Which Audio Interface You Use And..., ...how advanced are Your DAW sessions Options

[Darius Wave]

Hey guys! I was wondering about making some review of mostly used interfaces combined with which hardware and what type of connection (Firewire or USB).


I wonder about the effective working of those. Especially within people who makes mixes of ful;ly packed sessions - like full band, all on VST + all mixing plugs....

Try to write

1. Interface
2. Conncetion type
3. Operating System
4. PC processor and RAM
5. Number of instruments mixed in the session

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[Todd Simpson]

Fully packed, mostly plugins/"in the box" recording.

Tascam M164UF USB mixer/interface
(usually 1 track at a time but I've done 8 tracks at once with no issues)
Mac OS X Mavericks
Quad core i7 8GB ram
6 through 24 instruments.
Plugins
*Ez Drummer
*TH2
*Native Instruments Kontact (strings/etc.)
*Izotope Ozone Advanced (on the two bus)

That's about it

Hey guys! I was wondering about making some review of mostly used interfaces combined with which hardware and what type of connection (Firewire or USB).


I wonder about the effective working of those. Especially within people who makes mixes of ful;ly packed sessions - like full band, all on VST + all mixing plugs....

Try to write

1. Interface
2. Conncetion type
3. Operating System
4. PC processor and RAM
5. Number of instruments mixed in the session

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

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[coffeeman]

1. Line 6 UX1
2. USB
3. OSX 10.9
4. DDR3 10GB
5. Normaly I use addictive drums, Native Instruments Komplete 9 no more than 2 tracks, Guitars 2 tracks for each section, and sometimes a recored bass or a Komplete 9 Bass, and vocals sometimes duplicate.

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[Monica Gheorghev...]

1. Line 6 UX2
2. USB
3. Windows 7 / 64 bits
4. Intel I3 2130 / 4GB DDR3
5. I use Guitar Rig and I record track by track. For the rest of instruments I use my keyboard and my electronic drums not VST. I mix around 6-10 tracks for a song.

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This post has been edited by Monica Gheorghevici: Dec 4 2013, 08:23 AM

[Darius Wave]

Fully packed, mostly plugins/"in the box" recording.

Tascam M164UF USB mixer/interface
(usually 1 track at a time but I've done 8 tracks at once with no issues)
Mac OS X Mavericks
Quad core i7 8GB ram
6 through 24 instruments.
Plugins
*Ez Drummer
*TH2
*Native Instruments Kontact (strings/etc.)
*Izotope Ozone Advanced (on the two bus)

That's about it

This Tascam looks pretty advanced for the home recording but look like it does the job. I suppose as most of others it has adjustable buffer size. Can You tell what is Your current buffer size setting?

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[Saoirse O'Shea]

1. Interface - AD/DA IO loop - Prism Sound Orpheus here and reviewed here . It costs about 4000 Euros.

A Lavry Black DA11 here and a review here . The Lavry is dedicated to playback about 1500 Euros.

2. Connection type - Prism Orpheus is on FW. Lavry is on the XLR AES-EBU.

3. Operating System - Win 7 64. We use Sadie for the DAW.

4. PC processor and RAM - I3, 3 gig.

5. Number of instruments mixed in the session - mainly mastering so just the 2 bus.

Very little vsts as we use analogue hardware for the majority of our processing. What vsts we have are from Flux, Sonoris and Algorythmix. We also use Izotope RX3 for off line audio cleanup. VSTIs - some use of Vienna samples using Halion as a sampler, Spectrasonics Atmosphere for pads but we usually use 'real' synths, drums, etc.

If I'm recording/mixing though this gives us 8 channels and we can daisy chain a second Orpehsu on the FW for 16 channels. To add more channels the pc also holds 2 legacy RME 9652 HDSP cards internally here and we have a Yamaha O1V console here to take us to about 56 channels in to the RMEs on lightpipe connection for ada i/o and use the Lavry to monitor via AES. Yes we have done this and yes it does work. We've recorded and mixed live choral and large jazz ensembles this way.

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[Taka Perry]

1. M-Audio Fast Track
2. USB 2.0
3. Windows 7 64-bit
4. Intel i7 3GHz and 4GB

5. It really depends on the song, but normally my songs are pretty 'full' by the time they are finished.

EZDrummer
Reaktor 5
Arturia Mini V
Sampletank
SampleMoog

I keep my buffer levels one down from the lowest, which helps keep my system stable.

