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TC Electronic makes a two channel interface called the Desktop Konnekt 6, it has one mic pre and two line inputs, two total inputs at once. It's also got some great features with the built in monitoring interface. Most importantly it's converters sound great and it's mic preamp has a ton of Gain with a low noise floor. I believe it sells for $200.
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Jun 7, 2010 22:18
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I know a couple of people that use the TC interface and they love it. I think a lot of folks tend to overlook TC Electronics when it comes to interfaces/converters since they're known primarily for their FX, but their A/D and D/A boxes are great (especially for the price). You might also want to look at the Apogee Duet. It's a bit more expensive but I would imagine it sounds pretty good. I haven't had any experience with it myself, but their gear is usually built really well and all of the Apogee stuff I have used all sounded really good.
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Jun 8, 2010 03:51
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The Mentalizer posted:You might also want to look at the Apogee Duet. It's a bit more expensive but I would imagine it sounds pretty good. I haven't had any experience with it myself, but their gear is usually built really well and all of the Apogee stuff I have used all sounded really good.
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Jun 8, 2010 04:19
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I've been using a Guitarport /w Reaper to record and Guitar Rig as my VST. I get pretty decent sounds of it, but I just recently put the Digidesign Eleven Rack on layaway at a local music store. I can't wait to get my hands on it. Also, I just recently bought some KRK Rokit5 monitors. Fantastic for home recording IMO. You get a lot more out of your music too. Here's what my stuff sounds like: Darkest Hour - Doomsayer solo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPcA6zmi2Tk Sylosis - Withered http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kju3DeOcSPc I've got a bunch more on my channel too.
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Jun 8, 2010 16:53
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Okay, I'm in the market for a new interface and I'm hoping someone can help me narrow down what I should get. Right now I'm rocking a Fast Track Pro and its shortcomings are becoming more apparent the more I use it. And now all of a sudden the rest of my band thinks that I should be the one to record the bass, guitars, and vocals (the drums are already done, thank god). So here are my requirements: - Must be able to have two sets of headphones hooked up so that I and whatever bandmate is recording at the time can hear what's going on. - Must use firewire. I'm rocking Vista 64bit and it's been wonky with USB stuff lately. - Preferably some sort of preamp for when we record vocals. So far the only time I've recorded vocals was with a lovely M-Audio Producer mic that certainly isn't ready for prime time. That Desktop Konnect 6 looks pretty sweet, but I don't know if it's exactly what I'm looking for. Is it enough of a step up from the FTP to warrant a purchase? How would I go about having two sets of headphones hooked up to it and be able to control the volumes for each independently? Edit: Wait, that thing's only 200 bucks?! I'm sure it's good for the money, but I should also point out that I'm willing to spend anywhere from $500 to $1500 on this. TylerK fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Jun 9, 2010 |
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Jun 9, 2010 22:17
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Maybe check out the MOTU 896. A friend of mine has one and absolutely loves it. Seems to have a fair amount of features and the A/D is nice for something in that price range (I think it's around $1,000 or so). All of the stuff I've heard from his little home studio all sounded pretty good. As for the headphone issue, I'd recommend a separate headphone amp. Going that route would give you more flexibility since a lot of interfaces tend to just mirror the main outputs to the headphone out. Using an external amp would allow you to patch whatever source you want into it as well as give you more than just one or two headphone outputs. They're pretty cheap, as well. I have the Presonus unit in my little studio and it works great. Plenty of power, sounds pretty good, four outputs with individual level control and it only cost like $130.
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Jun 10, 2010 05:20
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You can get a TC Konnekt 48 for $1000, that has two separate headphone connections that not only have separate volume but you can give them individual mixes as well. Not to mention the onboard mixer, DSP, 22 inputs, 24 outputs... remote control... it completely owns.
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Jun 10, 2010 06:51
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I think you can get it without the remote for cheaper. Like 200 euro cheaper. For the money its amazing because it just gives you so much stuff but I've never managed to get Fabrik working properly. I get massive intermittent CPU spikes when adding/removing any plugins which instantly causes thousands of ASIO buffer underruns.
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Jun 10, 2010 07:18
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quote:ASIO I had those problems too until I switched to coreaudio drivers  Also get the remote, it's totally worth it.
