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I've had the Pro 40 for a long time now, and literally the only complaint I have about it is that there's no MIDI activity indicator light. It's a small thing, but it can be so helpful when diagnosing problems.
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Jan 4, 2014 22:23
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My 828mkII was fried by a power surge despite being plugged into a (lovely) surge protector. I called MOTU to ask how much it would be to fix it, and the dude and I just started chatting about biology and stuff. He ended up fixing it for me for free, even though it was secondhand and I had no proof of purchase. It's probably the best customer service experience I've ever had. I have a Focusrite Safire Pro 40 now, but the next time I upgrade I would strongly consider another MOTU.
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Jan 26, 2014 05:15
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Bourbon posted:Something that I haven't tried yet is a newer Mac -> Thunderbolt-to-FW800 adapter -> FW800-to-FW400 cable -> MOTU. No idea if that might affect performance, but since Apple doesn't include FW ports anymore, it's something to think about. Yeah, I haven't tried this with a MOTU anything. This is how I use my Saffire, though, and it's rock solid.
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Jan 26, 2014 23:11
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Schlieren posted:I've used an M-Audio 1010LT forever but the card isn't built for my (non-ancient) computer's expansion slots. What sorts of solutions are available for someone nowadays in need of, say, 10 simultaneous inputs? Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 is nice, as is the MOTU 828 MkII or MkIII.
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Feb 4, 2014 23:15
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EL BROMANCE posted:SaffirePRO is still terrible, unusable garbage mind... You mean the software, right? I've got a Pro 40 and I'm quite happy with the hardware. Software is frickin' garbage, though, to the extent that I have largely built my workflow around never using the Saffire software if at all possible.
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May 21, 2014 21:59
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Flipperwaldt posted:Experimenting with mic placement/distance, room acoustics or getting a different type of mic (eg large diaphragm condenser mic) is going to make a shitload more of a difference, as far as I understand. Yeah that's my experience. Get in middle of a big room with a high ceiling if you can, and see how that sounds before you start messing with the rest of it. As a good (not perfect) rule of thumb, the earlier something is in the signal chain, the higher priority it should be when you're polishing your sound. That means get your instruments and vocals right first, then the room, then the mic, then the pre, then the compressor (if any), then the converters, etc. Obviously if you've got a seriously problematic link at any point in the chain that all falls apart, but as a general rule it's served me fairly well.
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Aug 13, 2015 13:57
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wizkid posted:I'm recording at home (a small flat) so I don't really have a lot of room (literally) for experimentation. The furthest I could get from the microphone is down a shortish hallway, but I don't think that'd help very much. Oh it's not just a matter of getting further from the microphone, although that can help. It's that larger rooms have longer echo times. As a result smaller rooms sound much more claustrophobic and garage-y. If you're stuck in a small room, the only real way around that (and it ain't great) is to pad poo poo up to get rid of as much room sound as possible and then do some serious art with the reverb - putting enough reverb in to make it sound like you're in a more pleasant space than you actually recorded in, while not sounding like you've just shat reverb all over everything.
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Aug 13, 2015 21:54
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clockworkjoe posted:Yeah I've set that - 2 big problems right now are: The software is the one downside to using Focusrite interfaces. I've been using a Saffire Pro 40 for like five years now and I still get confused by Mix Control. I usually just click through presets until poo poo works because gently caress me if I'm going to try to figure that poo poo out.
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Aug 22, 2015 07:13
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I don't have any experience with that one directly, but every MOTU box I've had was pretty great.
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Nov 4, 2015 20:09
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Open-ended entirely hypothetical question: Let's say I want an interface that is two channels (with preamps and DI for guitar) with MIDI and ADAT lightpipe or something like that, but I want those two channels to have the best preamps/ADCs I can get for under $1k. What would fit that bill? Currently I'm using a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, and I'm basically never using anything other than channels 1/2. If I could set something with all of the functionality that had better audio quality and was more portable, that seems like it might be worth considering. I'm not desperate to switch or anything, just thinking about hypotheticals. UAD Apollo Twin Duo seems like a reasonable candidate, but it doesn't seem to have MIDI. I could probably work around that, though. How are the preamps? Trig Discipline fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Sep 8, 2016 |
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Sep 8, 2016 00:39
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The only thing they have in the ballpark is the Babyface Pro, and it seems like they're mainly pitching that as an iOs device. It looks similar to, but not quite as suitable (for me) as, the Apollo Twin Duo. e: Apogee duet looks nice but I don't want to gently caress with breakout boxes/cables. Quartet looks awesome but out of my range. Trig Discipline fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Sep 9, 2016 |
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Sep 9, 2016 00:31
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I got the Apollo Twin Duo and I have to say it sounds loving AMAZING. The Neve 1073 preamp emulation is just stunning, and the Ocean Way Studios room emulator is just supernatural. Makes me wish I had an iso booth though so I could get rid of my own room acoustics.
