Audio Interfaces and ProTools or no?

the 2626 isn't perfect either see my review on AGZ

There's still a limit of 18 i/o in PT LE or M-Powered

Best value & performance for PT right now
Profire 2626 (if you need the I/O) Profire 610 if you don't
M-Powered 8
FXPansion VST to RTAS adapter
custom quadcore PC or a Mac pro.

An HD 1 core card can do 28 Dverbs
My quadcore pc (about the same price) can do nearly 300

Unless you own a large format mixing console you have no need for HD.

Correct me if I'm wrong but 90% of your recording will be 1 or 2 inputs.
 
If you are talking to me specifically, then yes, most of my recording is just 1 or 2 inputs. However, I need at least 8 (preferably more) inputs for tracking drums. Thus, the Profire 2626 seems better since I can use 16 non-built in preamps, where as with the 003, I can only use 8 non-digi preamps. (Althoughr ealistically, the time I get 16 "other" pres is pretty far off)

I know there's the DV Toolkit for LE, but is there any video capability in M-Powered built in? The Digi website is a bit vague.

I'll have to check out your review of the 2626. The biggest draws for me over Digi is the fact that the 2626 is more expandable (2 ADAT as opposed to 1) to use better pres, Line-ins bypass the preamp circuit (I believe they don't in the Digi stuff), the drivers don't lock into PT, and the 2626 seems to work better as a general soundcard (I plan to use it as my system soundcard, not just recording interface). Plus, I probably wont need the toolkits (can use other software if I need more than 48 tracks, or if I need to do video work). Even if the 2626 and Digi stuff were the same price, I'm almost 100% sure I'd go 2626.

Do HD systems completely ignore the CPU in your comp? All processing is ont he DSP chips, and none is on the CPU, right?

Also, I wasn't trying to say the 2626 is perfect. I just can't really understand why anyone would want a 003 over it, unless they already had an LE system.
 
2626 has the limit of 18 tracks simultaneous ....but with 18tracks you can record every drums in the planet. So I'll buy a 2626 and a digimax 8 pre.
Profire 610 is good but it's not compatible with PT!!! There are only some M-Audio cards compatible with PT
 
I wonder how many people would get a 003 and LE if the 2626 only had 1 ADAT port instead of 2. I don't foresee needing more than 1 ADAT port, a second port is just a nice feature. B/c of this, I'm wondering if maybe a 003 is a good enough choice?

Not being able to monitor from more than one source if PT is open seems like quite a pain, though. Is the locking limited to just ProTools, or is it a general thing? Ex: Can you monitor from Sonar and Cubase simultaneously?
 
Melodeath said:
If you are talking to me specifically, then yes, most of my recording is just 1 or 2 inputs. However, I need at least 8 (preferably more) inputs for tracking drums. Thus, the Profire 2626 seems better since I can use 16 non-built in preamps, where as with the 003, I can only use 8 non-digi preamps. (Although realistically, the time I get 16 "other" pres is pretty far off)

I know there's the DV Toolkit for LE, but is there any video capability in M-Powered built in? The Digi website is a bit vague.

I'll have to check out your review of the 2626. The biggest draws for me over Digi is the fact that the 2626 is more expandable (2 ADAT as opposed to 1) to use better pres, Line-ins bypass the preamp circuit (I believe they don't in the Digi stuff), the drivers don't lock into PT, and the 2626 seems to work better as a general soundcard (I plan to use it as my system soundcard, not just recording interface). Plus, I probably wont need the toolkits (can use other software if I need more than 48 tracks, or if I need to do video work). Even if the 2626 and Digi stuff were the same price, I'm almost 100% sure I'd go 2626.

Do HD systems completely ignore the CPU in your comp? All processing is ont he DSP chips, and none is on the CPU, right?

Also, I wasn't trying to say the 2626 is perfect. I just can't really understand why anyone would want a 003 over it, unless they already had an LE system.
Click to expand...

Video operation is limited to import and export of MOV, AVI formats. No editing of video, no timecode. I think just 1 video per session too.

