1U 8ch good mic pre w/ ADAT?

[JonesH]

Hello fellow remotesters,
I am putting together a mobile reording system for our university wich teaches sound engineering. I'm looking at a MacBook pro that can dual boot in Windows for running Samplitude/Pro Tools and OS X for Pro Tools/Logic, paired with a M-Audio ProFire 2626 all enclosed in a Gator GSRW-2U case. This is a nice solution that I'm using myself, but for the school setup we also want 8ch mic pre.

The system is often used with milennie HV-3D preamps wich can use the line in on the ProFire, but we would also like the system to be armed with an 8ch decent preamp that connects via ADAT.

What are your reccomendations in the 1000€ range? I was looking primarily at the RME Octamic 2, but any ideas are most welcome.

The system will be used mostly for acoustical recordings, organ productions and such but probably some jazz gigs and smaller rock ensembles as well. We tend to use all we got all the time...

peace,
Johannes
Sweden

[therecordinghous]

i use 3 octopres in my setup, decent clean preamps. note, i am talking about the actual octopre, not the octopre le. these are not the same preamps.

[Don S]

That's a tough pricepoint. For a little more you can get a Focusrite 828, but that is also 2 spaces. Under a thousand is the octopre, but I would take a look at the Mackie 800r. A decent pre for the money, plus it is very flexible with tons of I/O.

[Dog Boots]

The Steinberg MR816-interfaces will actually let you put out the signal from the 8 pres on the ADAT output in standalone operation (once setup from a PC it'll start up that way on it's own) and these pres are smoking! (as you may have read on here already - just search MR816 and "Yamaha n12" - same Yamaha pres).

That solution will give you a standalone FireWire interface as well....never know when/if that'll come in handy.

[mixedupsteve]

I have a Presonus Digimax D8 which I bought as an expansion unit to a Firestudio. I'm happy with it. It sounds great (okay not great but good+) and it didn't cost alot. Only goes to 48k sample rate so if you need 96k then you would need the Digimax FS. I have heard good things about the Steinberg but I haven't actually heard one.

[Ken K]

Has anybody here used the Audient ASP008. It's an 8 channel mic pre with ADAT output. Sweetwater sells them for $2,000.

[James Lehmann]

Metric Halo 2882

[teo]

Mackie 800r

[JonesH]

Thank you all for your suggestions. If we do not limit our experiences to 1000$, what other 1U adat options do you recommend?

[LX3]

I have six of the Audients, one Mackie 800R, and a few of the original Octopres.

Between those units, you do kind of get what you pay for. My favourites, not surprisingly are the Audients. Very smooth sounding and you can't deny the usefulness of the illuminated switches.

Build quality could be better mind you. Sorry Steve, hope you don't mind me saying that, but you know it's true. The top and bottom panels don't fit too reassuringly, and if you're carrying them around in a rack, it's useful to find some way of supporting the back of the unit - the front panel isn't as thick and rigid as it could be, and the way the unit is attached to the front panel isn't the best.

But once they're in, they're in. Oh, and thank heavens, proper latching XLR inputs - it's a small thing, but other preamps often use cheaper all-plastic connectors to keep the price down.

The Audient has a great pedigree behind it, and clients that know their gear are quite encouraged to see them in my rack.

The Mackie is a good cheaper alternative though, good sound, well-built, and with great digital interfacing included. It wouldn't worry me if I had to record with 48 channels of them.

[JPeters86]

The RMEs are superb.

[fifthcircle]

They haven't been made for a number of years now, but I had a lot of luck using the Panasonic (Ramsa) WZ-AD96M mic pre. They had a great sound and always seemed to work well for the given situation. They are pretty tough to find out there in the used marked, but they don't usually sell for much.

--Ben

[desotoslo]

^ bongo was selling a Ramsa in the classifieds.

I was looking into this the other day:
Yamaha MLA-8

[kafka]

Originally Posted by teo

Mackie 800r

+1. I could stick with the Mackie for a long time.

[Enginearing]

definitely interesting hearing LX3's thoughts on this one.... I spent a fair while getting as many opinions on this one as i could.

issues i came across... RME has combo inputs. Mackie and Audient have dedicated XLR mic ins and line ins vis DBsub. for me personally the combos would get a bit boring if i had to keep swapping leads in and out...

I was pretty set on the Mackie for a fair while and tried to order one. as it turns out the price jumped and no-one would honour their advertised prices for any new stock.

SO, I have ordered and am keenly awaiting my Audient ASP008... with the mackie price jump and a good deal on the audient it came in at a similar pricepoint.

I'm sure both of these units are up to task, and haven't ruled out getting both as LX3 has... things like the built in MS decoder seemed handy.

[LX3]

The thing that makes the Audient expensive is the digital option, especially if you need the AES outputs. Did you manage to get the ASP with the digital board for the same price as the Mackie? (which has excellent digital interfacing out of the box).

If so, that's really good going. The Audient is a nice product, I'm sure you'll enjoy using it.

