Audio Interface for portability

[drew_drummer]

So I got a laptop recently. Only an i3 based thing, but I upgraded to 8gb of DDR3 ram and a 500gb SSD. So it's running really nice.

I'd like to have an audio interface (usb2.0) for portability; recording band practices mainly. My main DAW currently has a Profire 2626, and it's pretty good.

I'm wondering whether I should get a Roland Studio Capture to replace my Profire and to use with the laptop also... or whether I should just get a Scarlett 18i8, which is way cheaper, and use the M-Audio in standalone mode via ADAT.

Either-way it gets me 12 decent enough preamps for drum recording, and it gets me portability. Only thing being that I'd only have the four preamps on the Scarlett, which isn't really enough for recording band practices.

Any thoughts on which way I should go?

 

[~BURNY~]

Maybe keep the 2626 and buy the 18i20 if you can afford it. I doubt you'll make a lot of money selling the 2626 so... You'll get 16 clean pres. Can't have too many.

 

[~BURNY~]

Come to think of it, I'm not sure USB 2.0 can handle 16 channels simultaneously.

 

[drew_drummer]

Come to think of it, I'm not sure USB 2.0 can handle 16 channels simultaneously.

It can. USB2 has higher transfer rates than Firewire, which is why everyone has jumped over to it (pretty much)

I hear you on having 16 pre's, but I think at that point it's a little bulky. Maybe I'll consider it.

 

[thefalloftheheretic]

TASCAM US1800. I've recorded drums, a guitar, a bass, and vocals at the same time and it ran fine.

 

[Jind]

I mentioned a few months ago that the Roland Studio Capture had peaked my interest as being the interface I was most looking at when looking to expand my setup. I currently use a Roland product as my primary interface, a V-Studio 100 and with the Studio Capture drivers would simply see my V-Studio as additional ins/outs seamlessly.

Have not purchased it yet, bought a new laptop instead, but it's still on my list of items in the queue.

 

[~BURNY~]

I hear you on having 16 pre's, but I think at that point it's a little bulky. Maybe I'll consider it.

But at least you can rack both units in a little flight case which is really convenient ime.

My portable setup is just a bit larger, I have two2626 and an ADA8000 in a 5U flightcase and sure I wouldn't be comfortable taking a bus or a train with it (I have a car fortunately)but it's pretty cool to have everything hooked up, ready to record.

 

[drew_drummer]

Do you have a patchbay linking it all together so you don't have to dick around too much around the back?

I am growing slightly more keen to go that direction.

 

[~BURNY~]

Not yet, I have an XLR patchbay at home made with a pre-drilled plate and Neutrik NA3 FDM connectors (kind of expensive but great if you want to avoid soldering iron burns) and I'm planning to do the same for my portable setup asap.

 

[drew_drummer]

Hmm. So looking into the 18i20. It looks good, but only two of the preamps have a pad - I'm going to be recording drums so a bit nervous about that! The preamps go from +10db to +60db. Is that going to be a problem do you think? I know I can always just buy some in-line pads, but would rather them built into the unit.

 

[~BURNY~]

Well let's imagine you're recording a four toms drumkit, using both the 18i20 and the 2626.

Sources that are likely to clip (but not necessarily):

1 KD in
2 KD out
3 SD top
4 SD bottom
5 Tom 1
6 Tom 2
7 Tom 3
8 Tom 4
9 OH L
10 OH R

That's the 2626 with 8 inputs pads + the 2 focusrite's inputs with pads

You will be left with a Hihat, maybe a stereo room, maybe a ride cymbal, maybe an auxiliary top Snare or an extra tom or a mono room or talk back or scratch guitar...

If you buy a couple of in-line Pads just in case, I think you're good to go...

 

[drew_drummer]

Well in a practice room situation I would *only* use the Scarlett, I wouldn't take the Profire into rehearsals unless we were recording our actual album.

For a rehearsal/practice situation I was thinking:

Guitar 1
Guitar 2
Bass
Vocals
OHL
OHR
Kick
Snare

And then when I record our album, I'd go Profire+2626. For Exegesis I used 16 microphones for the drumkit, in a big ass warehouse space.

 

[~BURNY~]

Yep, in your rehearsal scenario, it could be a problem indeed and just a couple of inline pads might be a not so elegant but efficient solution.

 

[slo77y]

rme babyface with an 8chan pre of your choice.

its the best there is, it really is.

/Thread

 

[drew_drummer]

rme babyface with an 8chan pre of your choice.

its the best there is, it really is.

/Thread

Er... no.

It wont expand my I/O all that much, only gives me an extra two preamps. Meaning for 10 preamps I'll need to cart around my Profire and the Babyface all the time, and end up with an even more bulky and cable heavy setup than just one single unit.

All that for £460 ... nah. We have a Fireface at the office, and it works well, but for my portable setup, I don't think RME really offer anything that is cost effective enough to meet my needs.

Burny is onto something when he says to get the Scarlett 18i20. But the pad thing is a bit worrying. I might look into some other units first before I make the jump. Maybe something MOTU based, since they now support Windows AFAIK.

 

[slo77y]

i had the Motu, believe me, the drivers for windows are crap.

i think the rme stuff is very cost effective, because it works, and will work. i had all kinds of interfaces from a variety of different manufacturers, and they all have outdated drivers short after the release, that dont get updated very often. the rme stuff gets updated for YEARS after its release. maybe you should put that also into your equasion.

 

[drew_drummer]

The Babyface doesn't offer enough I/O for my needs. Plain and simple. I know the drivers are good, I used to have a Hammerfall PCI till I upgraded my machine and could no longer use it. We have a Fireface at the office, and that too is decent. but the Babyface doesn't cover it, nor do their other USB devices.

 

[drew_drummer]

In the end I went for the Studio Capture. Couldn't pass up 12 preamps in a portable box, and the metering and auto-sense feature just seemed killer. Looking forward to using it!

 

[guitarfishbay]

In the end I went for the Studio Capture. Couldn't pass up 12 preamps in a portable box, and the metering and auto-sense feature just seemed killer. Looking forward to using it!

I looked at that but was concerned that the preamps might not have had enough gain. They've got 50db vs focusrite's 60db, but I couldn't get any real answers at my time of purchase because there were so few user reports of the Octacapture and Studio capture. They're probably fine but I decided to go with what I thought was a safer bet since I didn't want to end up also buying external pre-amps at this stage.

What nailed it for me was that the Roland interfaces don't have ADAT, the only way you can expand AFAIK is to aggregate the device and my laptop at the time only had one good usb port for audio (it was an old black Macbook which have known usb design issues).

In the end I went with a flightcase 2u rack setup with a Scarlett 18i20 and an Octopre. It worked out quite well for me because I won a competition after buying the Scarlett for £200 to spend with Focusrite, so I ended up able to afford the Octopre much quicker than I anticipated.

I hear you about portability, but it isn't like multiple mic stands and mics are portable either so it depends how often you move the unit but only need a small number of pres/mics. Auto sense feature would be awesome for quick setups though.

 

[drew_drummer]

Aye dude, I hear ya. I guess fundamentally I liked the form factor much more than a rack unit, and really wanted the auto-sens for recording band practices. I reckon it'll be fine, yes they're only +50dB of gain, but that is easily more than enough for most dynamic microphones. Might be an issue for ribbon mics and some condensors, but I don't have any of those anyway!