USB Audio Interface Recommendations, Please?

[musikmachine]

I'm surprised the audient isn't getting more love, expandable with ADAT, quality comparable to RME and SPL with rock solid drivers. I haven't used but there's a lot of love for it online, it's top of my list for my next interface.

[Stromkraft]

I'm surprised the audient isn't getting more love, expandable with ADAT, quality comparable to RME and SPL with rock solid drivers. I haven't used but there's a lot of love for it online, it's top of my list for my next interface.

Audient certainly is an interesting company. From their lengthy presales responses I can only conclude they are either geniuses, lunatics or both. They remind of Emu on that point.

I don't see myself using anything but RME in my own studio for the audio interface task in the near future though.

[Stromkraft]

the Roland Octa-Capture is also very good (on OS X at least). after several recommendations by people who also need rock-solid interfaces i bought one and so far it has been excellent...

What you heard about the Tri-Capture, if anything?

What interfaces would you suggest to look at first in the Steinberg CI Series and UR Series?

[Stromkraft]

When I bought it, I thought it important that the interface has MIDI in/out. But now after using it for several years now, I realize that I have NEVER used the MIDI ports on the unit. Most modern MIDI devices these days have USB connectors as well as the older MIDI connections. I've got a MIDI keyboard controller, PUSH 2, and The Steinberg CC-121 - All connected to my computer's USB ports. I thought I'd point that out in case you were still considering the TASCAM. The only reason I can think that your Audio Interface would really need a MIDI interface is if you have any older "legacy" MIDI devices with no USB - and even then you could just by a simple USB in/out box on its own.

You seem to forget that at least on Macs, on portables especially, USB ports does not come plenty around. Also, you usually need bus power for many typical music products and if you have a separate bus that's usually something that has a value for these reasons.

[musikmachine]

I'm surprised the audient isn't getting more love, expandable with ADAT, quality comparable to RME and SPL with rock solid drivers. I haven't used but there's a lot of love for it online, it's top of my list for my next interface.

Audient certainly is an interesting company. From their lengthy presales responses I can only conclude they are either geniuses, lunatics or both. They remind of Emu on that point.

I don't see myself using anything but RME in my own studio for the audio interface task in the near future though.

Oh no doubt RME is the biz but i was thinking in terms of price.

[fishmonkey]

the Roland Octa-Capture is also very good (on OS X at least). after several recommendations by people who also need rock-solid interfaces i bought one and so far it has been excellent...

What you heard about the Tri-Capture, if anything?

What interfaces would you suggest to look at first in the Steinberg CI Series and UR Series?

sorry, i don't know anything about the Tri-Capture, and the Steinberg interfaces aren't used much in my circles.

this looks promising, however only time will tell if they are reliable (Thunderbolt though, so a bit off-topic for this thread):

http://www.residentaudio.com/t4overview/

[spagbol]

I got a Produce Studio22Pro, i opted for a budget AI, and this product was listed in some AI online review along side Scarlet, M-Audio, NI, et al. and although its ok, it does have latency problems.
But I wouldn't recommend buying a budget AI, but my remit to get up and running asap, as well as my limited finance at the time meant that was the result.
Haha .
I wish id held out a little longer so the finances allowed me to purchase something of a higher quality, but there you go. Just thought id mention the product.

[Tarekith]

I've heard good things about the Steinberg audio interfaces, supposedly they test as well as some much higher end soundcards. Haven't heard one myself though.

For some reason it seems like the Focusrite cards seem to be having a lot of issues lately, not sure why. Could just be more peopel have them because they're so cheap, not sure.

[Guillermo Barrancos]

I've heard good things about the Steinberg audio interfaces, supposedly they test as well as some much higher end soundcards. Haven't heard one myself though.

For some reason it seems like the Focusrite cards seem to be having a lot of issues lately, not sure why. Could just be more peopel have them because they're so cheap, not sure.

It's because of either the drivers or not playing Nice With Ableton and Push 2.

The only stable Version for me right now is Live 9.6 beta 1.

Live 9.5 and Live 9.6 beta 2 are a nightmare for me. Constant hangups and crashes.

[doublestop]

I've heard good things about the Steinberg audio interfaces, supposedly they test as well as some much higher end soundcards. Haven't heard one myself though.

For some reason it seems like the Focusrite cards seem to be having a lot of issues lately, not sure why. Could just be more peopel have them because they're so cheap, not sure.

It's because of either the drivers or not playing Nice With Ableton and Push 2.

The only stable Version for me right now is Live 9.6 beta 1.

Live 9.5 and Live 9.6 beta 2 are a nightmare for me. Constant hangups and crashes.

Gosh! That might explain my dilemma! I had and an extremely frustrating time last night! My live 9.5 situation went from. Annoying, to bad, to worse....now it looks like disaster.! It all started with a Max for live plug in install that caused Live to not open on launch....when I finally got it to open, my Push2 went from being sluggish to just not lighting up....and my Focusrite Saffire Pro driver would keep losing audio, forcing me to reboot. When I finally got things back to what seemed like a reasonable condition (had to do an ableton "reset"), I found that Live 9.5 had not only completely lost. Most of its core library as well as everything else! ( Even the Help library!). At that point I decided to just uninstall the $?!&ing thing. Even THAT took two tries. I had to back out of first attempt because the uninstall window said it would finish in "8 minutes". After an hour of looking at that, I chose cancel! 2nd attempt worked....only now the worst of it is upon me! When I rebooted my machine to prepare for a reinstall, my BIOS can't find my SSD!

The only thing worse now is for it to catch fire and burn my apartment building down!

I'm REALLY liking my little $400 Mac Mini! It's happy as a clam! ableton and all!

[kitekrazy]

I'm surprised the audient isn't getting more love, expandable with ADAT, quality comparable to RME and SPL with rock solid drivers. I haven't used but there's a lot of love for it online, it's top of my list for my next interface.

Audient certainly is an interesting company. From their lengthy presales responses I can only conclude they are either geniuses, lunatics or both. They remind of Emu on that point.

I don't see myself using anything but RME in my own studio for the audio interface task in the near future though.

Oh no doubt RME is the biz but i was thinking in terms of price.

When you thing of the money you may have spent on audio interfaces over the years, just forking out for an RME unit may have been worth it. I bought a Yamaha SW1000XG for the same price as a RME HF9632 and guess which one is a pricey doorstop. That's the beauty of RME. They don't become legacy devices.

[fishmonkey]

i agree. your audio interface is such a critical piece of equipment that skimping on quality and support doesn't make sense to me.

driver and other issues are a complete PITA and waste of time. they are also very low-level issues which make them very difficult to debug and solve.

[Guillermo Barrancos]

The Steinberg UR44 for example is more affordable and has a class compliant switch. So when the time comes that Steinberg stops supporting it, you can continue using it in Class compliant mode.

I am looking at the RME Fireface UC, but I don´t know if I can justify double the price of the UR44 at the moment, not to mention that the RME stuff is on back order everywhere.