What to get...

[laboitenoire]

Alright, I'm thinking of maybe trying to snag a decent home recording setup if I ever get the money, as I'm sick of trying to record using the line in jack on my sound card. Only problem is that my school's setup has spoiled me, and so I won't settle for anything less than an 8-track computer recording setup. I'd probably use either Sonar or Home Studio from Cakewalk, as I'm very familiar with Cakewalk's products. However, I'm having trouble finding a good interface and mixer combo. The way we record is we use a mixer that supports direct outputs for at least the first eight channels ( Mackie's 1604-VLZ Pro), and then the direct outs plug into an Edirol UA-1000, which sends each of the eight inputs as a sperate track over USB into our computer, which uses Home Studio. My question is: which of the following would yield good results using Cakewalk and be as good quality as my school's setup?

1. A pair of M-Audio Delta 44 capture cards hooked up to a mixer (like Mackie's 1642-VLZ Pro or an equivalent Behringer model)
2. One of PreSonus' Firepods hooked up to a mixer
3. Alesis' Multimix16 Firewire (I would use the USB version, but it only sends stereo over the USB connection, while the Firewire version sends all of the channels)

 

[BR Audio]

Its hard to say, but I think the Firepod gives you more portability, since its firewire.
I would check out other interfaces as well. Firewire 1418, Delta 1010, MBox2-PRO etc, MOTU traveler. I've had trouble with some of the presonus boxes and their drivers. But that is just me..

Good luck.
Gil

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

What kind of problems have you had with the presonus?

- Will

 

[chrisp2u]

However, I'm having trouble finding a good interface and mixer combo. The way we record is we use a mixer that supports direct outputs for at least the first eight channels ( Mackie's 1604-VLZ Pro), and then the direct outs plug into an Edirol UA-1000, which sends each of the eight inputs as a sperate track over USB into our computer, which uses Home Studio. My question is: which of the following would yield good results using Cakewalk and be as good quality as my school's setup?

1. A pair of M-Audio Delta 44 capture cards hooked up to a mixer (like Mackie's 1642-VLZ Pro or an equivalent Behringer model)
2. One of PreSonus' Firepods hooked up to a mixer
3. Alesis' Multimix16 Firewire (I would use the USB version, but it only sends stereo over the USB connection, while the Firewire version sends all of the channels)

No matter what you decide on, go with FireWire over USB if you're not getting some type of internal PCI card... it has much better sustained data throughput and I have found it to be more stable generally.

It would be cheaper to just get a decent interface sans the mixer, but it sounds like you really want the tactile feel of a real mixer. Or, you could just get a combined mixer/interface (see below). I guess the benefit of getting a separate I/O and mixer (as you seem to be describing) is that you can upgrade either at any time, but there's also more involved (like cables), and you're going from analog to digital through cables instead of just directly through an convertor... so there's more potential for noise/interference and failing cables. Plus, it'll cost more overall.

I usually never use a mixer when I'm recording stuff into my computer (everything straight into my interface) except for my portable rig (with the ONYX 1620)which my band uses for live mixing and recording.

There are a few options there that I know of in the all-in-1 category... the Alesis MultiMix FW you mentioned, Mackie ONYX (I have a 1220 and a 1620 w/the FW I/O... pretty decent sound/results... much better than their VLZ/Pro stuff), and of course the B$&(*%^@r "XENYX"... might be some others. I'd take a look at the ONYX... you can get good deals ono them on ebay quite often with the FW option.

BTW, what's your budget?
---
c

 

[BR Audio]

Hi Will,

the problems were mainly for midi compatibility with some USB controllers. It could have just been the controller that I was using. For audio, it worked fine. I was runing it with Nuendo and there was a little issue with latency, but I could handle it, since I wasn't really recording much. Just editing and mixing.

peace
Gil