Recommend an Audio Interface..?

friendselectric · Post by **friendselectric** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 7:38 pm

Need a (probably) Firewire audio interface for use with live and mac... we will be playing live mic inputs esp drums through the ableton mixer so low latency is very important...

4 in 4 out is fine, smaller the better. 2 mic ins at least.

Was thinking of these:

Focusrite Saffire LE
Edirol FA 66

If anyone has any suggestions many thanks..!

CWoodOne · Post by **CWoodOne** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 8:19 pm

I'd heavily recommend against the Saffire. The DSP stuff is not output to the outputs, just on the headphone mix, which is really useless. I tried 3 of them, on macs and pc's and had nothing but trouble. Almost as bad was the M-Audio Firewire 410, which you should search for in this forum for reviews.

Try RME or Motu, IMHO.

BDS · Post by **BDS** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 8:27 pm

friendselectric -

echo audio will be releasing the AudioFire 2 & AudioFire 4 units sometime in July, I believe. I'm using an AudioFire 8. So far, so good.

Good Luck.

BDS

Sales Dude McBoob · Post by **Sales Dude McBoob** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 8:34 pm

Check out the UltraLight from MOTU.

gregorythis · Post by **gregorythis** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 8:38 pm

if theres an echo card like he said id for sure wait but the edioral is suppose to be nice..
check out the presonous.. i hear nothing but good things.

friendselectric · Post by **friendselectric** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 11:36 pm

thanks...

actually im liking the look of the presonus firebox nice n small

plain · Post by **plain** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 11:58 pm

the firebox is great...im more than happy with mine

DJ VAKIS · Post by **DJ VAKIS** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 3:36 am

friendselectric wrote:Need a (probably) Firewire audio interface for use with live and mac... we will be playing live mic inputs esp drums through the ableton mixer so low latency is very important...

4 in 4 out is fine, smaller the better. 2 mic ins at least.

Was thinking of these:

Focusrite Saffire LE
Edirol FA 66

If anyone has any suggestions many thanks..!

Firebox from Presonus

D K · Post by **D K** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 4:39 am

the edirol stuff is...well, i had an fa101 for a year and was nothing but elated to get rid of it. at first it was decent, but over time, os upgrades, (and no firmware updates for the edirol) it gradually performed worse and worse. the sound was really not on par with the motu interfaces i've used....or even the digi002 i had....
.02

DeadlyKungFu · Post by **DeadlyKungFu** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 5:00 am

It's a crapshoot. I bought a Presonus Firebox, it wouldn't play correctly, it would insert very brief silence every measure with every audio app I tried. This is with a $1900 HP DV8000t laptop. I tried for a week to get it to work. I'm getting an Edirol UA101 tomorrow, I'm going to sit in the shop and install and try it just to make sure and save myself a drive back to the store.

The Firebox seemed like a great device, GREAT build quality, nice selection of in/outs in a compact firewire powered unit.

rsagevik · Post by **rsagevik** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 5:33 am

Presonus is working great for me.
I can highly recommend the Firepod.

cashman · Post by **cashman** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 7:16 am

I tried an Edirol FA 66 which gave me nothing but noise and traded it in for a Focusrite Saffire LE.
The Saffire LE works fine for me in exactly the same circumstances as I tried the Edirol. It is less compact, but that has yet to be a problem.

CWoodOne wrote:I'd heavily recommend against the Saffire. The DSP stuff is not output to the outputs, just on the headphone mix, which is really useless. I tried 3 of them, on macs and pc's and had nothing but trouble. Almost as bad was the M-Audio Firewire 410, which you should search for in this forum for reviews.

Try RME or Motu, IMHO.

As far as I know, the LE part of the name is to set it apart from the (regular) Focusrite Saffire. The major difference between the two being that the LE does NOT have on board DSP (effects) although the same group of effects are supplied as plug-ins, well that's how mine works

.
c

SubFunk · Post by **SubFunk** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 11:27 am

CWoodOne wrote:

I'd heavily recommend against the Saffire. The DSP stuff is not output to the outputs, just on the headphone mix, which is really useless. I tried 3 of them, on macs and pc's and had nothing but trouble. Almost as bad was the M-Audio Firewire 410, which you should search for in this forum for reviews.

Try RME or Motu, IMHO.

could it be that this is for some reason a Live related issue?? (even it seems odd!) the reason i am asking is that on the Logic Pro Forum (obviously all mMac users!) there are dozens of people using the saffire (not LE though....) and it's running like a charm and is one of the most recommended interfaces except RME and Motu obviously, which are a level above... actually people in general (the ones i spoken to! and the ones on all other forums i visit regularly raving so much about it, exceptional sound and pres for the money you spend!?, that i consider getting one myself for a little 2nd protable home setup, because of the convineience to have good pres built in to keep it really portable...) the issue with the DSP is that the headphone / monitoring output has it's sort of 'own' reverb but all other DSPs are working with all outputs just fine.

????

i highly apriciate any further input on this matter, as i am on Live and Logic equally...

thanks!

SubFunk · Post by **SubFunk** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 11:41 am

and by the way i also recomend RME or Motu if you can afford it!

Motu - ultralite / traveler
RME fireface 400 / 800 (very good! indeed)

hereschenes · Post by **hereschenes** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:01 pm

SubFunk wrote:
could it be that this is for some reason a Live related issue??

Exactly... that or some other issue related to his/her computer that isn't the Saffire's fault. I purchased a Saffire last week, and it works like a charm (PC). I only have the Live 5.2 demo version for now, but it works fine with it. As you pointed out, the onboard DSP effects most certainly do go to the outputs, except for the reverb effect. As has been noted, the LE doesn't come with onboard DSP anyway. Whatever the case, comparing it with the Firewire 410 is pure flamebait.

Happy to try and experiment and answer any other Live<->Saffire related questions, although keep in mind that I've only got Live demo.

Recommend an Audio Interface..?

Recommend an Audio Interface..?

Re: Recommend an Audio Interface..?