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Jun 10, 2010 08:32
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Bah. Core Audio is some Mac only thing. BAH. A shame because Fabrik-R sounds really nice and doesn't use any CPU load...until you load/unload a plugin and then 99% CPU load, audio turns to loud, terrifying glitchy noise, DAW underrun counter goes nuts. Sometimes it just does this randomly, even when I open a project with nothing in it but Fabrik-R on a send bus. WanderingKid fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Jun 10, 2010 |
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Jun 10, 2010 10:44
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It doesn't do any of that on my mac, and I'm running a powercore firewire at the same time.
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Jun 10, 2010 16:24
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Fuckin' Macs... or rather, fuckin' PCs...
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Jun 10, 2010 16:35
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The mac elitism in the digital audio realm might seem a little over the top, but CoreAudio really does beat the pants off ASIO in terms of stability and consistency, so if your goal is to be consistently productive or you have a deadline, better invest in a mac.
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Jun 10, 2010 18:11
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You know I was so anti-mac for the longest time even though I'd used them in studios and at school, mainly because of the price point. I just didn't see the justification when I could build a PC for a lot cheaper. The thing is I hadn't used a mac seriously since 2004 and come 2009 my wife buys me a MBP for my birthday. The difference in stability, latency, everything is night and day. Now I haven't tried Windows 7 with audio applications, so I guess it's totally possible that MS found a way to catch up, but I have a beefy as poo poo quad core PC desktop running win XP SP3 and it can't hold a candle to the MBP. All of the weird, frustrating poo poo like what WanderingKid mentions, it's just not an issue. I also think I'd spent so much of my time becoming a PC expert just to keep my audio running smoothly and to fix things when it didn't, that I'd become very personally invested in the idea that PCs were superior. "Oh yeah I can actually dig into my operating system and TWEAK it to my needs! Can't do that on a mac!". What that really meant was, "When poo poo starts acting up I spend a ton of time and frustration trying to fix it". Now instead of playing computer tech I just make music and play with synthesizer patches. When recording my band I just arm 8 to 16 tracks and go, and I don't have to worry about how many soft synths and effects are already loaded into the session. At practice and at shows, all 8 of our mics run through the computer first and the PA second, with full effects and only 6ms of latency. I've never had a dropout. I also never turn the macbook off, and I don't have to worry about ableton or the OS crashing if I unplug everything mid session and close the laptop. I drop it into my backpack, and then a few days later on my lunch break at work I open up the laptop and there is my session. I change the audio interface to internal, plug in my small midi controller and headphones, and start working on synth lines. When I'm done, I close the laptop. poo poo just works and I'm such an unapologetic mac fag it hurts, and I don't care.
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Jun 10, 2010 20:09
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RivensBitch posted:You can get a TC Konnekt 48 for $1000, that has two separate headphone connections that not only have separate volume but you can give them individual mixes as well. Not to mention the onboard mixer, DSP, 22 inputs, 24 outputs... remote control... it completely owns. But I'm still gonna get it!
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Jun 10, 2010 20:31
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RivensBitch posted:You know I was so anti-mac for the longest time even though I'd used them in studios and at school, mainly because of the price point. I just didn't see the justification when I could build a PC for a lot cheaper. They should make an ad out of your post. I've been having a lot of PC frustration on the video production side and I'm inching ever closer to a MBP for my next compy.
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Jun 10, 2010 23:10
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Not Memorable posted:They should make an ad out of your post. I've been having a lot of PC frustration on the video production side and I'm inching ever closer to a MBP for my next compy. It also helps that the new Logic is fantastic if you're up for learning a new DAW
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Jun 11, 2010 08:55
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Huh, apparently FL Studio doesn't have a Mac version and it runs like poo poo in a windows virtual machine. No Apple for me I guess...
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Jun 11, 2010 11:25
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:laff: flstudio :laff: Hey remember when mod-trackers were your only choice for making music on a computer?
