Hey guys,
It's been a while since I bought a soundcard and am looking a new one. Any suggestions that have decent quality for a relatively good price. Just something small I don't need many inputs.
Industrial Music forum » Music tech forum
On the market for a new soundcard
(25 posts)-
Posted 1 year ago #
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apogee duet
Posted 1 year ago # -
Not a bad recommendation there but apogee only works for Mac.
Posted 1 year ago # -
didn't know it was mac only
can't think of anything with decent converters but limited ins/outs
RME has some really nice options, great converters
personally i'm using an allen & heath ZED14 analog mixer/usb interface and i really like it... kinda wish i went with RME now though because silent way can be used easily with their interface
Posted 1 year ago # -
Yeah all of Apogee's line is Mac only, same with Metric Halo's gear. Was thinking about the apogee ensemble myself but I'm leaning towards RME if I can put the cash together.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Randy Roze
offlineMemberI bet you could get a Creative Labs SB16 for 10 dolla on ebay.
Isn't outboard gear going to provide better quality in bit rate and latency?
Posted 1 year ago # -
Divider - why not tell us some basic specs of your computer and what soundcard you currently have?
Posted 1 year ago # -
marsofcrowdkontrol
offlineMemberWell right now for my mobile rig I use a Focusrite. It has 6 inputs but includes 2 top notch preamp inputs that were highly recommended. Runs around $300 I think. I have had no issues so far and I use a PC Windows 7.
Posted 1 year ago # -
@M4RC
No. I'm ashamed of what I got. I've got some good ideas for what I want but I was just curious as to what the local bad-asses are using. ;)
Posted 1 year ago # -
i'm with mars0f... just bought focusrite saffire pro 14, it is great, wished i could afford pro 24 with dsp, but fuckit... it really does have great preamps for the money
just don't go presonus, in the recent time they started behringering, i've came to see so many of their fw cards with bricked firmware recently....really don't go there it is a ticking bombPosted 1 year ago # -
using saffire pro 40 and it works pretty good so far!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Randy Roze
offlineMemberFocusrite looks a lot more affordable than RME. Is there anything particularly interesting about the Focusrite? Did you buy it because of the pre-bundled software(Ableton)? What about the firewire interface? I guess it also has integrated MIDI, which my interface does not. Cute
Posted 1 year ago # -
Focusrite isn't bad, but if you don't need a lot of analog ins and outs for connecting external synths then I highly recommend the TC Electronic Twin Impact. The overall consensus is that it sounds much better than the Focusrite units.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Yeah I was wondering if I should buy the TC card or the Focusrite one. But since I do kinda need inputs so that I can record simultanously couple of instruments I decided to go with the Focusrite. Then again the TC one is rather small therefore it's less hassle to play live with it. RME was out of my budget
I like the mixer in Focusrite althought I had to work on it a bit to understand actually how it works and what's it for. The plugins I'm not using that much. Firewire works fine.
Posted 1 year ago # -
focusrite's software is very similar to what i've seen on rme ff800, firewire is great, you don't need drivers for it on mac, and windows 7 is also happy to work with it.
tc electro, i don't know i pondered buying secondhand, but was worried with future compatibility
another option, cheap and lots of analog ins is presonus studio mobile, it was my first option, but after some research i found that these machines have a nasty tendency to warble their own firmware for completely random reasons, after which you are thoroughly fucked, since you have to send the whole unit for repair or use it as a paperweight
of course, you can look for MOTU gear, some don't like them, but i heard a lot of good things about them
i think you get ableton live lite with almost any external (or even internal) interface, few years back, i got it with m-audioPosted 1 year ago # -
yeah ableton live lite is almost standard now.
i was also debating over m-audio profire 2626 but my previous card was fireiwire 410 by m-audio and it cost me ALOT of nerves...Posted 1 year ago # -
I hear nothing but complaints about the latest genration (MKIII) Motu Units. We've had a MOTU fuck up on us live twice in less than one year. In my opinion they're to be avoided.
Posted 1 year ago # -
agree to Marc...MOTUs imho sound decent but have problems with stability, longliveness and drivers (under Windows)....
if you want something decent, cheap and small ever took a look at NI's Audio Kontrol 1 ?
Posted 1 year ago # -
@YADE friend has their interface (i think it is that audio 6 one), he told me there is some sound cracking involved, minor problem for live djing for which he uses it, but not good enough for recording
Posted 1 year ago # -
@dogmeat: we use our Audio DJ8 with Ableton for live performances...works easily :-)...
103Db S/N Ratio...this is more than a lot of the sam price audio interfaces offer...
and it afaik has a machanism to stabilize the power flow so you won't hear any harddisk noise :-)
and just for the records...the Audio Kontrol 1 is the "Studio" interface from NI where the Audio DJ line is their DJ based line, offering only cinch I/O instead of TRS...
if you have crackles he should check the following:
latency..imho a latency of 12ms is no problem....with my MBP I use 12ms for live performances where I mix hardware synth signals and playback, for DJing I put it up to 30ms
cabling....the Audio DJ series does not offer TRS(Jack) plugs...the Audio Kontrol is studio related and does..depending on what he tries to record with the audio DJ he maybe needs to convert the signals or run it with a mixer...
Posted 1 year ago #
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