Mackie Onyx Blackjack and Scarlett 2i2

S

Sludgekicker

Member
Aug 5, 2011
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Hi!
This is my first post but i read forums regularly and since i wanna improve my home gear i want to know if u guys have experiences about these two devices.
I really cut down my choices to them and im on a low budget.
I'll use them mostly on guitar tracking and mixing.
Any help would be greatly appreaciated!!

My concerns are preamps, AD/DA converters and overall sound quality. My first guess is scarlett due to the 96khz sampling rate and the usb 2.0, but correct me if im wrong.
 
I had a Focusrite Saffire Pro 14, ended up selling it as the preamps are too hot for recording guitar DI's. Not sure if the Scarlett has the same issues (I think I might have read that it does as the preamps are of a similar spec for maximum input level)

Got the Onyx Blackjack the other day and I've not had any problems. Build like a absolute tank, headphone amp is loud as a really loud thing!

Sound quality on either of those interfaces is more than good enough in my opinion. The differences in preamps/AD converters etc around this price point are barely audible to the point of being practically nonexistent once you've added a touch of eq. But because of the reasons mentioned I'd recommend the Onyx over the Scarlett.
 
I would not recommend Mackie. They have a very bad habit of discontinuing products really early which means they stop making driver updates for OS updates. My Onyx 1200F was only produced for a year and they never made Windows 7 or Snow Leopard drivers for it.
 
Thanks for the replies!

Any suggestions about sampling rate?

Would it be any difference at 96 khz vs 48 if using ampsims and impulses?

Also usb 1.1 (12mbit max) is bothering me on the mackie unit because i usually end up making 20-30tracks projects although I really dont know the way usb works.

If its no problem then ill go with the mackie after all i use cubase SX3 with winXP and im not planning to change my DAW/OS in the near future regarding driver updates Adam said.
 
USB 1.1/2.0 doesn't have anything to do with how many tracks are in your project, only how many channels of audio you're planning to record at one time.

Recording at 96kHz is going to be really taxing on your pc, make the audio files on your hard drive alot bigger than recording at 44.1/48k and most likely any benefit you got from using the higher sample rate will be made redundant when your song is bounced down to a 16 bit 44.1k WAV for burning to cd, which is then going to be most likely ripped as a lossy mp3 for listening to later. Plenty of pro guys out there perfectly happy recording at 44.1/48k too.
 
Trevoire520 said:
USB 1.1/2.0 doesn't have anything to do with how many tracks are in your project, only how many channels of audio you're planning to record at one time.

Recording at 96kHz is going to be really taxing on your pc, make the audio files on your hard drive alot bigger than recording at 44.1/48k and most likely any benefit you got from using the higher sample rate will be made redundant when your song is bounced down to a 16 bit 44.1k WAV for burning to cd, which is then going to be most likely ripped as a lossy mp3 for listening to later. Plenty of pro guys out there perfectly happy recording at 44.1/48k too.
Click to expand...

Thanks for setting things straight!

Well iam going to record 1 track at once, and if it comes to record more tracks like drums its going to happen on a pro40 anyway.
Though lack of 96khz revokes me of recording in 96khz and converting back to 48 or 88.2 to 44.1 i just hope its not a big drawback :)


AdamWathan said:
Does Mackie even have XP drivers for the new interfaces? I would be shocked if they did!

EDIT: Appears they do, cool.
Click to expand...

I'll also try out the asio4all drivers that i heard is good combo as well.
 
Trevoire520 said:
I had a Focusrite Saffire Pro 14, ended up selling it as the preamps are too hot for recording guitar DI's. Not sure if the Scarlett has the same issues (I think I might have read that it does as the preamps are of a similar spec for maximum input level)
Click to expand...
Pro 14 was not good with maximum input level, but 2i2 is much worse.
Pro 14 seems to have +8 dbu (like Pro 24 or higher Scarletts), but -2 dbu of 2i2 is just ridiculous.
 
I've had the Onyx Blackjack, a good friend let me borrow it for 6 months.

Read this carefully:

These where the most horrible months of my life.
Drivers are really fucked up etc.

All i can say :)
 
Dude, I've been reading this forum for some time but I just registered to warn you about the Blackjack. If you have a Mac then I'd say go for it, it seems it is really stable, the converters and pres sound great and as someone said it is built like a tank. If you're on Windows, AVOID the damn thing for now. Drivers are awful, I can't even listen to my music without pops and clicks. If you're using Win7x64 it's even worse, users on the forum complain about the drivers not working at all. Someone got a response from Mackie saying the new driver will be out first quarter 2012. Great, I might be able to use my audio interface AFTER A YEAR of my purchase. I don't have any experience with the Scarlett but I'd suggest to stay away from the Blackjack, at least until the new driver is out.
 
Dayum... so much negative on blackie :(

TheEnigmaticSpirit said:
Dude, I've been reading this forum for some time but I just registered to warn you about the Blackjack. If you have a Mac then I'd say go for it, it seems it is really stable, the converters and pres sound great and as someone said it is built like a tank. If you're on Windows, AVOID the damn thing for now. Drivers are awful, I can't even listen to my music without pops and clicks. If you're using Win7x64 it's even worse, users on the forum complain about the drivers not working at all. Someone got a response from Mackie saying the new driver will be out first quarter 2012. Great, I might be able to use my audio interface AFTER A YEAR of my purchase. I don't have any experience with the Scarlett but I'd suggest to stay away from the Blackjack, at least until the new driver is out.
Click to expand...

Thanks for warning me mate and everybody!

Have you tried the asio4all drivers instead of the original ones? Foobar also supports ASIO so you can play music.

Anyway my friend said the salesmen are very helpful and i want to hear their personal opinion about them and i also have the option to return the device if its not working well and they exchange it to another.

Kinda leaning towards the scarlett now but im afraid its just sux for guitar DI'ing like preamps are superior on the mackie...
 
So i got the mackie for a while now, it works fine on my desktop pc both win7 and xp. I was happy then.

Then i brought it to my friend, Bluescreened the poor machine 3 times in a row after buffer changing, then came my notebook and can't listen to a frikkin song without hisses and i mean HUGE like twice as much louder than the song itself :(

My conclusion is its really hardware dependent and im planning to return it and get a saffire 6 instead which i think is a toy compared to this fortified beast(friend got me one for a day and the mic inputs were moving up and down like fkin LEGO). :(

no... as far as i can remember even lego was better
 
If you're looking at the Scarlett series check this article out, quite detailed. Gives you all sorts of measured specs, and he even names the A/D and D/A converter they used (Cirrus Logic CS4272
24-bit codec) so you can look that up for more info too.

http://mikeriversaudio.files.wordpr...rite-scarlett-8i6-and-18i6-review_revised.pdf

That article is specific to the 8i6 and 18i6, but I'm not sure they differ much from the 2i2 other than the number of ins and outs (but feel free to correct me those who know better). Also on the topic of there not being enough headroom to record guitar DI's; one simple solution is to just get an external DI box and connect that to the mic pre, then you can have as much or as little gain as you want
 
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