5 ms·

Which professional sound interface to use?

by Aldipower 4y ago

yootyootr 4y ago
home/hobbyist: Focusrite Scarlett semi-pro/more serious: MOTU 828 pro/studio level: PRISM Sound Lyra or Titan
- peepee1982 4y ago
  No RME for semi-pro? Any specific reason? Because they seem to have great performance and stability on Windows.
  - yootyootr 4y ago
    I'm from the UK and they're not well known here versus MOTU..
    - butterknife 4y ago
      Anecdotally, I'd like to disagree. Plenty of RME used in professional PA system industry. MOTU, not so much.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        The PA market and the recording markets are different, and there is surprisingly little overlap between the people in each.
      - Applejinx 4y ago
        I would note that MOTU is very solid for Mac-based studios, and I've heard that RME is comparably solid for PC-based studios.
        jasomill 4y ago
        For what it's worth, I've been using a BabyFace Pro on Mac for years, ADAT-connected to an RME rack ADC/DAC to enable all available audio channels, and it's been as rock-solid as any hardware I've ever owned. Note that, while the BabyFace Pro doesn't have native Linux or BSD drivers, it does have a USB class-compliant mode that, while feature-limited compared to the proprietary drivers, may be sufficient for DAW use — AFAIK, the primary limitation is limited control over the hardware mixer, so problematic if you need low-latency monitoring of multiple input channels simultaneously, but possibly irrelevant otherwise. There's also a full-featured iPad mixer app that works in class-compliant mode, so full control is at least theoretically possible, lack of published details notwithstanding, and there appears to be at least some support for this in the Linux kernel, https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/2eb29d59ddf02e39774abfb60b2030b0b7e27c1f/sound/usb/mixer_quirks.c#L2514 https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/2eb29d59ddf02e39774ab...
  - Aldipower 4y ago
    I have a RME and it does not work with Linux or FreeBSD, which is a bummer. So, it is fair not to list it here.
- krossitalk 4y ago
  Focusrite makes higher grade options for the pro studio space. They offer a variety of rack mount interfaces.
- selykg 4y ago
  I prefer the Universal Audio Volt series over the Scarlett. Plus, if you ever think of upgrading you'll have some familiarity with Universal Audio, who is a pretty big player in this area. This is coming from a guitarist perspective, in case it matters. I really like my Volt.
  - wyager 4y ago
    The all-aluminum UA volts are made in TW, aluminum-wood models are made in CN, FYI. The Volt 1 and Volt 4 are a good deal. Software is atrocious though. Their spyware DRM crashes any windows VM I try to install it on.
- tonyarkles 4y ago
  A couple other thoughts for people who are looking around. - I had a consumer M-Audio interface that was always a bit weird. One day well outside the warranty period I popped the lid off and discovered a tombstoned resistor and two bodge wires on the PCB. I reached out to M-Audio on Twitter and the best they could do was offer me a $20 discount on another interface. Very unimpressed. - I replaced it with a Behringer UMC404HD and the very first thing I did when it arrived was pop the cover off. I'm an EE by trade and I was very impressed by the design. The board layout etc was nice, but the part that really surprised me was the pre-amps for the mic inputs. Maybe I'm weird for feeling this way, but the folks who designed it have taste. The pre-amps are designed around some NJR op-amps; NJR parts are notorious for being slew-rate-limited for a lot of applications, but to my ears they sound absolutely buttery smooth. The fact that the designers used those parts instead of some jelly-bean "flat" op-amps really made me appreciate the consideration that went into the design. Edit: and yes, I know Behringer has a bit of a reputation for being "kinda cheap and kinda crappy" but I have zero complaints and I've had this unit for a few years now.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    IIRC the UMC404 was designed just after they bought Midas, and those engineers had a lot of input. Behringer has gotten a lot better, their early days (20 year ago) they made cheap junk clones. Now they have some good gear as well. Though the company itself has other operating practices people don't like. You should for sure do your research on them. I have some of their gear, but I'm not sure I'll buy more.
- wyager 4y ago
  What would you say are the distinguishing features between home/semi-pro/pro interfaces? Universal Audio recently released some really nice made-in-taiwan desktop interfaces in the same price range as the Scarletts. I have scarletts on my rackmount setup, UA Volt on my desk. UA's software is atrocious though. Their spyware DRM crashes any windows VM I try to install it on. Scarlett's software is relatively good by comparison, although you have to start their server by hand from the terminal if you don't want it running all the time.
  - filoleg 4y ago
