Sweet interfaces under $500 USD or so?

Uladyne

Uladyne

Greg
Oct 20, 2006
1,278
0
36
Oregon Coast
Do they exist?

I have a feeling I might be looking for a replacement for my Firepod soon, as I think it very well may have died on me, so I'm preemptively keeping an eye out for a new interface. It's been so long since I've seriously looked at them though, that I don't really know what's good.

8 Simultaneous inputs are pretty much a necessity, unless I can get buy with more somehow (though I doubt that will happen given my pricerange). I'll also probably need to look into getting a decent Direct Box, unless I can find another interface with "preamp outs" like the Firepod, which acted pretty much line a thru jack on a DI box.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

EDIT: Oh Gawd damn. I may have just made a mistake by upping my Guitar Center Credit limit, so now my price range just jumped to about $1,000 USD. :ill:
 
I'm actually developing a bit of G.A.S. for the Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 Mainly because of the apparent quality/price factor. After doing some searching here I've found that Focusrite seems to be held in pretty high regard here, even if some find that particular unit to be a bit fugly. Doesn't bother me, though. Plus at that price I could probably also get a pretty decent DI box as well.
 
I'm in the same boat as you bud,

I'm looking more for quality than quantity of I/O... but from what I've found, the Echo Audiofire 8 is supposed to have some of the best DA conversion, and has 8 inputs for $500. People say drivers are great and sound is great, might wanna look into that.

It might be what I'll spring for... unless I can find a better interface for <$500
 
The Saffire 40 makes me incredibly nervous, considering all the features it has for its ludicrously low price point (I mean we're talking 8 preamps AND ADAT). Depends what you need, really - if it's many inputs/preamps, the Mackie Onyx 400F seems to be the best bet as long as you don't want ADAT (or Profire 2626 if you do and don't mind taking the probable hit in preamp/converter quality). If you don't need many inputs right now but want future expandability, the TC Electronic Konnekt 24D looks fucking AWESOME - we went over the pros and cons in this thread, but the short version is it's a bit risky, but IMO totally worth it! (and could be coupled with, say, a Presonus Digimax FS via ADAT)

Echo Audio is an unknown factor to me, but they look cool feature-wise for the price! (which always gives me pause, as well as the fact that Sweetwater doesn't carry 'em, and my experience is they only carry products they'll stand by, though it could just as easily have been a falling out with the company/distributor) Also, doesn't look like either of the Audiofires have ADAT ins...
 
Metaltastic said:
The Saffire 40 makes me incredibly nervous, considering all the features it has for its ludicrously low price point (I mean we're talking 8 preamps AND ADAT).
Click to expand...

You do have a point there, but damn, feature wise it's so perfect that it's hard to resist the temptation! The Mackie is only $399 (B-Stock) at musiciansfriend, so I would think GC may have a similar deal going on, so I may have to look a bit more into that one. Do you know off hand if it has all of the internal routing options that the Focusrite has? I think one of the main things that keeps me turning back to the Focusrite is that is would basically eliminate my need for my analog mixer, thus streamlining my entire studio and workflow. I wish I could find more trustworthy reviews of it, but it's still pretty new.
 
i wasin the same boat, 1 of the fw ports on my fp took a crap, so i cant daisy chain my liquid mix. so after doing some research, i went out and bought the profire 2626.

i have 30 days to return it, so i was thinking of doing some comparisons between the profire, my firepod, and my mbox2 pro. I will post clips here. should make it into the studio later today.

im just gonna record a riff dual tracked through each interface.

if the profire doesn't impress me, im returning it and getting another firepod!
 
Uladyne said:
You do have a point there, but damn, feature wise it's so perfect that it's hard to resist the temptation! The Mackie is only $399 (B-Stock) at musiciansfriend, so I would think GC may have a similar deal going on, so I may have to look a bit more into that one. Do you know off hand if it has all of the internal routing options that the Focusrite has? I think one of the main things that keeps me turning back to the Focusrite is that is would basically eliminate my need for my analog mixer, thus streamlining my entire studio and workflow. I wish I could find more trustworthy reviews of it, but it's still pretty new.
Click to expand...

Hmm, that I can't say, though Josh/Zombietakeover on here has one, so maybe he'll chime in! What exactly do you need it to do routing-wise?

And Liam, sounds cool dude, looking forward to it! (and you should re-amp if possible!)
 
I was thinking about reamping, but i would like to test the di`s as well, so maybe i`ll di the same riff with each interface, reamp through corresponding interface, and post clips for a blind comp. I dont think i`ll bother with drums. just double tracked guitars. might not be today, but def this week. im anxious to compare the sub $1000 interfaces.
I really hope that the profire is a step up from the fp in the pre/ conversion category.

im really pretty sure these interfaces will have very little diff. in sound.
 
Uladyne said:
You do have a point there, but damn, feature wise it's so perfect that it's hard to resist the temptation! The Mackie is only $399 (B-Stock) at musiciansfriend, so I would think GC may have a similar deal going on, so I may have to look a bit more into that one. Do you know off hand if it has all of the internal routing options that the Focusrite has? I think one of the main things that keeps me turning back to the Focusrite is that is would basically eliminate my need for my analog mixer, thus streamlining my entire studio and workflow. I wish I could find more trustworthy reviews of it, but it's still pretty new.
Click to expand...

yeah like marcus said i own a mackie 400f..... but YEah what kind of routing are you wanting to do? I will try to answer any questions..
 
Mainly for routing I'm looking for seperate zero latency monitoring mixes. Pretty much the only thing I use my analog mixer for is kind of a monitoring control center, aside from subtle EQing and HPFing occaisionally when tracking drums (Which is pretty rare).

Also with the Firepod I discovered a pretty sweet trick where I could run my guitar DI into one of the instrument inputs to record my DI, but also run a TRS out of the "preamp out" of that input (which acted like a kind of DI box thru jack) into my reamp box and my amp, which was mic'd, and back into another input on the Firepod. That way I could monitor my performance with the reamp system in the chain as I recorded the DI. Not entirely necessary, but pretty damn cool. I know the Focusrite is allegedly capable of doing this sort of thing, but I haven't looked too deeply into the Mackie yet.

Also with the Mackie I would still need my mixer for it's preamps when tracking drums, as it only has 4 mic preamps, correct? The Focusrite has a preamp on every channel, but as Tastic said, it is a bit unsettling seeing all those features in such an inexpensive unit. They must have skimped on something.

If there is a huge difference in quality between the Mackie and Focusrite, I'll probably go for the Mackie, as I can work around the routing issues, but I'm still trying to weigh out the value of the adat connections. I've never used it yet, but perhaps in the future..

The Profire isn't really grabbing me, considering its higher price and probable lower preamp/converter quality, so right now I'm thinking it's between the Focusrite and the Mackie.
 
First off Greg, call me Marcus :) And second, I know money is tight (and I feel ya), but the second part would be alleviated by investing in a DI box! ;) (and the quality would almost certainly be better)
 
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