DV toolkit doesn't give you editing features either, just timecode.

re HD systems, one of the benefits of an HD system is offloading the processing to DSP cards, you need TDM plugins for the DSP cards. You can still use RTAS plugins but they are native/host based so they take cpu power. For a long time HD users used only TDM plugins and avoided RTAS (but this is back in the Mac G3 days). Now its probably 50/50 . Some plugins are just way too powerful and aren't available as RTAS. You also have to be careful about which order you have TDM and RTAS on one track or the DSP cards get used up faster.
An 8-Core MacPro running an HD 7 system is ubertardedly(TM) powerful, but also costs as much as a house.


::XeS:: said:
2626 has the limit of 18 tracks simultaneous ....but with 18tracks you can record every drums in the planet. So I'll buy a 2626 and a digimax 8 pre.
Profire 610 is good but it's not compatible with PT!!! There are only some M-Audio cards compatible with PT
Click to expand...

the Profire 610 requires PT 8 M-Powered.

Melodeath said:
Not being able to monitor from more than one source if PT is open seems like quite a pain, though. Is the locking limited to just ProTools, or is it a general thing? Ex: Can you monitor from Sonar and Cubase simultaneously?
Click to expand...

If they weren't using the same drivers at the same time. Set the Profire as the default interface, open up sonar and use the wdm driver and in Cubase use the ASIO driver.
I can't see why you'd want to though. It gets complicated when you want to send audio between two programs, they can just see the inputs and not the software returns.
I also found the system to be a bit more stable overall to use the built in SoundMax sound as default and send S/Pdif out into the profire for monitoring. I had a couple BSOD when playing games, naming sysaudio.sys as the problem.

Internet, skype, media players all use the wdm driver, PT uses DAE, other daws use ASIO. I'm not sure if you can use the DAE and ASIO drivers at once.

It also works as a standalone AD/DA converter.
 
What abotu the fact that you can't listen to music in Winamp or iTunes while you have PT open. How does that relate to DAE? People say ti works for the 2626, but not for the digi interfaces.

BSOD during games? Crap. That's one of the reasons I thought it was time to upgrade my interface.
 
Haha, i actually searched google for sysaudio.sys since i've had simialr issues, and found your thread on the m-audio forum

I had a BSOD from Left4Dead with my Alesis io26. I'm really trying to get an interface where I don't have those stability issues anymore...
 
Melodeath said:
Haha, i actually searched google for sysaudio.sys since i've had simialr issues, and found your thread on the m-audio forum

I had a BSOD from Left4Dead with my Alesis io26. I'm really trying to get an interface where I don't have those stability issues anymore...
Click to expand...

I got pushed down the path of RME interfaces after all the poor experiences with others. RME's drivers are second to none and amazingly flexible tools come with your interface. I've run the Multiface as my general entertainment soundcard in Windows and it has worked with EVERYTHING, including games, media apps, voice chat etc.

The LE interfaces are a joke, IMO. Terrible WDM support, shite sound quality, locked by PT (not like you could use them externally anyway) etc. They're essentially just dongles for PT - not worth the money.
 
Thanks for all the comments.

The Black Lion Audio mods make the 003 look mroe appealing than it did, but that's wayyy more money thant he 2626. Will be ordering the 2626 and probably PT8 today.
 
Melodeath said:
Thanks for all the comments.

The Black Lion Audio mods make the 003 look mroe appealing than it did, but that's wayyy more money thant he 2626. Will be ordering the 2626 and probably PT8 today.
Click to expand...

My 2626 should be here in a day or two, and I ordered PT 8 yesterday. I was originally thinking of getting an used 002 but after all I read and heard about it, it was easy to jump aboard the M-Audio ship.
 
I think you guys will be very happy with the 2626. It's a quality piece of kit.

I know you'll be happy with PT 8. It's cooler than a witch's tit in a brass bra.
 
Ugh, now I'm tyring to decide between Protools 8 Academic, and non-Academic. Academic seems to come with the Digitranslator, and the timecode ruler, and it's $100 cheaper than non-academic. Anyone know if Academic is somehow crippled?
 
There should be no difference between M-Powered and M-Powered Academic. Just a sticker on the box. gotta be a student tho.

There was an educational standalone version that had digitranslator but I think thats gone now.
 
I couldn't get a straight answer over at sweetwater if academic was the same or not. Looks like v8 Academic isn't quite out yet anyway. I called Digi to ask them the difference, and they didn't know - said I would have to ask the dealer for any question like that :lol: wtf

With the profire can you route ADAT 1 and 2 to be inputs 1 through 18?
 
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