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Jun 11, 2010 16:15
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Oi, don't be dissin' the fruit. It fuckin' owns.  Edit: Eh, been reading the TC Support forums and it looks like alot of people are having the same issues with Fabrik-C/R and not just XP SP-3 users either. There was 1 guy on a mac and about 10 people using the Powercore version. WanderingKid fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Jun 13, 2010 |
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Jun 11, 2010 16:51
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gingivitis the wart posted:The mac elitism in the digital audio realm might seem a little over the top, but CoreAudio really does beat the pants off ASIO in terms of stability and consistency, so if your goal is to be consistently productive or you have a deadline, better invest in a mac. Here's a hardware compatibility page from RME specifically about their first USB audio interface (that came out last year), but it's representative of the kinds of things manufacturers have to deal with when supporting wide ranges of PCs. The interface does all kinds of routing and audio analysis with onboard DSP so it requires very little CPU at all, but they have to recommend a Core 2 Duo or later for even basic stereo playback because the default USB 2.0 compliant Intel chips were flawed for the first 5 years the standard existed (and most netbooks still are) and some of the AMD ones were completely unusable. Their Mac Core Audio implementation can run playback with a buffer of 14 samples, buffers of 32 samples are reasonable in practice with 100% CPU load on any hardware capable of running Leopard (if you read the actual reviews it seems like only Logic/Mainstage users are running 64 or 32, Cubase starts to crap out anywhere under 128 with 60-70% CPU load). Where RME could get their buffer down to 14 samples in OSX, the minimum they could manage in any flavor of Windows was 48 samples. The heavily tweaked PCs seem to generally report running stable at 128 with some reporting less for just doing 2-track masters. There are no notes about configurations anywhere in the Mac reviews while PC reviews often include all the hidden services they had to turn off and what specific BIOS version doesn't cause random DPC latency spikes that make them run at 512 to be safe. Most of the PCs are also getting the best results with an OS that was released 6 years ago. I got into audio by way of IT as studios needed nerdy computer guys who would work for nothing and even I had forgotten just how much of a pain Windows is on a user level. The first gen MBP I'm typing this on was my first Mac 4 years ago and at the time I thought I would be using the hardware with Boot Camp and Windows primarily. It was maybe a month before I had totally migrated to Mail/iCal/iTunes/etc and I wasn't looking back. In January I bought a Lenovo tablet because this laptop has seen a lot and I didn't want to take it outside into the dirt and rain at work anymore. A bunch of the control software I use with speaker processors and digital mixing consoles works well with tablets and I was constantly rebooting my MacBook Pro to run some Windows-only stuff anyway so a PC made sense. Even so, I held out as long as I could with $2k-$3k in my budget hoping the iPad announcement would be followed by a touchscreen MacBook announcement with enough gas and resolution to run XP and OSX simultaneously, but alas...
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Jun 13, 2010 03:45
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RME has always been a really impressive company, and thorough. That writeup is pretty damning for PCs, and is a great explanation of the issue.
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Jun 13, 2010 04:39
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Can you use Core Audio driver in a Boot Camp Windows 7 machine? If so I guess I'll sell my Xpander when I get it fixed up and buy an MPB.
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Jun 13, 2010 11:13
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WanderingKid posted:Can you use Core Audio driver in a Boot Camp Windows 7 machine? If so I guess I'll sell my Xpander when I get it fixed up and buy an MPB.
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Jun 13, 2010 15:38
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RivensBitch posted:RME has always been a really impressive company, and thorough. That writeup is pretty damning for PCs, and is a great explanation of the issue. Windows has tried to improve their horrendous audio package with Vista and 7, but it still falls short. There's a built-in bypass for all the mixing and processing, but Windows itself is still a self-contained entity that can output digital audio acceptably on a consumer level but isn't capable of playing nice and becoming a part of a digital audio network the way you want it to for pro audio. It can't sync to another clock source so no matter how much money you spend on external gear you're stuck with the clock on your $75 onboard soundcard unless you use ASIO. On a software level this is also frustrating. With my Thinkpad and my Fireface UC my most common setup at a show is running Smaart Live using 2 inputs + 1 output, foobar using 2 outs for soundcheck songs, background music playback and often RME's Digicheck software to record 2 or 4 channels, with some or all of the playback and record being digital spdif or AES feeds. Nevermind that to do this with standard Windows 7 drivers I would have to set the Lenovo to be the master clock for the entire concert (lol), even ASIO becomes bothersome. Not only do my ASIO device drivers need to be solid, the ASIO implementation for each application I need to run simultaneously needs to be rock solid. In many applications (almost all of mine) they also need to be capable of high quality sample rate conversion to adapt to whatever clock source I'm using for the whole network. I've only been able to do it recently since Smaart 7 came out and even now foobar threatens to crap out on me, stuttering and hiccuping. On my MacBook Pro I use the OS's standard Core Audio drivers. Whatever random freeware program I download from the internet can see all 18 inputs and outputs on my interface. When they need to sample rate convert they just use the same Audio Converter API that Logic does, built-in to OS X. And I can enable wifi while I run audio because there aren't any DPC latencies in the wifi driver. And my buffer size gets cut in half.  And my mp3s in iTunes are now clocked to the Apogee Big Ben in the loop 
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Jun 14, 2010 04:01
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I bought a TC Electronic Konnekt 24D second hand from RivensBitch a couple of years ago and have nothing but good experiences with it. I use it as part of my mobile keyboard rig while performing and to record demos in our rehearsal space. Drivers are rock solid on my 2007 MacBook running Logic with a latency of 32 samples. No pops or clicks. Just crystal clear audio. I have Lavry convertors in my mastering studio, so I know what a good clean convertor is supposed to sound like and I'll tell you that the TC convertors are at least 90% of the way there. The built in preamps are also clean clean clean and just fantastic. I wouldn't hesitate to record a serious budget full length album with it but the only con is you can only do two tracks at once making it a bust for trying to track drums. I imagine the quality of the Konnekt 48 is at least on par with the 24D. Nothing in the price range of the 24D comes close to it's quality. Nothing. The RME Fireface might beat it, but you're talking another 500 dollars for a negligible upgrade.