[Enginearing]

yep AES card...

i'm fortunate enough to procure a discount through a production company i work for... it seems there was a little space to move in margins. no action on the mackie through those guys so was trying to procure a good price thru local and online scources. it just so happened that as i got keen on the 800r everybody ran out of stock and new stock jumped in price from $1800 to $2999... any discounted price i could find brought it into the ballpark i can get the audient for, so now i keenly await its arrival.

(its replacing a behry ADA8000 which will then only take care of some DA when required)

[klaukholm]

Skip adat and get a MH ULN8 with firewire right into the mac.

[bishopthomas]

Please let me know where you found the ULN8 for 1000 Euros.

[klaukholm]

Thomas, I need to invest in some glasses...

It is a useful little box though!

[Jbassist]

Originally Posted by Ken K

Has anybody here used the Audient ASP008. It's an 8 channel mic pre with ADAT output. Sweetwater sells them for $2,000.

I'm also a user and i love it!

[bremusound]

I bought an older Presonus Digimax (48k) which does a perfect job. With rec limiter on all channels. Very useful on live recordings. thumbsup
Preamps are clean. Never had any probs with that unit.

[jabney]

Originally Posted by fifthcircle

They haven't been made for a number of years now, but I had a lot of luck using the Panasonic (Ramsa) WZ-AD96M mic pre. They had a great sound and always seemed to work well for the given situation. They are pretty tough to find out there in the used marked, but they don't usually sell for much.

--Ben

Ben,

Here's an example of that pre: Songs | The Codes in action. All the songs there as of May 15th, '09 were recorded using it. It seems to combine clean and color (but not color) in a musically useful way.

best,

john

[PlugHead]

Originally Posted by fifthcircle

They haven't been made for a number of years now, but I had a lot of luck using the Panasonic (Ramsa) WZ-AD96M mic pre. They had a great sound and always seemed to work well for the given situation. They are pretty tough to find out there in the used marked, but they don't usually sell for much.

--Ben

X 2

I still use mine regularly - I have plenty of choices for pre's/conversion ATM, but these never fail to impress me.

If you're lucky, you might be able to find them for $700-800, but are getting rarer than hen's teeth...

[Enginearing]

Originally Posted by LX3

I have six of the Audients, one Mackie 800R, and a few of the original Octopres.

Between those units, you do kind of get what you pay for. My favourites, not surprisingly are the Audients. Very smooth sounding and you can't deny the usefulness of the illuminated switches.

Build quality could be better mind you. Sorry Steve, hope you don't mind me saying that, but you know it's true. The top and bottom panels don't fit too reassuringly, and if you're carrying them around in a rack, it's useful to find some way of supporting the back of the unit - the front panel isn't as thick and rigid as it could be, and the way the unit is attached to the front panel isn't the best.

But once they're in, they're in. Oh, and thank heavens, proper latching XLR inputs - it's a small thing, but other preamps often use cheaper all-plastic connectors to keep the price down.

The Audient has a great pedigree behind it, and clients that know their gear are quite encouraged to see them in my rack.

The Mackie is a good cheaper alternative though, good sound, well-built, and with great digital interfacing included. It wouldn't worry me if I had to record with 48 channels of them.

Mine arrived today yeehar..

I see what you mean it is quite a deep unit and a fair bit of weight on the rack ears. the rack i've got has some rear rackstrip so i'm going to try and rig some support back there.... the other advantage will be putting the old behry back there out of the way just to take care of extra DA if required.

I'm not going to be able to re-rack my rig yet as i've got projects this week, but I have a question regarding the clocking... the manual does deal with some of the options, though doesn't specifically deal with what i kneed to know.

will it sync via the ADAT channels as the Behry does? IE: set to external, does it see the clock through the adat channels, or do i need to somehow split my BNC that clocks a spdif unit?

[LX3]

No, like most of these preamps, the ADAT connectors are outputs only (the Behringer is a bit of a special case). External clock on the Audient has to come in on the BNC.

BTW, I'm thinking of getting some simple steel brackets made which will bolt onto the back of the Audients, where those last two last screws on the sides of the case are. You then just need to fix the brackets to the rack rail or the insides of your rack somehow. Voila, the back of the unit gets a bit of support.

If you'd like a few, maybe I'll ask them to make me a few extras.

[Remoteness]

I would attach the support to the rack and not the device, so you can remove the unit anytime you want.

Also, wrap or glue some foam on that support.

[Enginearing]

i think the easiest way for me is ging to be a rack tray and foam... I've just measured up and i can use a 2nd piece of rackstrip and some good nylock bolts and it'll line up withthe reear of the unit. only needing one it should work for me, though if i had as many as paul i'd be looking a bit furthe into it.

Regarding wordclock... can i just use a BNC t-split to clock my 008r and
TwinQ(using SPDIF) off my 003r or is it more involved than that?

[TC Custom Audio]

Presonus Digimax 48k (not LT).

You can get these for under $500 all day long on eBay. Tremendous bang-to-buck ratio. I bought one for $300 because I didn't want to loan my buddy my ISA428's. He can rent those.

[nigel saunders]

Originally Posted by bremusound

I bought an older Presonus Digimax (48k) which does a perfect job. With rec limiter on all channels. Very useful on live recordings. thumbsup
Preamps are clean. Never had any probs with that unit.

+1

I had the presonus digimax and it was surprisingly good for the price.