Ableton Forum

I've heard excellent things about the Echo Audiofire 8.

http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/FireW ... /index.php

read this

http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1475

interesting, but this thread is from 2007. I bought my MBP in the summer of 2008 and never had any issues with the Fireface. was I just lucky or have the problems been resolved by updates from Apple or RME?

cheers
g

and to add on to what i've mentioned about the performance of the Multiface 2... Kraftwerk uses 4 of them for live performances. each with their own laptop and express card, probably synced by time clock. and i highly doubt that they use them just because they got them free (or so i assume).

thanks guys


Im a little confused about McQ714's post on not needing pres all the time and his suggested set up....when is it i wouldnt need pres?

QUAZAR wrote:

read this

http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1475

interesting, but this thread is from 2007. I bought my MBP in the summer of 2008 and never had any issues with the Fireface. was I just lucky or have the problems been resolved by updates from Apple or RME?

cheers
g

IIRC it applies to only (the newer) imacs so Mac Pros and MBPs should be ok.
I was also looking at the RME's but ended going with the Apogee Ensemble for this very reason. I haven't regretted my decision however.

I have an Imac Intel Duo I bought about 3 years ago.

I have found a pretty good deal locally for a Fireface 800 with option to return it if its a problem.

However, I use Tiger, Firewire Chip issue aside, I dont know if the problem can surface if I upgrade to Leopard someday

Strangely, I have heard a couple of people mention this MAudio as having very decent pres and no latency

http://cachepe.zzounds.com/media/qualit ... 98e3df.jpg

they don't compare - you won't regret the RME.

Sebastian wrote:I have heard a couple of people mention this MAudio as having very decent pres and no latency

they were lying to you outright, EVERY interface has latency.

Yup.

But jeepers, if that new RME USB 2.0 interface can run at 18 samples under Mac OSX (as claimed), that is as near as dammit to no latency, I mean that is probably better than a Protools HD TDM environment on DSP chips. Even 64 samples is super low latency that doesn't discourage any kind of tracking.

Sebastian wrote:Im a little confused about McQ714's post on not needing pres all the time and his suggested set up....when is it i wouldnt need pres?

uhhh.... this is pretty funny. the guy can't decide between RME and MAudio, says an MAudio interface has no latency, RME is unusable and doesn't know when he wouldn't use a pre.

do you know when you WOULD use a pre?

Kodama wrote:I love my Ultralite, but you have to understand that low latency @ high sample rates comes at a steep CPU cost, no matter which interface you get.

I was getting 3ms at 44kHz with ESI Julia (half that at higher sample rates). It was stable and with low CPU. The sound quality was not good enough for my liking but it shows it CAN be done.

if you're recording using a mic, you need a mic pre. if you're not recording using a mic, then you don't need a mic pre. the multiface 2 only has balanced trs inputs built-in (aside from the optical and digital ins). it does not have any xlr inputs. for mic inputs, i use an octopre le connected to the multiface with an adat optical cable. but i find my self hardly ever using mics to record. i'm not sure what was so confusing about my posts...

dumb question...where/is there phantom power on the 800?

http://www.rme-audio.de/images/products ... 800_1b.jpg

looks like it might be software settable. see the '48V' LED? that means phantom power is on. for mics that don't need it, it doesn't matter (I had to look it up)

With phantom power, the supply voltage is effectively invisible to balanced microphones that do not use it: e.g. most dynamic microphones. A balanced signal consists only of the differences in voltage between two signal lines; phantom powering places the same DC voltage on both signal lines of a balanced connection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_power

a page that should be mandatory reading.

so it doesn't matter if you turn it on or off but certainly there's way to turn it off.

weird, but ok. thanks ToneDeft.