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Jun 14, 2010 10:09
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FYI the konnekt 24d has four analog inputs, two with preamps. It also has lightpipe optical, so if you get a presonus digimax you'd have 10 mic inputs all useable simultaneously. So it can be used to record a band.
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Jun 14, 2010 10:24
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Schlieren posted:So I was reading that as a rule of thumb a mixing board should average 0 dBu when tracking (an exception being transient-heavy sources like drums, with lots of other exceptions as well, but just as a rule of thumb) 0 is interpreted differently by different manufacturers. You need to check the manual for the particular interface you're recording with. If it tells you that you have +13 dBu of headroom then your 0 dBu point is actually -13dBfs. It's also recommended to set your input levels with a VU style meter to get the best results out of your A/D convertor. Download Sonalksis FreeG here http://www.sonalksis.com/freeg.htm. When you open the plug click on the Sonalksis logo and change the ballistics to VU. Now when you go to track you turn the gain up to peak at -13 VU on the FreeG meter. When you see the same file on a digital peak meter you will probably see peaks quite a bit higher, but you'll be within the cleanest range your A/D convertor can provide you. +13 dBu is what my TC Electronic interface is calibrated to. I believe all Digidesign hardware is +18 dBu.
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Jun 14, 2010 10:26
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RivensBitch posted:FYI the konnekt 24d has four analog inputs, two with preamps. It also has lightpipe optical, so if you get a presonus digimax you'd have 10 mic inputs all useable simultaneously. So it can be used to record a band. True, but I haven't found a light pipe multi preamp interface that had any preamps that I've deemed worthy so I never bothered. I use the line inputs with my API pres all the time with fantastic results.
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Jun 14, 2010 10:30
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I'm looking into picking up a TC Konnekt 6, but I need MIDI. What's the best cheap way to get MIDI going with the TC Konnekt 6 interface (which lacks MIDI)?
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Jun 15, 2010 01:09
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AriTheDog posted:I'm looking into picking up a TC Konnekt 6, but I need MIDI. What's the best cheap way to get MIDI going with the TC Konnekt 6 interface (which lacks MIDI)? It's only 1 in/1 out but it worked out very well for me for a long long time.
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Jun 15, 2010 01:46
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Hogscraper posted:It's also recommended to set your input levels with a VU style meter to get the best results out of your A/D convertor. Hogscraper posted:True, but I haven't found a light pipe multi preamp interface that had any preamps that I've deemed worthy so I never bothered. I use the line inputs with my API pres all the time with fantastic results.
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Jun 15, 2010 18:29
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Would all of this core audio goodness that you guys are talking about work on a hackintosh desktop?
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Jun 15, 2010 19:57
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You could try it out and let us know my guess is that with the problems I've heard of with hackintoshes breaking everytime there's an apple update, that you might not want to tie your music production to it. From what I understand when this happens you are pretty much at the mercy of the people who put together the hackintosh updates, but I could be wrong. Still, One of the things I love about my mbp is how I don't have to put on my "I can tweak my pc to do anything" hat when my DAW randomly stops behaving the way it did last week. In almost a year of use I've never had this happen.