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[Darius Wave]

But how many of You use direct monitoring while recording guitar through VST amp ? That's what I do

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[coffeeman]

But how many of You use direct monitoring while recording guitar through VST amp ? That's what I do

What is direct monitoring Darius?

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[Monica Gheorghev...]

I am very curious to hear the explanation for direct monitoring but I know this means: ( but maybe I'm wrong).
Passing a track’s input signal on to the track’s output. Suppose you have set up an audio track to receive it's input signal from a guitar. Monitoring then means that the signal from your live guitar playing actually reaches the track’s output, via the track’s device chain. If the track’s output is set to “Master“, you can hear the guitar signal, processed by whatever effects are used (and delayed by whatever latency the audio hardware interface incurs), over your speakers.

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[Huargo]

But how many of You use direct monitoring while recording guitar through VST amp ? That's what I do

Recording.
Latency when you are trying to play fast it's a pain for me... i use a little amp with a direct signal of my guitar to monitoring.
One cable to the interface M audio fast track, and one cable to the amp... i use the speakers from my macbook to listen the music plus a very loud metronome signal.
mix
use my earphones... waiting to buy something better for mix....

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[Todd Simpson]

it's been a KILLER interface and you can get them cheap now since they were discontinued. I LOVE have EQ BEFORE the signal gets in to the computer. Also, each channel has a fader and a mic trim. So much like a standard mixing board, and it will let you record 8 tracks at once no problem.

I set the BUFFER @ 64 SAMPLES.


I don't get any latency which is important when playing fast/precise bits. The computer behind the scenes has a lot to do with it as does the driver. I"m not running a separate driver in my case since none exists for the current version of MAC OS X MAVERICKS. It just sees the mixer without an external driver.

IT's a QUAD CORE i7 3.6ghz 8GB Ram which does a great job. I do have to increase the buffer on my laptop a LOT. But it's only a dual core i5 with 4gb ram which is IMHO just not enough horsepower for the stuff I like to run in a channel strip so I"m upgrading the ram and putting in an SSD drive so the swap file will be nearly as fast as the ram.

Todd

This Tascam looks pretty advanced for the home recording but look like it does the job. I suppose as most of others it has adjustable buffer size. Can You tell what is Your current buffer size setting?

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This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Dec 5 2013, 09:00 PM

[Mertay]

I'm using an i5 2.67ghz cpu with 4gb of ram on 32bit windows 7. I'm using a konnect 8 from tc electronic (firewire).

I do lessons with it, me and the student total 2 channels at 96khz and use 6 plug-ins each. 2 of them are upsampled and the cab emulation comes from nebula. Works great, soundcard latency is 1.3 and total latency is 2.0ms.

I'm also ok with freezing tracks, specially vsti's if I'm going to play guitar and latency is disturbing.

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[SpaseMoonkey]

1. Presonus USB AudioBox
2. USB 1.1
3. Windows 7 Ultimate
4. AMD FX-8150 (3.6Ghz 8-core) 16Gb Ram

5. 2-5 Tracks.
Setup 1: (2) Tracks - Backtracking or metronome in 1 track and a guitar in the other.
Setup 2: Drums in 1, then dual rhythm and sometimes dual lead.

I also only use headphones when recording, don't even own monitors.

Very happy since I can get around slightly with simple recording. Just think I need to upgrade my interface some day.

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[Gabriel Leopardi]

Interesting topic! This is what I use at home.

1. Interface
M-audio Fast Track Pro
POD Line 6 HD500

2. Connection type
USB

3. Operating System
Windows 7

4. PC processor and RAM
I7 3.40 GHZ- 8GB Ram

5. Number of instruments mixed in the session
Most of the times the classic rock formation: Drums, Bass, 2/3/4 guitars, and sometimes vocals. I usually add other synth instruments.

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[Darius Wave]

...

Well that's impressive stuff but You Mr Tony is one of the people that we (home "recorders") send our stuff for mixes or mastering. No you see the difference guys ? You're not the home recording category anymore ha ha ))

I had always a huge respect for work of people like you Tony. This is why I do not pretend I can do a mastering at home I always send my mixes to professional studios and advice all my friends to do the same. First of all external person whoe didn't had to listen to the song over and over again, has a fresh sight and can detect some issues I missed. Also mastering expirience, descent analog gear and perfect room acoustic conditions make me sleep well with no nightmares like "is this bass note rosonance a problem of my room or maybe it's the mix"

1. Presonus USB AudioBox
2. USB 1.1
3. Windows 7 Ultimate
4. AMD FX-8150 (3.6Ghz 8-core) 16Gb Ram

5. 2-5 Tracks.
Setup 1: (2) Tracks - Backtracking or metronome in 1 track and a guitar in the other.
Setup 2: Drums in 1, then dual rhythm and sometimes dual lead.

