Upgrading to a Mac Pro - what soundcard?

  • Thread starter Thread starter espskully
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espskully

espskully

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I want to be able to record a live band so I need 8 to 10 ins. It also needs to fit into the new Macs (PCI Express slots). I was looking at the MOTU Ultralite.

Any suggestions from you guys?
 
I'd go with a FireWire interface, personally. What is your budget? There are a ton of great firewire interfaces with your requirements out there.

Do you need 8 mic pre-amp'ed ins? What gear do you have already - do you have a mixer?

I'll offer a suggestion, but it could (and probably will) change with your budget/requirements.

Check out the PreSonus FirePod. It's a 10in/10out firewire interface with 8 mic pre's - pretty nice sounding pre's at that. The mic pre's double as line-ins, and 2 of them are instrument ins. It's got 8 line-outs. The other inputs/outputs are spdif, so you could connect a nigher quality spdif pre-amp for 2 more in/out options. You can also daisy-chain firepods together, doubling or tripling your inputs/outputs. They are $499 new - cheaper on the used market.

Now, if you've got more money, there are better and much more expensive options - but the FirePod is an awesome bang-for-the-buck interface. I've had it for over a year with 0 problems at all - it is solid as a rock.

Good luck!
 
About $500 to $600. I want firewire for sure. Mic pre's would be nice. I have a mixer - Mackie 1202.

The FirePod sounds good...
 
I'm a big fan of MOTU. I have the 828mkII. The CueMix console is a great feature. You might want to check out the new 8Pre FW interface. It's in your price range. It's limited on Analog Outputs (Main L&R, Headphone) but in addition to the 8 mic/line/instrument INs also has two banks of ADAT I/O, so you can run ADAT at 88.2/96kHz, oh boy!

Here's a link to all the MOTU FW/USB2 products

http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/
 
espskully said:
About $500 to $600. I want firewire for sure. Mic pre's would be nice. I have a mixer - Mackie 1202.

The FirePod sounds good...
Click to expand...

With your mackie, you could save some money and get an interface that does 8-10 ins but not a lot of mic pre's. M-Audio makes a few interfaces like this - as well as tons of others.

On the other hand, if you have the FirePod, you really don't need a mixer - you can do all your mixing in your software. Having one box to do everything is nice.
 
BJW said:
With your mackie, you could save some money and get an interface that does 8-10 ins but not a lot of mic pre's. M-Audio makes a few interfaces like this - as well as tons of others.

On the other hand, if you have the FirePod, you really don't need a mixer - you can do all your mixing in your software. Having one box to do everything is nice.
Click to expand...


Would I still need a headphone amp?
 
espskully said:
Would I still need a headphone amp?
Click to expand...

Depends. The FirePod has a headphone out - right on the front of the unit. It's also got a nice "blend" knob on the front that will mix your playback and your monitor signals - very handy if you want to hear more of what you're recording or more of the mix - no need to change anything in your program, just change it with the "blend" knob.

If you want more than 1 headphone out (like say 4), you'll need a headphone amp, but the presonus has a headphone out.

Here is the product page - all the info you could ever want, plus you can download a pdf of the manual.
 
I have a couple of 828s (fw into my G5) and they are great.

How many headphones do you want to run ? More than 1 yes you will need a headphone amp. They can be had cheap.

I used to use the pres on my Peavey desk with a 828 run in to the line ins on the back of the 828 using insert cables.

Another nice thing about the 828s is that they have a bunch of digital input options (ADAT / S/PDIF).
 
I also would highly recommend the MOTU 828mkII. you just can't beat it.
 
I just need the 1 headphone jack - so that's cool. So I can get rid of my mixer. Cool! I like mixing inside Logic.
 
So it looks like the 8pre and the Firepod are about the same price. I can't find much on the 8pre, but at Harmony Central the reviews of the Firepod are really mixed. Some guys have had a lot of trouble with them (red light of doom, cracking and popping, overheating, just dying).

The 8pre has only 2 outs whereas the FP has 8. I can't think of why I would need 8 outs - what are they for? Will I be limiting myself by only having 2 outs?

I can't decide between these 2. What do you guys think?

http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/8pre/

http://www.presonus.com/firepod.html
 
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