Re: Interface recommendations

[Philip Conway <Philip.Conway@bristol.ac.uk>]

I have an Apogee Duet (v1) and recently acquired an RME Babyface.  The Duet 
is easier to use but the Babyface is far superior in terms of features and 
low latency stability.  Of course those are only 2x2 devices but, suffice 
to say, in my experience both Apogee and RME are very good.  There's 
nothing to choose between them sound quality-wise.  The Babyface has ADAT 
so it's easily expandable to have as many inputs as you want.

Have you considered, instead of an audio interface with lots of inputs, 
getting an automated patchbay or mixer combined with an interface with just 
a few inputs?  If you can send all your gear into a hardware mixer, label 
each input and run the outputs to your computer then you'd only need an 
interface with a couple of channels.  You'd only need as many channels as 
you'd need to be using simultaneously and you'd have a nice, tactile 
hardware gizmo to be switching around the audio signals.  If ease of use is 
important then big, clearly labelled sliders and switches are always going 
to be more intuitive than software switching.  Also, that way you could 
concentrate on getting the very best audio quality with a limited number of 
channels rather than getting decent quality with a bunch of channels.  A 
lot of the high-end interfaces only have a couple of channels; quality over 
quantity and all that.

Just a thought!



Philip.

--On 09 October 2012 08:16 +0900 Philip <philip.ojc@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've been researching interfaces and posts on the various forums seem to
> invariably end up with people defending their own expensive purchases
> and/or troll fests.
>
> I know this isn't exactly live-looping, but considering that this is
> probably one of the few places where I can hope to get some solid
> discussion on the topic without things going off the rails, I've decided
> to ask for your thoughts.
>
> My main instrument is guitar. I use an AxeFx2 for my electric and
> acoustic guitars and bass. Apart from that I have a room full of old
> Roland gear Juno60, 808, 909, 303s 202 etc. I don't use any microphones,
> so mic pres aren't really an issue. I like leaving stuff plugged in, so a
> lot of inputs is important. I use Logic on a 2011 iMac.
>
> The interfaces I have been thinking of are MOTU 828mk3, Saffire, or
> something by RME. If I decide to expand, it would be nice to be able to
> daisy chain two units together and use them in my DAW with minimal fuss.
>
> I don't like messing around with things. If I'm playing the guitar or a
> synth and I stumble on something I like, I just want to be able to start
> recording.
>
> AD quality is important, though because a lot of my gear doesn't have any
> way to save presets and the chances of my being able to stumble across my
> original settings in order to re-record it through good gear at a later
> time is probably nill.
>
> Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
>
> Philip