I also only use headphones when recording, don't even own monitors.

Very happy since I can get around slightly with simple recording. Just think I need to upgrade my interface some day.

Spase..How do You set-up presonuns buffer size? Are You able to record with almost no latency while track monitor on and going through some vst amp sim live? I'm trying to collect some data what is the lowest possible pc parameters to correctly work with audiobox usb version (fully packed DAW sessions)

I'm using an i5 2.67ghz cpu with 4gb of ram on 32bit windows 7. I'm using a konnect 8 from tc electronic (firewire).

I do lessons with it, me and the student total 2 channels at 96khz and use 6 plug-ins each. 2 of them are upsampled and the cab emulation comes from nebula. Works great, soundcard latency is 1.3 and total latency is 2.0ms.

I'm also ok with freezing tracks, specially vsti's if I'm going to play guitar and latency is disturbing.

Yes - that's exactly what I was doing (freezing tracks) with my previous PC but it was just a AMD dual core 2,4 and it was able to run highly advanced DAW sessions with low latency. Now I'm doing a very first steps with new Device. Luckly my old Firewire launched on new system and works fine. I was doing some tests after very first launch of cubase 7 64 bit and I wonder if the 64 bit plug-ins will consume more memory and CPU than 32 bit?

Why I'm asking. I launched Cubase 7 x64 + LePou HyBrit x64 + Kefir and some impulse loaded and...I was not able to play on the "2 ms" latency setting on my presonus. Of course it's just a "naming" for example latency to be used instead of buffer size but Now I have no comparison - didn't check true latency value while 2ms option on my previous PC.

Interesting topic! This is what I use at home.

1. Interface
M-audio Fast Track Pro
POD Line 6 HD500

2. Connection type
USB

3. Operating System
Windows 7

4. PC processor and RAM
I7 3.40 GHZ- 8GB Ram

5. Number of instruments mixed in the session
Most of the times the classic rock formation: Drums, Bass, 2/3/4 guitars, and sometimes vocals. I usually add other synth instruments.

Gabriel - are you able to recordwith low latency through software amp sim trakc monitor, while having all other "band" on vst?

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[Mertay]

Did you do that windows performance setting thing where you tweak some services? its been such a long time but I remember taking the time trying to disable stuff thats on the task manager so I don't get cpu spikes and save some ram.

Of Course no virus program always open (I scan with malwarebytes when needed), even use the lowest graphics settings and a black background its doesn't look cool but I notice a difference.

My soundcard is the oldest of TC electronics range. I think 1-2 years ago they made an update to the driver which made a difference, besides buffer rate there is mode selection that has safe-normal and low latency in it. I use low latency but say if I open chrome while DAW is playing a music it can sometimes have an effect on sound.

But take a backup before trying these if you haven't yet also updating drivers (like usb, mainboard) or even bios helps too.

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[Darius Wave]

Yep I tried those. I'm one of those guys who keep constant care of pc health. My Win 7 looks like 98 now Blank background, grey toolbars, now effects etc. I do mess with the start-up progs and services a lot I did some drivers reinstallation and win updates. Not satisfied with results. I own Asus K50J at work with 4GB Ram an Intel T4200 dual core. Audio box is the only thing I can make working the way I need by far

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[Gabriel Leopardi]

Gabriel - are you able to recordwith low latency through software amp sim trakc monitor, while having all other "band" on vst?

I haven't tried this yet with my computer. As I mainly use Pod HD for guitar sounds I haven't installed an amp simulator yet, but I will do it soon and then tell you. It shouldn't be a problem with the new computer.

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[Mertay]

My Win 7 looks like 98 now

LOL!

hmmm...I guess this leaves the plug-ins or the driver of soundcard. Not much to do for the soundcard besides writing an e-mail to support.

For plug-ins I wonder if its a compatibility thing thats causing this... try also ignite stuff http://www.igniteamps.com/en/audio-plug-ins and maybe something like newest free amplitube?

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This post has been edited by Mertay: Dec 6 2013, 03:17 PM