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Sep 17, 2016 06:19
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Trig Discipline posted:I got the Apollo Twin Duo and I have to say it sounds loving AMAZING. The Neve 1073 preamp emulation is just stunning, and the Ocean Way Studios room emulator is just supernatural. Makes me wish I had an iso booth though so I could get rid of my own room acoustics. If you will pardon my continued jizzing over my Apollo, I have to say that running the UA amp sims with my guitar going through the DI is pretty goddamn special too.
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Jan 17, 2017 01:40
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pop fly to McGillicutty posted:Could anyone recommend a decent interface that works well with the Mac mini? I'm newish to this so any advice would be appreciated. What's your budget and what are your requirements?
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Jun 18, 2017 02:26
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Right on. Within that price range, definitely one of the Focusrites would be a great way to go. There are other things out there with more bells and whistles, but Focusrite gear is way more reliable than most of those options and the preamps sound really nice as well.
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Jun 18, 2017 15:58
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Abel Wingnut posted:is the uad apollo worth the price? specs/features seem pretty great and reviewers love it, but that's a hefty cost. i'd spend for it if it's worth it, though. would mostly be micing guitars and keys through an old fender vibro champ, bass direct in, vocals...down the road I have an apollo twin duo and it's the nicest sounding interface I've ever had. By a long shot. I have been particularly surprised by the quality of the DI; I honestly didn't realize how much my previous DIs sucked until I had a good one. Beware, though, because the interface is basically just the beginning; you WILL find yourself spending a ridiculous amount of money on plugins for it. The emulations of classic gear they have are frankly amazing, and when you're faced with the opportunity how do you NOT buy a near-perfect reproduction of an Echoplex or '55 Fender Tweed Deluxe?
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Sep 30, 2017 23:29
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Oh for perspective on the "nicest sounding I've ever had" comment: my previous interfaces were a MOTU 828mk2, a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, an M-Audio Delta 1010, a Seasound Solo, and an Echo Layla.
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Sep 30, 2017 23:32
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TITY BOI posted:Hey so I bought a Focusrite Scarlett Solo, and it randomly starts making GBS threads out static in the output. Sometimes just restarting works, sometimes it doesn't. I installed whatever drivers they told me to (windows 7 64b). Any thoughts on what might be going on? Have you tried increasing your buffer size?
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Oct 6, 2017 03:50
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TITY BOI posted:How do i do that i am not good with computers It varies from interface to interface but somewhere in your little driver software control panel thingy or in your DAW (or both) there will be a place where you can adjust the buffer settings. Higher buffers increase latency, but decrease dropouts and general shitfulness. Working with audio on computers is often a question of managing a tradeoff between how quickly you want your system to respond and how much you like not crashing or ruining takes with PKKKKTTTFFFFF noises.
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Oct 6, 2017 07:41
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:Seeing as though you're already using GarageBand, fartzone, I'd recommend (when you're ready) upgrading to Logic Pro X, which is the 'professional' version of GB. Comes with an insane amount of content, too. Alchemy alone is worth the price. Yeah I was going to say exactly that. Logic Pro X is insane value for money, and is about as cheap as you can go for a DAW that's considered an industry standard.
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Jan 5, 2018 11:46
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Well you're in for the exact opposite of a treat when you get a real studio going, because recording and mixing acoustic drums is the biggest pain in the loving rear end of any instrument ever. So you've got that to look forward to.
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Jan 5, 2018 16:52
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Right on. Recording is a completely other skill. It's finicky and obsessive and experimental and hacky and I absolutely love it. Honestly one of the best things I figured out early on when I was on a much smaller budget was to start from one good mic (or stereo pair) on the whole kit and see what needs supplementing, rather than go from the assumption that everything needs its own mic. One GOOD mic on a drum set can sound way nicer than ten lovely ones, particularly if you've got a decent sounding room. Even when I do have ten channels on the drums, I usually start mixing from the room mics and supplement from there. Often I do end up using a bit of everything, but there are times (particularly when you want a bit of a raw punk rock sound) where I find I like using just the two room mics and maybe some kick. Another fun low budget trick for drums that I learned from Tape Op (oh yeah, loving subscribe to Tape Op, it's the best recording magazine around and it's FREE) that works in some special situations when you are recording in a house or something is to have one (or a few) mics on the drums and another one in an entirely different room. Get your close-up mics sounding right and then basically treat your faraway mic as a reverb send - just bring up a little bit of it to make things sound roomy. It sounds like a recipe for absolute garbage but it actually comes out sounding way nicer than you'd think sometimes. Example at about 2:30 in this song: https://soundcloud.com/danwarren/so-much-better That's only two cheapo small diaphragm condenser mics; one in the bedroom with the kit and one about thirty feet away down a long hall in the living room. That song's about 15 years old back when I had ghetto gear but it's the first one I could think of where I was using that trick. Oh another fun trick I came up with myself for that track: if you happen to have a car, and have a garage with a door that leads into the house, you already have a kickass iso booth. Run a boom mic through a barely-cracked car window, chuck a pillow or two up on the dash, and you've got something better than just about any other home iso booth you're going to build. It's essentially a ready-made floated room.
