Lets Talk 2 Channel Firewire or USB Interfaces

[guitarguru777]

We are putting a pre-production room in the studio that will also be used for Guitar / Vox / Bass tracking when the main studio is tied up. I am looking for a cheap but good 2 channel interface. I have been looking at the Focusrites and there seems to be a minimal difference between them. I have pleanty of experience with their Saffire line, and I love it. But if I can get something cheaper that works well then I would rather go that route.

Looking for your opinions on other brands.

M-Audio?
Presonus?

I am trying to stay in the $200 to $300 range.

The nice thing about the Saffire 24 is its expandable to an additional 8 channels via ADAT, I love this about it, but dont know how much use we would actually get out of it with it being just a pre-production room.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Thanks

 

[DeclanWhite]

ive heard the tc electronic konnekt 6 is good. comparable to the apogee one even.

not sure how true this is though.

 

[viralz]

Roland Quad-capture. Great interface and stable drivers. I still regret selling mine

 

[bryan_kilco]

Never had an issue with my M-Audio Fast Track Pro and I'm pretty sure you can get one new for under $200.

 

[CAlexanderParra]

The nice thing about the Saffire 24 is its expandable to an additional 8 channels via ADAT, I love this about it, but dont know how much use we would actually get out of it with it being just a pre-production room.

Saffire 24 only has optical input, not output. So you'd have to run it the other way round. Pissed me off when I figured that out.

 

[diegocasmo]

I guess the MOTU Audio Express is a little bit out of range here, but I have one and I love it so far. Also, it is hybrid, so you get both USB and Firewire, just in case you change your hardware or something like that.

 

[arv_foh]

used apogee duet first gen

 

[Jind]

Roland Quad-capture. Great interface and stable drivers. I still regret selling mine

I've been looking at the Roland Octa-Capture to add inputs to my V-Studio 100 (also a Roland product - they have a proprietary protocol to link the two devices, adding together the inputs/outputs from the two devices even though they are ASIO) and I've heard nothing but great things about the Octa/Quad-Capture line of products - special mention to comments on the rock solid drivers.

 

[t-rave]

my friend has a presonus vsl 22 audio box. It's a great bang for buck $200, 2 channel interface. it has on board software channel strips with real time comp, verb and eq too... you can get 4 input version for $299 too..