sound card vs USB. M-Audio Delta 44 or USB M-Audio Mobile Pre.

[odie]

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Gear I am using:
Tascam 788 harddisk 8 track for recording drums. Imported to Traction for mixing. Now I need an interface to record vocals, guitar, bass etc.

First off as everyone else I want to get the best recording possible. I do most mixing on a home brew runnning XP older, Athlon 1800+ 512 Ram etc. I dont have Firewire. Will be adding more RAM.
I also have a Dell Inspirion 9300(newer) laptop.

USB M-Audio Mobile Pre:
I dont want to deal with latency with the USB setup but it is mobile and can be used with the laptop if needed. It also has a preamp built in. I dont have any pre's other than the bands Yamaha board and rigging something the Tascam. Neither that I want to do.

M-Audio Delta 44:
Will it minimize latency? Does the breakout box work well without an extra preamp. Can I plug in and record? It isnt mobile like the USB setup. Will it give a better recording?? It is 24 bit versus 16 bit on the USB. Will it play nice with my other sound card for music and or games.

Confused and a newbie. I also need to try to stick around the $100-$200 ball park. $150 being the sweet spot.
If need be I can pickup a cheap preamp even though I know it wont be the best.

[Danimal00]

Originally Posted by odie

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Gear I am using:
Tascam 788 harddisk 8 track for recording drums. Imported to Traction for mixing. Now I need an interface to record vocals, guitar, bass etc.

First off as everyone else I want to get the best recording possible. I do most mixing on a home brew runnning XP older, Athlon 1800+ 512 Ram etc. I dont have Firewire. Will be adding more RAM.
I also have a Dell Inspirion 9300(newer) laptop.

USB M-Audio Mobile Pre:
I dont want to deal with latency with the USB setup but it is mobile and can be used with the laptop if needed. It also has a preamp built in. I dont have any pre's other than the bands Yamaha board and rigging something the Tascam. Neither that I want to do.

M-Audio Delta 44:
Will it minimize latency? Does the breakout box work well without an extra preamp. Can I plug in and record? It isnt mobile like the USB setup. Will it give a better recording?? It is 24 bit versus 16 bit on the USB. Will it play nice with my other sound card for music and or games.

Confused and a newbie. I also need to try to stick around the $100-$200 ball park. $150 being the sweet spot.
If need be I can pickup a cheap preamp even though I know it wont be the best.

Hello odie,

The Delta44 interface will give you lower latency than the USB based Mobile Pre will. The Mobile Pre gives you a variety of things that the Delta44 does not. The Delta44 does not have Mic preamps, or instrument inputs. It is a Line Level audio interface only. It also does not have a headphone out, or a way to control the level going to your monitors for playback.

The MobilePre provides Mic preamps, Instrument inputs, and headphone volume control. If you are looking for an all in one box, this does it. I like the fidelity of the Delta44 better though. Do what matches your budget, application, and needs.

If you have $200, you may want to look at the Fast Track Pro from M-Audio as it has 24 bit converters, better preamps, Volume controls for both headphones and speakers, insert points and a variety of other nice options, among which is a mix knob, so you can monitor the input in real time with near zero latency along with what is playing back from the computer.

Thanks,
Dan

[odie]

Dan-Funny to get an reply from you. I sent an email to Sweetwater yesterday.

You are right I think the Fast Track Pro makes more sense. So latency really isnt much of an issue with this device? I keep hearing about people having problems etc and was considering a Firewire solution. But I dont have the card and that would put me over my elf imposed limit of $200-ish. Plus I worry about another compatibility problem as I might pass this from one system to another.

Thanx again!!

Odie/Jamie

[Danimal00]

Originally Posted by odie

Dan-Funny to get an reply from you. I sent an email to Sweetwater yesterday.

You are right I think the Fast Track Pro makes more sense. So latency really isnt much of an issue with this device? I keep hearing about people having problems etc and was considering a Firewire solution. But I dont have the card and that would put me over my elf imposed limit of $200-ish. Plus I worry about another compatibility problem as I might pass this from one system to another.

Thanx again!!

Odie/Jamie

Great! I assume that you have heard back from your Sales Engineer about this by now if you sent the message yesterday. If not, let me know how I can assist. The Mix knob is like a L/R balance knob. Think of the L to be the live input channel, and the R to be the audio coming from the software. You would mute the live track you are recording in the software so you do not get an echo, (from the latency) and use the knob to mix between the pre-recorded tracks and the live track you are recording. In this way, you should be able to deal with any latency during tracking.

Thanks!
Dan

[odie]

Nope I havent gotten a reply yet from S.Water yet.

So their is a bit of latency then. Is that always the case even with a PC card solution? As I said I am new to the PC recording.

Sounds like you are confident this is a good setup if that is the case I will get an order in......oh and tell the shipping guys to toss in a Neumann or nice condensor mic in the box!!

[lillitnn92]

there will always be latency no matter what, even on the high end equipment, it's a matter of how much there is. the better your computer and recording interface, the less latency you will get. there's lots of things you can do to minimize latency on older machines though. there's lots of good stuff here http://www.musicxp.net/index.php that can help lower it.