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Jun 15, 2010 20:33
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wixard posted:How do you figure a freeware VU meter is going to be more accurate at predicting dBfs than your driver or DAW metering the actual dBfs? wixard posted:You would track a major commercial release with the built-in pres and converters on your $400 TC interface, but DigimaxLT's, Focusrite Octopres and Mackie Onyx pieces just don't cut the mustard? Something isn't adding up here. I guess what I'm saying is I'd rather spend $800 or more on one or two more channels that sound better than any of the Lightpipe pres I've heard. There is the 8 channel Crane Song Spider, but that's overkill for most budgets, mine included. It's me being snobby and hesitant to spend money as well.
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Jun 16, 2010 17:05
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The onyx pres are solid and a great value. I use an Apogee 800 with my Konnekt 48 lightpipe I/O, using either the pres from my Onyx 1620 or the pres from an older version of this. The SM pres are surprisingly neutral, although they don't have a ton of gain (you get what you pay for), so I typically use them with the louder instruments in the band, and use the four Konnekt preamps for anything that needs to be pumped.
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Jun 16, 2010 19:45
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Octopre is actually really decent. Focusrite get so much flack for their platinum stuff but I think alot of it is mud that seems to have stuck to Focusrite all the way up to the blue series stuff which the gaggle say is 'boring'. The reds are 'overpriced and boring'. The greens are 'unreliable, overpriced, overrated and boring.' What a load of tosh. I think most of it is just reiterating what someone said before them and god knows where it all started... :< Edit: By the way, I nearly poo poo myself when I found out Focusrite were selling Isa Ones for less than 500 bucks. Thats a killer preamp for that kind of money. WanderingKid fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Jun 16, 2010 |
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Jun 16, 2010 20:46
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Are they still marketing a Class A pre that has 5 ic opamps in the signal path? Are they still marketing that same pre as being completely designed by Rupert Neve? That was the start of the Octopre. Edit: Marketing makes my engineer nerd blood boil. Hogscraper fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Jun 16, 2010 |
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Jun 16, 2010 22:06
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poo poo, if you want to go down that road then AMS Neve isn't Neve either. And Fender isn't Fender when the man himself sold his name in the 60s. Hell G&L isn't even Fender now that hes been dead for 20 years. Part of buying the name of something is buying the client base that comes with it. The new owners paid for the focusrite name, the Neve association and I'll say straight up again that the platinum focusrite pres are decent for the money. We are talking a completely different target buyer here than the guys in the market for 110s and 115s so of course they would be disappointed. Yeah the IC thing is a bit misleading but those ICs are in all the new focusrite stuff and it doesn't necessarily make a bad product even if its easier to believe that to be the case. Most of the hysterics come from crazies who for some reason are annoyed that focusrite is no longer a boutique high end British electronics shop and actually sells products that normal people can afford. That opinion seems to have rubbed off on their entire current product line including the good stuff. One thing I will agree on is that Focusrite is very unfashionable amongst the king nerds. WanderingKid fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jun 17, 2010 |
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Jun 17, 2010 00:01
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I agree it's definitely in King Nerd territory but it's annoying to see products targeted at people who maybe don't know the difference between a Class A / AB pre. Maybe they don't care. But Focusrite's marketing team spends an awful lot of time touting their "Class A" products as being completely superior to all of the Class AB preamps out there because it has such a clean signal path when in all reality their product is EXACTLY what their marketing is talking down to. My only argument in these posts is that I'm not a huge fan of any of the Lightpipe multi pre units I've heard. I'm of the opinion that if you need a bunch of in/out options that it's better to buy something with a good convertor and a ton of line inputs that you can expand as time goes on with good quality, timeless, preamps that will hold their value. Someone please update me in 5 years what the resale value of an Octopre is vs. what the resale value of an API 512c or RND Portico pre. I stand by my recommendation of the TC Electronic stuff because it's one of the best sounding all-in-one boxes out there. You have to spend upwards of $1000.00 bucks to top it's all in one sound (RME Fireface). This recommendation is mainly for hobbyist looking for the best sound they can get without having a ton of outboard gear. If you're super serious about starting a full on studio for money you need individual components that are modular, expandable, and replaceable. Yes, for a hobbyist the Focusrite stuff is a step up from what's in an Mbox but the way it's marketed to people like "this is way better than a Neve console. Rupert never designed anything better and we totally didn't bastardize his design in any way. you will never need to buy another pre because this is the best for everything." throw in a shrewd celebrity endorsement and you're well on your way to selling a bunch of crap to beginners who want to throw money into their chains to sound better but don't know how or where to throw it. Aside: No, G&L is no longer Fender but at least their quality control stayed relatively consistent until George Fullerton died.
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Jun 17, 2010 03:01
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