audio interface with good preamps?

[psymanprod]

ok, i need some help upgrading my audio interface. i know what i want in terms of in/outs etc but still have no idea what to buy as there are sooo many different options that meet my criteria and also dont know how models for £2000 compare to models for £300. im guessing the main difference would be the quality of preamps and other analogue components but could be wrong.

heres what i need/want in an audio inteface roughly in order of importance.

1. 8 good mic preamps with +48v. preferably on the front

2. a volume knob on the front to turn down my monitors.

3. atleast one good quality, loud headphone amp with independent volume control on the front (i do around 50% of each mix on headphones)

4. atleast 4 analogue outs.

5. good asio drivers for xp

it must cost less than £1000 new, i will go to ebay if theres something good available.

so any recomendations aare welcome thanks!

[rhonnypudding]

What DAW are you using? That would seem to make a difference; if you're going pro tools the 003 is pretty solid (or so I've read). The 002 has worked great for me, but I'm not an expert here).

It seems to me if you want true high end pre's you have to get that through a separate unit other than your interface. Though, I could be wrong here; I'm curious what others think...

[JPeters86]

I'm very happy with my MOTU 8pre. I think the preamps are great. Nothing spectacular, but nothing terrible either. They sound good. I recently hooked an RME Octapre to it when I needed to record drums together with other stuff. It worked flawlessly. It's a great unit. Thinking about getting a second one and daisychaining them.

[annikk.exe]

How about the Mackie 800r? That fulfills all your listed requirements, and falls well within your price range. I have the smaller 400f and the preamps sound great. :>


Also Mackie's customer support is excellent.



-Annikk

[rivalrysound]

The Alesis IO 26 has served me rather well over the past years and meets all of the requirements listed.

[studiophile]

i love my Focusrite 26/IO, should meet all your requirements

[dickiefunk]

Steinberg MR-816!

[soundrage]

Originally Posted by dickiefunk

Steinberg MR-816!

Is there an interface with "better" pre's?

I know, I know....it's subjective/

[Brian Middleton]

Originally Posted by annikk.exe

How about the Mackie 800r? That fulfills all your listed requirements, and falls well within your price range. I have the smaller 400f and the preamps sound great. :>


Also Mackie's customer support is excellent.



-Annikk

I agree that the Onyx series is a great choice for a budget interface with good preamps, but the 800R is not an interface, only a preamp/converter box. He'd need either the 400F (plus 4 more preamps), the 1200F, or the 1620 mixing board.

[craven]

Originally Posted by soundrage

Is there an interface with "better" pre's?

I know, I know....it's subjective/

go with the m-audio fast track ultra 8r, i just got it a few weeks ago and its great.....

has octane pre-amps, 2 headphone jacks with volume control, 8 inputs, 8 outputs, 2 "inserts" for other pre amps inputs, and 2 front inputs for guitar....

great for the money, works with all DAWs, and pro tools!!

[Christof]

+1 for the Alesis IO-26

I'm using 3 of them with different PCs - working fine.

[Lee Cardan]

MACKIE 1200F

Slightly more than you want to spend, but it's got everything you need and more

12 Onyx mic pres
8 analogue outs (channels 1-8)
4 independent headphone outs (channels 25-32)

A/B Monitor switching with volume on the front panel

Talkback mic function (front panel pushbutton to talk to phones)

2 ADAT ins (another 16 inputs at 44KHz, or 8@96KHz, or 4@192KHz)
2 ADAT outs (another 16 outputs, same as above)


I've also got an 800R for the extra 8 inputs via ADAT and the whole thing is fantastic
No complaints whatsoever
I'm using a MacBook Pro with Logic 8

[psymanprod]

ok so to me its now between the Focusrite saffire pro series, the maudio 8r, and the alesis i026.

The Lexicon IONIX U82S looks soo perfect in terms of design, it has 2 analogue outs but since it has 2 headphone outs i could use the second one as a line out. i just cant find any reviews on it!!!

the alesis is cheap! maybe too cheap?

ive read the headphone amps on the m-audio fastrack ultra 8r has low powered headphone outs

the focusrite saphire pro stuff looks like it would be perfect for me, theres also a few going cheap on ebay.

still not totaly sure, i want to get this purchace right as it will be like the main "hub" in my home set up but this certainly narrowed it down for me.

[psymanprod]

the MACKIE 1200F looks promising, if i see one under my price limit on ebay iwill snap it up

[Groberts]

The Headphone outputs on my M-Audio Fast track Ultra have plenty of volume. I use Audio Technica ATH-M50 Headphones.

[psymanprod]

Originally Posted by Groberts

The Headphone outputs on my M-Audio Fast track Ultra have plenty of volume. I use Audio Technica ATH-M50 Headphones.

how loud can you get with the ath m50s, can you get to the point were you feel that little ticking in your inner ear? not that i monitor that loud but my akg k601 headphones are 120 ohms so will likely be much quieter than you m50s at 38 ohms.

[rivalrysound]

a little word to show my commitment to the stability of the alesis io 26... I've used this thing to run AND record live shows before, and I'm talking in front of at least 300 people too. I've run drumagog on the kick, compressors on the vocals and eq'd the guitar all inside cubase using the alesis as my interface. Best sounding gigs we've ever had there, and then at the end of the night I have my 8 tracks all ready to be mixed and sent off to the bands. All without a single problem. YOU DO have to make sure your computer has 2 gigs of ram and 2ghz of processing power or else you're run into some problems but other than that this thing is stable and nice sounding too

[Bob Ross]

Okay, so nobody's mentioned any of the Presonus units yet...should one take that as a condemnation of their quality, or just a fluke coincidence?

