Members arexjay Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Anyone have any experience with computer recording using USB audio interfaces? Anyone have an recommendations? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kestral Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Yeah, they're gay. USB is not enough bandwidth. Get a PCI or Firewire-based solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members arexjay Posted August 11, 2005 Author Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Like what? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kestral Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Depends, what features do you need, what's your budget, what software are you going to run? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members arexjay Posted August 11, 2005 Author Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 I use Audacity (or I will use), I'd like to spend around $300 or less, and I just need to be able to record guitar and vocal tracks down to the computer so I can work with them on Audacity. Would it be smarter to just get a digital 8-track or something and use that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kestral Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Can you even get a digital 8-track for $300?Some suggestions: M-Audio Audiophile Firewire, M-Audio 2496Those are good because they're cheap, they work well and if at some point you want to run Pro Tools software you can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members arexjay Posted August 11, 2005 Author Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Yeah, the Tascam DP-01 is on sale at MF for $299.What you said about the Firewire ones makes sense though. It'll probably last me longer than a USB one, especially if I want better quality later on, or use higher quiality software. Thanks for all the help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members arexjay Posted August 11, 2005 Author Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Okay wait a minute, I think I need some clarification on the whole computer recording process.My understanding is that:A digital 8-track (or any 4+ track recorder, for that matter) will record tracks within itself. With some, I can then export via USB to a computer, and from there to software to work with the tracks.USB or Firewire Audio Interfaces will allow me to record tracks through itself and onto the computer? Will it let me record within editing software like Audacity? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JuanPabloJr. Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Originally posted by Kestral Can you even get a digital 8-track for $300? Some suggestions: M-Audio Audiophile Firewire, M-Audio 2496 Those are good because they're cheap, they work well and if at some point you want to run Pro Tools software you can. sorry to butt in... But if you use the Audiophile, will you need to connect a mixer if you want to record several tracks at once? Don't the preamps built into mixers usually suck? What's the best way to do this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JuanPabloJr. Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 kestral?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jazzbo Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 USB is fine if it is USB 2.0 but not if 1.1. 2.0 is fast as firewire. Look at an Edirol interface or maybe M-Audio.My 2496 is great for audio but I never got it to work right with MIDI.I would probably get an Edirol UA-25 interface if I was going to do it all over agin.Edit: or a UA-20 for cheaper. Make sure whatever you get has ASIO drivers for low latency. Even a PCI card needs that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JuanPabloJr. Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 how's the lexicon omega? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jazzbo Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Originally posted by JuanPabloJr. sorry to butt in... But if you use the Audiophile, will you need to connect a mixer if you want to record several tracks at once? Using a mixer you can mix several channels down to 2 tracks.Audiophile 2496 will record 2 tracks of analog and two tracks of digital all at once. So if you have the right equipment 4 tracks at once, if you have an A/D converter for the 2 digi tracks. If you want real multitracking to capture a live band you want the next better card up, I think a Delta 1010, for instance.That will capture 10 live tracks independently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Teahead Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 I use a Tascam US122 with my laptop and Cubase software, mainly to record pedals and the odd rehearsal. It's not expensive and works fine for what I'm doing with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrblackbat Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Originally posted by jazzbo USB is fine if it is USB 2.0 but not if 1.1. 2.0 is fast as firewire. Look at an Edirol interface or maybe M-Audio. My 2496 is great for audio but I never got it to work right with MIDI. I would probably get an Edirol UA-25 interface if I was going to do it all over agin. Edit: or a UA-20 for cheaper. Make sure whatever you get has ASIO drivers for low latency. Even a PCI card needs that. I agree with USB2.0 being more than fine.The only USB 2.0 interfaces around last time I looked were the UA1000 (I have this and it's extremeley good) and the newer UA101. Both are 10/10 interfaces, at 96kHz, though the UA101 can run at 192kHz if you lose four channels. The 1000 has four mic pre-amps though which is very handy.Orginally I had an M-Audio Omnistudio USB (4x4 at 16bit 48kHz, and had a few problems with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeztastic Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 USB 1.1 is fine if you only need a couple of inputs. I have an M-Audio Duo. 2 inputs, 2 outputs, no problems. If you are just recording 1 or 2 things at a time, it's fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Teahead Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Originally posted by Jeztastic USB 1.1 is fine if you only need a couple of inputs. I have an M-Audio Duo. 2 inputs, 2 outputs, no problems. If you are just recording 1 or 2 things at a time, it's fine. Regarding this... my Tascam only has two inputs, well it has six actually, but you are restricted to using two input sources at once. To get around this we use a four track or two as mixers to get drums, guitars & vocals down to two tracks and record live practices. It's not pretty, but it works and costs very little. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrblackbat Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Originally posted by Jeztastic USB 1.1 is fine if you only need a couple of inputs. I have an M-Audio Duo. 2 inputs, 2 outputs, no problems. If you are just recording 1 or 2 things at a time, it's fine. It's not just recording though, it' if you want to do any mixing etc, using any external processing.Personally I thinks it's best to get the most flexibility you can. For instance I got my interface so I could record drums, but since then we've started using synths and programming in the live set - with this I can create different click track mixes for each band member and have those on seperate outputs to the main foh mix. I'd never have even been able to consider this with the old 1.1 card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StompboxMan Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 M-Audio make several kinds of USB and PCI audio interfaces. www.midiman.comI use a midiman midisport 2x2 to USB from an old Opcode Studio3 midi interface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Teahead Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Originally posted by StompboxMan M-Audio make several kinds of USB and PCI audio interfaces. www.midiman.comI use a midiman midisport 2x2 to USB from an old Opcode Studio3 midi interface. Please, post some clips!Man, if anyone has a collection worth hearing, it's you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GCDEF Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Originally posted by arexjay Yeah, the Tascam DP-01 is on sale at MF for $299. What you said about the Firewire ones makes sense though. It'll probably last me longer than a USB one, especially if I want better quality later on, or use higher quiality software. Thanks for all the help. I answered in the recording thread. I got the DP-01FX and it is mind-numbingly easy to use and sounds great. I found the learning curve on the USB DAW and Cubase software to require more effort than I really wanted to spend. I guess you can do more with it, but the DP-01 is a great unit for basic multi-track recording. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lanefair Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Originally posted by jazzbo That will capture 10 live tracks independently. Just for info, the 10/10 card lets you capture 8 audio tracks, one midi track (or however many channels you can get through a cable, i'm not sure) and one SPDIF.And it comes with a software mixer that kicks ass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members HMCMedic Posted August 11, 2005 Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 I got one of these:http://www.zzounds.com/item--MDOMOBILEPRE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members arexjay Posted August 11, 2005 Author Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Originally posted by GCDEF I answered in the recording thread. I got the DP-01FX and it is mind-numbingly easy to use and sounds great. I found the learning curve on the USB DAW and Cubase software to require more effort than I really wanted to spend. I guess you can do more with it, but the DP-01 is a great unit for basic multi-track recording. And I'm under the impression that I can get WAV files from there to the computer to tweak them on Audacity. Is this correct? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members arexjay Posted August 11, 2005 Author Members Share Posted August 11, 2005 Originally posted by HMCMedic I got one of these: http://www.zzounds.com/item--MDOMOBILEPRE How do you like it?!?!That's the exact USB interface I was going to get, especially because it has the built in pre-amp. Any clips? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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