Mixer route at the start, there is no benefit to a cheap mixer. Just get used to techniques like compression / EQ / delay's etc. first. I had a Behringer mixer which came in handy for some live stuff but no use for the studio, I recently replaced my Metric halo with an A&H GSR24 to use in the studio.

 

[mjbphotos]

If you want to use both keyboards for creating sound at the same time (driven by MIDI files in your DAW) then both are going to need to connect via standard MIDI input/output cables and you will need an interface capable of MIDI-to-digital (USB or Firewire) conversion.