Time for a recording gear/Interface upgrade! Help!

[diocide]

 

Seems like most Mac guys perfer the Apogee Duet. I would spend your money on an interface with 4-6 inputs. You will need them down the road. M-Audio and Tascam are the best bang for your buck.

 

 

I've heard nothing but negative things about both Tascams pre's and their converters.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I have not really used any of the current Tascam interfaces, although I did do a review of their TA-1VP voice processors for Electronic Musician magazine last year, and I found nothing horrible about the converters on that. I can't imagine their interfaces are somehow drastically worse.

[kaybee2]

 

This Presonus might be a good match for you. It's reasonably priced, sounds good, and has a decent amount of inputs and preamps (8 mic / line, plus stereo S/PDIF) - certainly enough to do a decent job miking up a drum kit. Downside is that it lacks any ADAT interface, making future expansion for more channels next to impossible unless they support aggregate interfacing (using more than one of them at a time on a single computer), and even if they do, that can open up a can of worms that I personally would rather avoid if possible. The Mackie Onyx Blackbird is a bit more expensive, but you get those ADAT ports, which means you can add something like a Presonus Digimax 8 channel mic preamp to it and connect them via ADAT for a 16 input interface with 16 mic preamps. Why am I so set on 16 channels? It means enough channels to track the rhythm section as a unit. I can't tell you what a fan I am of that - for several reasons. First of all, it's natural . It's how you're used to playing. Secondly, it's much more musical and interactive - not to mention much more inspiring than trying to track drums while playing with nothing more than a click track. Here's how I'd break the channel count down: K1 (interior RE20 ATM250, etc.) K2 (exterior - LDC or Yamaha Subkick) Snare (side of shell) Tom 1 (typically Audix D series mikes) Tom 2 Tom 3 Overhead L Overhead R Bass - direct Bass - amp Guitar 1 Guitar 2 Keyboard 1 (or left) Keyboard 2 (or right) Scr. Vox. That's 15 channels / tracks. You can use the 16th for a hi hat mic. Or maybe you don't need the keyboards to be tracked live... or only have one guitarist in the band. The point is, 16 channels offers sufficient inputs for everyone, with enough flexibility to handle most basic tracking sessions. AND if something turns out good, you'll be in a good position to transfer it over to the "real" studio if you want, and continue refining it there. With an 8 channel interface, you're limited. Sure, you can get away with 7 mikes on a 5pc kit - kick, snare, three toms and a pair of overheads - but that still leaves you with only one additional input, so at best, you could track a scratch vocal or guitar with the drums at the same time and that's about it unless you cut way back on the drum mikes. And yes, you can get great drums with only four mikes, but that's something that generally takes either a lot of luck, or a very good engineer plus a good drummer who can balance their own kit's various elements, and a great sounding room to record in.

 

 

-----------------------------

sir,

you said...

 

 

The Mackie Onyx Blackbird is a bit more expensive, but you get those ADAT ports, which means you can add something like a Presonus Digimax 8 channel mic preamp to it and connect them via ADAT for a 16 input interface with 16 mic preamps.

 

 

wishing to know, after recording 16 channels

can we pass all 16 mic signals back to these 2 boxes and hear them as 16 sounds?

can i further output these 16 analog outputs

into an analog 16 input mixer for true analog mixdown to L and R ?

 

kindly suggest

 

with thanks

k

[ArrMatey]

I know the presonus is a good option but what about the RME firewire?

 

Also, the apogee stuff is always going to be good converters which makes a huge difference in clarity. Preamps are less important I feel than converters on a portable recording solution. Preamps are just the nice colouring and each of them is first to be tested to know whether you like them or not.

[chrisjnyc]

One of the guys in my band is looking for an interface... I worked up this list;

Tascam - 4 mic inputs for $150 (hard to beat!)
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/tascam-us-600-usb-audio-interface

Akai 4 mic in's for $199 (a bit new, but seems decent)
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/akai-professional-eie-i-o-audio-midi-interface-with-usb-hub

Presonus 4 in's for $299 (jumps up in price, are the pre-amps that much better?)
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/presonus-audiobox-44vsl-usb-2.0-recording-system

[Player99]

What about Neve?

 

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

One of the guys in my band is looking for an interface... I worked up this list; Tascam - 4 mic inputs for $150 (hard to beat!) http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/tascam-us-600-usb-audio-interface Akai 4 mic in's for $199 (a bit new, but seems decent) http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/akai-professional-eie-i-o-audio-midi-interface-with-usb-hub Presonus 4 in's for $299 (jumps up in price, are the pre-amps that much better?) http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/presonus-audiobox-44vsl-usb-2.0-recording-system

 

 

The Akai you mentioned comes in 16 and 24 bit versions - I'd definitely recommend springing the extra $50 for the 24 bit version. It looks nearly identical to the one you posted except it's silver.

 

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/akai-professional-eie-pro-24-bit-audio-midi-interface-with-usb-hub

 

Don't ask me why they only have a pic of its back panel on there. Jon Chappell reviewed both of those fairly recently and seemed to like them.

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

What about Neve?

 

 

I'm a big fan of Neve, but none of those are "audio interfaces." The 8801 is a channel strip, and you can get an optional digital output card for it, but it only has AES and S/PDIF outputs - no Firewire, Thunderbolt or USB. The 1081 is a mic pre / EQ, and the 1073DPA is a dual channel / stereo mic pre.

[Trick Fall]

 

----------------------------- sir, you said... The Mackie Onyx Blackbird is a bit more expensive, but you get those ADAT ports, which means you can add something like a Presonus Digimax 8 channel mic preamp to it and connect them via ADAT for a 16 input interface with 16 mic preamps. wishing to know, after recording 16 channels can we pass all 16 mic signals back to these 2 boxes and hear them as 16 sounds? can i further output these 16 analog outputs into an analog 16 input mixer for true analog mixdown to L and R ? kindly suggest with thanks k

 

 

I don't believe the mackies has eight analog outputs. You would need to have a soundcard that had sixteen analog outputs to do what you want to do. It would probably be easier to find a soundcard that had eight analog outputs and an additional eight digital outputs. You would need to add a digital to analog converter to utilise the digital outputs though.