What interface am I looking for? (Limited inputs, great pre's)

[steve1973]

Hi guys,

I am migrating to Pro Tools from an old version of Cubase. I currently have an Audiophile 2496 with a Mackie board as a preamp/interface. I primarily record guitar and voice with a bit of midi so I don't need a lot of inputs. The quality of the mic preamps is the biggest thing for me. I don't really need to keep my 2496, I would actually like to upgrade that as well.

For a budget of $500-$800, what would be the best interface for either LE or M-Powered? I have been looking at either the Mbox 2 with a decent preamp out front or maybe a used Profire 2626 if I go the Mpowered route. Thanks for any help!!

 

[pezking]

Personally, I'd buy a nice preamp and Pro Tools M-Powered and use the Audiophile 2496.

You could even use a Mic Pre with an SPDIF converter if you wanted to bypass the 2496 converters (not that I have a problem with the converters).

I've got the 2496 and am going to set up an M-Powered system to have in addition to my LE system; probably to use as more of a mixdown system/music writing system.

 

[steve1973]

Thanks Pez, that's the way I think I was leaning already. I hadn't thought of the SPDIF thing though so I am going to look into that. You have any good recommendations on that? I guess it doesn't have to be M Audio as the 2496 will be the direct interface with M Powered.

 

[NeveSSL]

Here is my plan for myself as well as my opinion:

In my opinion, the three most important pieces of gear are your mics, pres, and conversion. I would personally recommend getting the LightBridge and a DigiMax FS8. You can get both used for around $800 or maybe even less.

Reason being you can do 8-in and 8-out of 96k/24-bit audio simultaneously and if you need more channels for some reason, get another FS8 and you're good to go.

Then, should you choose to upgrade even further, pick up a used Apogee AD-16 (not the newest one, the AD-16X... its 3x the price) used on eBay for around $1000 and you will have 16 channels of GREAT conversion (these units were around $3k when they came out I believe).

If you're wanting good pres, you're going to have to look somewhere other than your interface. I believe just about all of the mic pres in all of the basic, home interfaces are going to be pretty close to the same. Most of them I would believe are going to be pretty good, but non of them will be great. They may work fine for your uses, though. Just depends on what you want!

Just some thoughts. Hope they help!

Brandon