Upgrade for struggling student?

[TyRip]

The Digidesign products are very good interfaces, however, there are some other products out there that are definitely worth a look.

I would also check into these:

Tascam FW-1884
Tascam FW-1082
Tascam FW-1804
Presonus Firepod
Mark of the Unicorn 896 HD


Personally, I own the Presonus Firepod, and I have been very happy with its performance. It is nice to have 8 good sounding mic preamps on an interface, and it was easier to install than anything I have ever installed on a computer before!

Also, if you get the Firepod from Musician's Friend, you get it for half the price of a 002r, and it comes with a free cheap AT condenser that you can use or sell for $80 or so, so then you have an 8 input firewire interface with Cubase and 8 mic preamps for $520. Now its not an HD rig or Apogee, but thats quite a deal.

[Dickens]

Do you get Cuebase with the Firepod or is that a sperate purchase?

Thanks for the info.

[TyRip]

Cubase LE comes with the Firepod.

It is somewhat limited compared to Pro Tools LE, though it does have more tracks (48 vs. 32 for PT LE).

I am still using Cubase LE and I like it, it is definitely usable to make good recordings, and also, because it uses VST plugins, you can get great plugins for a lot cheaper than Pro Tools RTAS plugins, sometimes even get good plugins for free for Cubase.

That said, I would prefer to still use Pro Tools 6.7 (what I had with my Mbox that I am selling on Ebay right now) but Cubase is definitely adequette for what I am doing now... and you can move all the way up to Cubase SL or SX3, or go to a Logic program like Logic 7 Express from Apple for $150 with a student discount.

[StefanM]

Let me just add that there is a vst-to-rtas wrapper that let's you use vst plugs in pt.
Works great.

Stefan

[Dickens]

LOL!!
Touche mon amie!