[annikk.exe]

Statistically people are less likely to report good experiences, than bad ones. So probably coincidence that nobody who owns a Presonus has seen this thread yet. :>


-Annikk

[Ludwig]

Originally Posted by Bob Ross

Okay, so nobody's mentioned any of the Presonus units yet...should one take that as a condemnation of their quality, or just a fluke coincidence?

I dont know what the general concensus is but I have been very happy with the Presonus FireStudio Project pres...very clean and quiet, much more so than those on my MBox2, noticable difference.

[zeroeight]

Funny thing, I'm looking for the same type of interface BUT with a caveat: it must use USB 2.0 instead of Firewire. Apparently my laptop is blessed with a horribly disfigured Firewire implementation along with an Intel chipset that makes sure that no Firewire Express card will ever work. Oh darn. No Fireface for me.

Did I mention I'm running Vista 64?

The Fast Track Ultra 8R looks like a good possibility. It also has drivers for 64-bit Vista (beta, but still...)

[kheftel]

I use the Presonus FireStudio. I know that it's Firewire, not USB, so it won't work for the original poster, but I wanted to put in a plug for the Presonus brand of products. I have been very pleased with the preamps. I don't technically use it as an interface, I use it as a preamp box going into my Digi 002 thru ADAT, but the preamps have served me well!

[craven]

Originally Posted by zeroeight

Funny thing, I'm looking for the same type of interface BUT with a caveat: it must use USB 2.0 instead of Firewire. Apparently my laptop is blessed with a horribly disfigured Firewire implementation along with an Intel chipset that makes sure that no Firewire Express card will ever work. Oh darn. No Fireface for me.

Did I mention I'm running Vista 64?

The Fast Track Ultra 8R looks like a good possibility. It also has drivers for 64-bit Vista (beta, but still...)

that is what you should do... seriously...

[lpkyer]

Personnally I think the pres on my profire2626 are great.

[mikeyr4444]

Originally Posted by zeroeight

Funny thing, I'm looking for the same type of interface BUT with a caveat: it must use USB 2.0 instead of Firewire. Apparently my laptop is blessed with a horribly disfigured Firewire implementation along with an Intel chipset that makes sure that no Firewire Express card will ever work. Oh darn. No Fireface for me.

Did I mention I'm running Vista 64?

The Fast Track Ultra 8R looks like a good possibility. It also has drivers for 64-bit Vista (beta, but still...)

Are you using a dell? If it's the studio, the dsp spike seems incureable.

If you're using an inspiron, I can tell you upgrading bios and firewire chip along with disabling your wireless cards will allow you to use firewire.

For my mobile setup I wish I'd gotten a mac...

[mikeyr4444]

Originally Posted by studiophile

i love my Focusrite 26/IO, should meet all your requirements

I love mine too, but I don't think any interface has good preamps. The focusrite seems to have the cleanest, and for the price I feel it was a good investment.

The liquid 56 looks very nice, if I had the money to upgrade now it would be between the 56 or a Yamaha/Steinberg interface.

[orbit]

Originally Posted by lpkyer

Personnally I think the pres on my profire2626 are great.

+1 for the profire...i cant say the build quality is ASTOUNDING, some pots are a bit inaccurate, and cables have gotten stuck in the jacks from time to time but i REALLY like the converters and the preamps...i dont have a ton of experience with other stuff but i certainly like the value for the price (paid 600 for each of mine..i run 2 together so i have 4 headphone amps and 16 pres, more inputs and outputs than i will likely use in the next 5 years)

and the ease of firewire thumbsup

[zeroeight]

Originally Posted by mikeyr4444

Are you using a dell? If it's the studio, the dsp spike seems incureable.

If you're using an inspiron, I can tell you upgrading bios and firewire chip along with disabling your wireless cards will allow you to use firewire.

For my mobile setup I wish I'd gotten a mac...

It's a Lenovo T400. I already tried installing the Fireface drivers to see if they would work at all (which they should, even if no hardware is connected). No dice.

[kevynosborn]

I've previously owned an Alesis io26, borrowed a Presonus FireStudio 26x26, and tracked with with a buddy's M-Audio ProFire.

I now own a Mackie Onyx 400f, and I honestly feel it's in a different category than these other units. I own a few specialized outboard pres, but for general-purpose and drum preamps, I finally feel my gear is to the point that, if I can't get a usable sound, it's my fault as an engineer.

Don't misread me: I'm not saying an Onyx 400f even holds a candle to an API 3124+. But its pres do have a "thwack" and guts that the other all-in-one units I've tried don't.

My unit's been stable as a table since day 1. I would suspect the quality of the 1200f is at least as good, but if not, you could buy (2) 400fs for $400 a piece from Musician's Friend [and at the risk of sounding like a shill, that's a killer deal] and simply run the pres from one unit in standalone mode into the line-ins of the other unit.

However, contrary to what someone said above, Mackie's customer service is garbage. Maybe worse than Alesis's. I've accepted the fact that, if my unit ever dies, it will probably stay that way.

[Dog Boots]

Re: Steinberg MR816

Originally Posted by soundrage

Is there an interface with "better" pre's?

I know, I know....it's subjective/

This makes zero sense to me? Better pres in that price range?!!? Have you heard them?

Anyway - one more vote for MR816. IMHO complete no-brainer in that price range.