Ableton Forum

Was gonna buy one but Im reading about too many of these FW problems. Too bad.

I know Apogee is good too.

Any other recos? I need minimal latency and good pres.

Currently have Digi 002. Pres are acceptable to me - so I dont need THE BEST----but latency on the Digi can be problematic

what is as good as RME?

Sebastian wrote: what is as good as RME?

A newer RME card! (reviews pending*)

http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_fireface_uc.php

in my experience, nothing is better than RME as a general purpose audio interface, certainly not a digi 002 or 003, although soundwise their quality is OK, but latency is an issue.

I WAS an RME fan (back in the PC cardbus days) , but had all sorts of problems with my Fireface 400 and live looping. I switched to MOTU Ultralite and it has been VERY stable and sounds great.

i´ve also read the announcement some days ago.

the RME website states: "Under both Operating Systems the available latencies* are simply sensational. The smallest buffer offered under Windows Vista has 48 samples, under Mac OS X 14 samples.

if the 14 samples under mac os x are true, then this indeed is sensational. as hoffman2k already stated: reviews will tell us more soon ...

this is what mattias carstens from RME answered in a forum post after he was asked regarding the fireface uc

RME FORUM USER: But, is this the long waiting answer for the FF400 Firewire problem ??
MATTHIAS CARSTENS: No, it is the start of the USB problem...

Metric Halo

You see, mostly everyone I know with a FF400 or FF800 love it and have no stability issues. And MOTU interfaces (as well as not having quite as good pres as RME), have been hit and miss on PC systems (better on Mac) from my experience.

Both are very good interfaces, as is Metric Halo. MH and Apogee are a match for RME. MH and Apogee are Mac only I think.

A super fast, high channel count USB 2.0 interface is just what the doctor ordered, if it works as promised.

Mac + RME Fireface = rocksolid.
and the best possible sound.
all the Amsterdam minimal-house live-acts use it on stage and in the studio. Polder, Julien Chaptal, David Labeij, Kouam Djoko, etc

I have a Fireface 800 on a MacPro and I love it. No issues at all. I also have an Apogee AD-8000 A/D converter but actually prefer the pre-amps of the RME.

Ken

well i guess i can buy one at a store where i can return it if i have probs......

i take it you absolutely need the mic pres??? if you didn't need them all the time, i'd suggest you get the multiface 2 and express card bundle and the rme quad mic for when you do need to have some mic pres. i think an express card option is a lot better than both the firewire and the usb interfaces. than you get the low latency of PCI-e and you don't have to worry about what chipset your computer uses. the quad mic is 4 balanced xlr/trs combo ins and 4 balanced stereo trs outs. with that combo, you still get all the quality that RME has to offer without the other problems. i sound like an RME salesman. but i just really like the performance i get out of my multiface 2.

and as far as the firewire problem goes, Apple is a bunch of assholes. they knew damn well before they changed that FW chip that TI was the preferred chip for all audio interfaces. it shouldn't matter but it does! and they did it anyway, probably to save a few bucks. but Macs aren't getting any cheaper so they just wanted to make more profit. Shame on them!!! i'm glad that i'm a PC. and that i don't use a firewire interface except for my Korg Zero 4 which seems to work fine on even a mini firewire port.

what exactly is the issue with the Fireface? I've never had any problems.

I have a Fireface 800 hooked up to my MBP via a FW800 expresscard and it's been solid as a rock.

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 settled on 48khz @ just over 8 ms total i/o latency on my Motu, although it can do up to 192khz at much lower latencies.

aqua_tek wrote:what exactly is the issue with the Fireface?

the issues some users have mostly are incompatibilities between various firewire chips and/or misdesigned hardware. this could be applied to both macs and pcs.

read this

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