Re: WHAT SORTS OF FIREWIRE INTEFACES ARE PEOPLE USING THESE DAYS?

[tEd ® KiLLiAn <tedkillian@charter.net>]

Bill,

I was doing sort of a "scientific" A/B test with the MOTU on Saturday  
morning.

I played my Gibson and VG99 combination into the MOTU and listened  
through external monitors.

I did my best to get the sound levels all adjusted and dialed in so it  
sounded good - then played and listened.

After that, I simply plugged the VG99 into the same monitor speakers  
themselves and adjusted them to similar volume levels and played and  
listened.

The difference was quite palpable.

It was like the difference between being at a live gig and listening  
to an MP3 recording of one.

All the subtle details were gone and a lot of the dynamics.

In fact the straight VG sounded so much better that I was inspired to  
play it the entire rest of the day (about 5 hours) and completely lost  
track of time until dinnertime.

That hasn't happened in months and months.

Now I might get a different result if I used the 2 main "preamped"  
inputs of the MOTU - I will have to try that out.

As it was I was only using a pair of the regular line-level inputs on  
the back.

But even if it does sound better to me on those inputs it will nag me  
to no end that I am not getting as good of sound on the others if I  
happen to use them (as I had planned).

Any advice would be helpful Bill.

Cheers,

Ted

On Dec 12, 2010, at 11:30 PM, William Walker wrote:

> Hey Ted I'm curious are you running directly in to the MOTU and  
> using amp sims and effects plug ins? or are you going stereo direct  
> and using hardware effects and or amp simulators?
> Before I would even recommend interfaces I'm curious why it sounds  
> so lame to you and wonder if you would elaborate  in more specific  
> detail.   Are you clipping your inputs, do you have anything acting  
> as a buffer between your guitar and the interface, are  using any  
> compression to smooth your transients?  does it sound harsh and or  
> sterile? Even a higher end interface with better converters like the  
> Apogee stuff can sound brittle if you are hitting it too hard. I've  
> used a MOTU 2408 for several years now and its worked fine.  I've  
> never been bothered by its sound or latency.
> Bill