Good Audio Interface for PC

[mushanokoji]

Hi
My name is Matrin, I come from Poland
I need professional answer.
I want to buy Ableton LOive, but I know I must have some profesional sound card.
Is many of them on the market, and I don't know witch one to choose?
I heard that EMU 1212M PCIe is good, has good dynamic - 120dB,
but maybe are some better interfaces for Ableton?
I need a card with good dynamic, and really good, warm sound.
No matter it is PCI or USB.
What would you have to proposed?

Thanks

Martin

[4.33]

i heard RME will sound warm if you fry it a bit. otherwise it's sterile and cold

[mushanokoji]

Yes, I belive you have 100% right 4.33, but I'm looking for something cheaper, let's say something around 250 Euros

[McQ714]

is your name Matrin or Martin? and how come you have an aussie accent if your from Poland?

[mushanokoji]

A small mistake - MARTIN
and yes, I come from Poland, Pila Town, 3 hours drive from Berlin
last 3 years I lived in England, Newbury Berkshire,
and for the last 6 months I lived in Germany, Bucholz in der Nordheide
Tempotary I am in Poland, but I'm back to England,
and Aussie accent? What is that?

[carpekd]

How many inputs/outputs do you need? I think the Presonus Firestudio Mobile is a great interface for your price range

[dbfs]

Presonus drivers are complete garbage... I would steer clear of them.. Something is wrong with the DICE chip firmware with there Universal control drivers causing terrible performance on top of the line systems... They act clueless about the whole thing and their tech support is useless.

[carpekd]

Presonus drivers are complete garbage... I would steer clear of them.. Something is wrong with the DICE chip firmware with there Universal control drivers causing terrible performance on top of the line systems... They act clueless about the whole thing and their tech support is useless.

What kind of problems have you experienced?

[leedsquietman]

This is not entirely true - TC Konnekt, Alesis IO26, Focusrite Saffire Pro and other interfaces have the DICE II chipset, which is made by TC and performs well under a TEXAS INSTRUMENTS chipset typically.

And there are plenty of people who run Presonus interfaces with no issues. Presonus only support the TI and VIA chipsets. If you're running LSI Agere, Ricoh, O2, ENE, NEC or other generic integrated IEEE 1394a firewire chipsets you can run into problems with LOTS of firewire interfaces, including interfaces with Dice II which reduces jitter and is a big improvement on some interfaces.

If you want the best, then prepare to get hit in the wallet hard, and buy an RME Fireface UC.

[mushanokoji]

I need only 2 inputs, but what I need, it's realy good recording quality and sound, 24bit/96kHz
Alesis IO26 is good looking, but too many channels( I have Behringer BCF 2000 for control),
I think TC Konnekt 8 is good for me, 196kHz internal processing, or Presonus Firestudio - also id good.
Focusrite is good too, I must choose something,
but why you not recommend me EMU 1212m PCIe
is super dynamic - 120dB, is has Ableton Live Lite for free and many more
????????

[mushanokoji]

I work on Windows7 - 64bit

[mushanokoji]

leedsquietman - thanks for clear explenation of the problem, which in principle does not exist

[skipkent]

I get around 3 or 4 ms latency at 24 bits with my EMU Tracker USB, which cost me all of $150. It doesn't have midi in/out, but is otherwise a very dependable and great sounding device. Great for playing keys in real time or guitar through vst effects.

[dbfs]

This is not entirely true - TC Konnekt, Alesis IO26, Focusrite Saffire Pro and other interfaces have the DICE II chipset, which is made by TC and performs well under a TEXAS INSTRUMENTS chipset typically.

And there are plenty of people who run Presonus interfaces with no issues. Presonus only support the TI and VIA chipsets. If you're running LSI Agere, Ricoh, O2, ENE, NEC or other generic integrated IEEE 1394a firewire chipsets you can run into problems with LOTS of firewire interfaces, including interfaces with Dice II which reduces jitter and is a big improvement on some interfaces.

If you want the best, then prepare to get hit in the wallet hard, and buy an RME Fireface UC.

Of course you would chime in with the usual... The jack of all trades, master of none... Not suprising...

Take a good long read at this thread... http://oldforums.presonus.com/showthread.php?t=12996

And just take an additional look at all the problems with the universal control in this forum --> http://forums.presonus.com/forums/show/32.page - Pages and pages of the same shit... Theres a firmware issue with these UC drivers... we've proved it on several different machines... We figured this out awhile ago.. This isn't nothing new..

[loquat]

M-Audio Delta 1010 is pretty sweet... I had the E-MU 0404 PCI and it was OK, but the drivers were no where near as stable as the M-Audio 1010's. Get one used and your laughing; cheap and stable is good.