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Jan 5, 2018 17:23
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:I have to agree with this; cars in garages are insanely quiet for recording. It's incredible. I figured I couldn't be the only person who came up with that, but I was drat proud of myself when I did.
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Jan 5, 2018 18:17
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Yeah I'm probably bought into UAD for life now given all the plugins I own, but I have to say I have never had better support for a piece of music gear than I got from MOTU.
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Feb 21, 2018 15:27
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Abel Wingnut posted:i just got a universal audio apollo mk ii. is there any reason i would want a di box between the guitar and the line-in on the interface? Heck no, the DI on the Apollo is probably better than whatever DI box you already have. And their amp models are designed with the idea that you'll be going directly into that, so they're likely to sound best that way.
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Feb 26, 2018 06:29
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I have a UAD Apollo and an octo satellite, and it's absolutely fantastic. I have other expensive plugins to do a lot of the stuff that my UAD plugs do, but quite simply I don't use them any more. It does suck to need your hardware with you to mix (so you can't, for example, mix a track on the road very easily), but the sound quality is such that I'm willing to just deal with it. And, if you're willing to wait for sales, you can get a lot of their stuff for a small fraction of the advertised price. And while their preamps and compressors are every bit as good as people say, the ones that really get my motor running are some of the delay, reverb, and amp sims. The Echoplex sim in particular is just amazing; unpredictable and noisy in all the ways that a real Echoplex is, but without any of the hassle of loving around with a real one.
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Dec 22, 2018 12:40
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You said you don’t care much about the pres but Focusrite makes one with eight pres and individual hardware compression on each channel that I absolutely loved for this sort of thing. Can’t remember the name of it though. Octopre?
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Jul 2, 2019 21:09
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Jonny 290 posted:I'm thinking of picking up a Traktor Audio 2 interface before the end of month as it comes with Guitar Rig free right now and I need something more modern than this old M-audio box I picked up from the thrift store - anybody have a ballpark of what latency I can expect on a 2015 Macbook pro at 24/96 (or 24/192?) "Playable" is totally fine. My box is Universal Audio rather than NI, but I'm on a 2015 MBP and have minimal latency issues in Logic and Ableton even with tons of tracks. Bitwig shits itself a bit more often, but I think that's a graphics issue; it only really happens when I load in plugins that have very fancy UIs with lots of poo poo bouncing around and am using the discrete graphics rather than integrated.
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May 24, 2020 00:52
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I have both Bitwig and Ableton Suite. I've had Bitwig for much longer so I'm more comfortable in that environment, and if you like crazy elaborate automation it's hard to beat. If you're relatively new to DAWs, though, there's WAY more tutorial videos on youtube that are done in Ableton; it's kinda the go-to for most people. Bitwig is cheaper to get into, but it's a subscription. All in all I'd say that there aren't many things one of them does that the other doesn't also do, and both are having features added constantly. I think the two biggest things that separate them to my mind is Max for Live on the Ableton side and The Grid on the Bitwig side. It might be worth looking to see whether either of those is enough to make the decision for you. Max for Live is probably more general purpose, but I reckon The Grid is easier to get into. IIRC Max only comes with the more expensive versions of Live, though, and Bitwig only has the one version so it's included regardless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvPhIm6Ttd8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WObOMJH8N4E Trig Discipline fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Dec 3, 2020 |
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Dec 3, 2020 08:09
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Flip Yr Wig posted:What would be a good pick for someone who wants something relatively compact and, if possible, inexpensive, that has a standalone mode/doesn't need to be hooked up to the PC to do light mixing? I don't think I need more than 4 inputs any time soon. If that's a luxury feature, I'll suck it up and boot up my PC when I want to run a couple of devices at the same time, but I'd like to be able to quickly jam with a synth & drum machine without fiddling with software. I was on a quest to find something similar recently and stumbled across this Behringer thingy: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Q1204USB--behringer-xenyx-q1204usb-mixer-with-usb Seems to tick a lot of boxes - standalone mixer with a decent number of channels, USB audio interface, good reviews, Behringer price point. I haven't gotten mine yet because it's at my sister's house in the USA, but I'm optimistic that it will do the job.
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Dec 27, 2021 07:43
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Flip Yr Wig posted:Follow-up question, then. Does its USB output send separate tracks for each channel? No idea, haven't actually laid hands on the thing yet. Waiting for my sister to send it to me in Japan.
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Dec 27, 2021 08:50
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