Which of these interfaces?

ExDown

ExDown

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Oct 15, 2007
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Should I go for?

I'm just about to record my bands debut album, and ATM i'm sitting on the Presonus Firebox which obviously isn't enough for drums etc.

So I'm having a really hard time to choose which interface to go for :Smug:

I actually don't need more than 8 ins since the kick will go midi, but in the future I might want more channels. And I'm running WinXP for those who wonder.

These are the one's I've been looking in to, and the deals I get:

Motu 8 pre (500 dollars)
RME Fireface 400 (850 dollars) / FF800 (1,150 dollars)
Presonus Firestudio (600 dollars)

I personally don't know much about the MOTU interfaces, or the RME's.
But I've heard great things about RME, but also alot bad. (pop's/clicks, interfaces shutting down etc.)
I love the Firebox i'm having now, never had a problem with Presonus stuff at all but as mentioned it doesn't have enough connections.

AND, is the difference between FF400/FF800 worth the extra 300 dollars?

thanks in advance guys,..!
 
heya!

Have you looked at the Presonus FirePOD? it has 8 xlr/line in's (first two are instruments in as well), 1 digital in, midi in and out. If you sell your firebox you're already over half the firepod costs; in euro's the firebox is 295 euro's and the firepod is 389 euro's.
The pre's are excellent and if you buy another firepod in the future you can link them and have 16 or 24 channels

here´s the link
hope it helped..

http://www.thomann.de/nl/presonus_firepod.htm

rob
 
the Fireface is probobly the best bet if you can afford it...

the firepod is still probably presonus's most stable interface..it may not have the bells and whistles of the firestudio..but who cares when it has rock stable drivers...
 
Wow, maybe I should go for the firepod then? But there is no possibility to extend this unit with ADAT? Is that the main differance between the firestudio/firepod. But is it true that you can chain 2 firepod together for 16 channels?
 
ExDown said:
Wow, maybe I should go for the firepod then? But there is no possibility to extend this unit with ADAT? Is that the main differance between the firestudio/firepod. But is it true that you can chain 2 firepod together for 16 channels?
Click to expand...

i know you can daisy chain the motu stuff via firewire, however i was recommended by motu to connect the 8pre to another8pre or 828 via adat instead of firewire, mainly caus it increases your firewires bandwidth usage when you have em daisychained so could present performance issues
 
If you need more than 4 inputs then the Fireface is going to be useless to you without an external preamp...

The Firepods can be hooked together via Firewire to expand up to 3 units which is 24 inputs like noarin said. If you have 2 or 3 of them then ADAT isn't really a huge concern because you can run external preamps as line sources into the Firepod inputs and just use the Firepod A/D. That is a bit of a waste of a Firepod though, and if you are planning on ever adding some higher end preamps or anything than you are probably better off getting the Firestudio from the get go and having the ADAT expandability as opposed to buying 2 Firepods just to use the second one as an A/D converter for ANOTHER preamp... Pretty much just throwing money away at that point, unless you plan on using the 16 Firepod preamps for a while and then adding another preamp even later down the road, in which case it's all up to you to decide what you want to do.

I think the MOTU 8 Pre would be a good choice, it's cheap and offers ADAT. Later down the road you could buy a Fireface 800 or something and just use the 8 Pre as a standalone 8 channel preamp and run the ADAT outs into the Fireface for a total of 12 channels with another 8 analog inputs on the Fireface that you could run other pre's into down the road to take advantage of the A/D in the RME...
 
F0RBIDDEN said:
If you need more than 4 inputs then the Fireface is going to be useless to you without an external preamp...

The Firepods can be hooked together via Firewire to expand up to 3 units which is 24 inputs like noarin said. If you have 2 or 3 of them then ADAT isn't really a huge concern because you can run external preamps as line sources into the Firepod inputs and just use the Firepod A/D. That is a bit of a waste of a Firepod though, and if you are planning on ever adding some higher end preamps or anything than you are probably better off getting the Firestudio from the get go and having the ADAT expandability as opposed to buying 2 Firepods just to use the second one as an A/D converter for ANOTHER preamp... Pretty much just throwing money away at that point, unless you plan on using the 16 Firepod preamps for a while and then adding another preamp even later down the road, in which case it's all up to you to decide what you want to do.

I think the MOTU 8 Pre would be a good choice, it's cheap and offers ADAT. Later down the road you could buy a Fireface 800 or something and just use the 8 Pre as a standalone 8 channel preamp and run the ADAT outs into the Fireface for a total of 12 channels with another 8 analog inputs on the Fireface that you could run other pre's into down the road to take advantage of the A/D in the RME...
Click to expand...



At the moment I'm just going to use my Mackie 24-8bus mixer though.
But is there a big differance between the AD converters of Presonus/RME Fireface stuff??
 
Yeah the RME is a definite step up in quality from most interfaces, you get what you pay for... People seem to really love their RME stuff, but from what I gather the preamps on them are nothing to write home about, certainly usable though.

If you're going to use the Mackie preamps anyways then I would definitely recommend the Fireface 800 if you can afford it. You'll get a ton of use out of it for a long time to come. Guys like Oz and Brett around here both use Fireface 800's as their primary interface and get FANTASTIC results...
 
F0RBIDDEN said:
Yeah the RME is a definite step up in quality from most interfaces, you get what you pay for... People seem to really love their RME stuff, but from what I gather the preamps on them are nothing to write home about, certainly usable though.

If you're going to use the Mackie preamps anyways then I would definitely recommend the Fireface 800 if you can afford it. You'll get a ton of use out of it for a long time to come. Guys like Oz and Brett around here both use Fireface 800's as their primary interface and get FANTASTIC results...
Click to expand...

Okay, that's what i figured basicly.
The FF800 is a bit too expensive for me, BUT it's worth waiting 1-2 months for I guess. You always end up selling your cheaper/crappier stuff after all and wish you'd go for something great from the beginning :)

Thanks guys!!
 
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