Ableton Forum

Focusrite has great pres but is not noted for being good on low latency performance.

Echo Audio - The Audiofire range are good.

You could consider something like an M-Audio 2626, this is a rarity - a really solid, well performing, well specced M-Audio interface.

MOTU - 828 mkII or Ultralite, but in some people's experience, performs better on Mac than PC.

i used a Onyx Satellite for about a year, the build & sound quality is up to Mackies standarts which i consider very good - the modular approach was a interesting idea, but in the end its more a gimmick then beeing really useful - mine started to sound terrible (pops & crackles) after a year of constantly taking the interface out of the dock when i took it to gigs - the unit itself is also very limited when it comes to ins/outs

i wouldnt recommend it to anyone tbh

since a few months i´m using a Motu Ultralite and couldnt be happier with it - lightwight, compact, great sound and soooo many ins/outs

Wow, the Impact Twin is looking really good to me. It has the right I/O, good mostly steel construction, and DSP reverb/compression/gate for recording. The preamps/converters have gotten really good reviews so far, some even comparing to RME. It's a bit more than I wanted to spend at $400 though, and it's a very new interface....I hope to find more reviews. RME and Motu are just out of my range.

ze2be - I wonder if your friend had the original Saffire, or the Saffire Pro 24 (the newer one). The newer one looks much better and was supposedly redesigned from the ground up. I don't know....if Focusrite screwed up once they could certainly do it again.

ethios4 wrote:Impact Twin is looking really good to me. It has the right I/O, good mostly steel construction, and DSP reverb/compression/gate for recording.

FWIW the reverb TC Electronic throws in with the package that came with my Konnekt 6 is really good IMO. I wish Live's sounded like that... I wouldn't use anything else if it did.

I think the Impact Twin might be my next unit barring having the fundage for an RME...

ethios4 wrote:ze2be - I wonder if your friend had the original Saffire, or the Saffire Pro 24 (the newer one). The newer one looks much better and was supposedly redesigned from the ground up. I don't know....if Focusrite screwed up once they could certainly do it again.

it must be the old one, because it was a couple of years ago. And it was standing upright, like a tower. Driver problems, and some other stuff I don't remember. It wasn't usable to him. About the same time, my studio partner got the TC Electronic Konnekt 24D sound card for gigging, but changed it quickly into Native Instruments. Dont remember what it was, but it wasn't working like it should, and it was rather large. Keep in mind both the Focusrite and the TC was at the time new on the marked with these interfaces. There were driver issues, and so forth. It might be better now, but I cant help you there. Read some user reviews.

Ultralight is the most bang for buck ive found so far. Lots of i/o, small size. Its been rock solid on my PCs. If you buy it on eBay from the states you can save some money, depending on your country's change rate currency of course. But the dollar is low again, so its good to buy there now. And its an American brand, so its a bit cheaper over there. Nova Musik is by far the best eBay shop ive experienced. Fast, excellent service, even euro plugs, and even lots of usable gifts! tshirt, hat, 1 kilo coffee, and a thermo cup! Guess its hard competition on eBay, cuz they are super keen on positive feedback.


Id be curious to know how these new TC and Focusrite models holds up. They have a bit of reputation to repair, at least in my circles.

If i would be you i would go for the motu ultralite mk 3 hybrid..

Its a motu..so the drivers should be solid
its has inbuild dsp fx that allow the unit to be used as a live mixer..
a decend amounts of outs and in´s
good midi drivers
Runs usb and firewire what gives a good amount of flexibility.. you might prefer firewire when is available to safe rare usb ports.. but you can change to a computer without fire wire port easily..


Motu is a long time in the interface market..forget all the newcomers

RME or MOTU

3phase wrote:Motu is a long time in the interface market..forget all the newcomers

RME or MOTU

Agree. I got the same impressions.

I wouldnt buy any TC Konnekt again, fabulous sound - retarded drivers, but of course for anyone on budget Desktop 6 is a steal, specially Novamusik prices, any other brand with that sound quality will cost you 3-4 times.
The new Focusrites are much better, also drivers but latency will be bit high.
If RME could be within your reach, streach- dont waste your time, just buy it and you be set.
Wednesday starts Musik Messe, there should be some new stuff coming. If I see anything will definitely report.

I've been using an Alesis I/O 26 for a few years now. Been totally satisfied with it for the price.

Had a firebox, now I'm using a Tascam 144 MKII, I'm happy with it.

Echo have also been in the market for ages (more than 10 years) and they still continue to support their discontinued products with drivers. All of the discontinued stuff like MiaMIDI and Layla has win 7 and snow leopard drivers. I wish I still had my Echo Indigo IO, it was a great sounding card and ran super low latencies, but being a PCMCIA card had no preamps. Still, my Alesis IO14 (smaller IO 26) has good pres and decent conversion and clock for the money, but since my old laptop died and I obtained the XPS replacement, which beats the crap out the old laptop in every way except for it's firewire performance (ricoh chipset instead of TI as in the old Dell Inspiron 9100), I struggle to mix down with it for heavy projects without significant latency. Asio4All helps quite a bit.

I would say that TC Konnekt, Echo, Presonus and MOTU are decent mid range priced interfaces. You could also consider the Steinberg MRX816, which has amazing pres (many at Gearslutz and other sites suggest better than RME and Apogee Ensemble) and is presently on sale for a reasonable price (around the same price as a Motu 828mkIII), it also has a really great DSP reverb (Rev-X). Built by Yamaha and really well liked, the biggest caveat is that Yamaha and Steinberg have a poor tradition of supporting hardware in the past, so a bit of a risk - you hope when you're spending a decent amount of money to have your product supported in 3 or 4 years time when newer o/s's have been released but Steinberg and Yamaha have dropped many hardware products quickly and have never done like Echo Audio and release new drivers for obsolete products.

RME is always a good, safe option giving proven quality, great low latency drivers (probably the best around on a PC and only Apogee's Symphony system rivals it on mac) and solid build. Still, if you're on a budget, one of the above mid priced alternatives will leave you room to buy some extra gear, such as monitors, mics, or other musical gear. So it's a tough one

Thanks to all for the the great info and opinions. Gonna mull this all over for a few more days. It does make a lot of sense to me to go for what will ultimately be the best quality at a still reasonable price (RME, MOTU, etc) but I also can't justify spending that much on an interface right now...need to build my savings, pay off some bils etc. I also can't stand to go without my studio for long enough to save up. So I might end up going with an offer for a used Firebox and save up for an RME or something along those lines later this year.

Again thanks for all the input!

I just came across this and the bang for the buck factor was pretty ridiculous so yeah :

http://www.zzounds.com/item--TASUS800

Personally I feel a bit wary of Tascam gear after seeing two friends have gear failures and driver problems because of poor support from Tascam. Not a very rational way of picking brands I suppose. I like the I/O on that Tascam though.

ethios4 wrote:Personally I feel a bit wary of Tascam gear after seeing two friends have gear failures and driver problems because of poor support from Tascam. Not a very rational way of picking brands I suppose. I like the I/O on that Tascam though.

Dunno I've always liked Tascam on PC's, although I've heard mixed reviews when being used with macs.