    > What would you say are the distinguishing features between home/semi-pro/pro interfaces? Without going into tons of nitty-gritty details, the major ones are the number of inputs/channels, size, and price. Scarlett 2i2 is more than enough for most people, with its 2 channels (both with independently controllable headphone and monitor outputs). Motu 828, the one listed as semi-pro tier, has 20 input channels. I suggest reading reviews of each of them, but basically the rule of thumb is that if the review is listing bajillion things that you have no understanding of at all, you don't need that tier and can safely move to the tier below. No shame in that at all. Even the home/hobby level of audio equipment today is functionally crazy, and priced insanely cheap compared to just a couple decades ago.
    - wyager 4y ago
      I meant more between e.g. a Scarlett 18i20 and a Motu 828. I went with the Scarlett because A) it was relatively cheap and B) it had quite good reviews, but I'm curious what I'm losing on a technical basis by going for the $500 option over the $1000 option.
- chuchana 4y ago
  Did you have a positive experience with the 828? I've always read it worked great on Mac OS, but it never did for me (on Mac OS 9 and X).
speed_spread 4y ago
I use a Zoom Livetrak L-12 mixer. It's more than just an interface but it sounds great and has a excellent functionality for the price.
eropple 4y ago
I am not a musician, but I am a live events operator, and since almost everybody has a Zoom setup now I want to asterisk something for folks who are reading: the interfaces recommended in other comments are great interfaces if you are a musician, but for spoken word they're all overkill. If you're in the market for that, start slow. I recommend a good USB-powered dynamic microphone, such as the Samson Q2U or Samson Q9U. If you're going to buy an interface (maybe to drive some monitors as well as a microphone) and an XLR microphone for exclusively spoken-word stuff, the "buy a dynamic" advice still applies--I like the sE Dynacaster but I'm also the type to spend $300 on a microphone, you don't need to be--but you really don't need more than something like a Behringer UMC22 for an interface. Not a UM22, that's different and a bit below-the-bar, but you don't need to spend more than $60-$70 for an interface that will do everything you need. I wrote this near the start of COVID when at a previous company and my advice still holds. https://www.mux.com/blog/zoom-like-you-mean-it-1 https://www.mux.com/blog/zoom-like-you-mean-it-1 https://www.mux.com/blog/zoom-like-you-mean-it-2 https://www.mux.com/blog/zoom-like-you-mean-it-2
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  https://ardour.org/faq.html#say-no-to-usb https://ardour.org/faq.html#say-no-to-usb
  - eropple 4y ago
    Can you explain why you posted this link-and-run? Because this is not a responsive criticism to what I wrote. And, if one reads the document you linked, the authors of that document expressly do not intend it to be responsive. > If you plan to use your USB mic with its own headphone jack, then most of what is written here does not apply to you, and you can regard the microphone as a small, not particularly good, simple audio interface just like one of the boxes you might otherwise connect to you computer. Yup. This is true. I recommended the Samson Q2U or Q9U in no small part because of this. It is a single-purpose audio interface and it's fine for people who want a good-sounding Zoom presence. They are also both microphones that provide some nontrivial improvement when they are used over XLR, which can rationalize later buying an interface once you've decided that you want to do so. > If you're making a podcast, or working with some audio where the highest possible fidelity to the original sound isn't particularly important, you're probably going to be just fine with this resampling taking place. You can use your USB mic, the operating system will resample one or both audio streams, things will seem to just work, and you'll probably be happy with the results. As it happens, I agree with the general thrust of what they're saying--for music. This is a reason why I have a very large and moderately expensive digital mixer. But they themselves are not intending to cover general-purpose, spoken-word uses, like podcasts (which I think one can reasonably expand to "teleconferences"), with their criticism. So can you enlighten me as to your point?

Which professional sound interface to use?

yootyootr 4y ago

home/hobbyist: Focusrite Scarlett semi-pro/more serious: MOTU 828 pro/studio level: PRISM Sound Lyra or Titan

peepee1982 4y ago
No RME for semi-pro? Any specific reason? Because they seem to have great performance and stability on Windows.
- yootyootr 4y ago
  I'm from the UK and they're not well known here versus MOTU..
  - butterknife 4y ago
    Anecdotally, I'd like to disagree. Plenty of RME used in professional PA system industry. MOTU, not so much.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      The PA market and the recording markets are different, and there is surprisingly little overlap between the people in each.
    - Applejinx 4y ago
      I would note that MOTU is very solid for Mac-based studios, and I've heard that RME is comparably solid for PC-based studios.
      - jasomill 4y ago
        For what it's worth, I've been using a BabyFace Pro on Mac for years, ADAT-connected to an RME rack ADC/DAC to enable all available audio channels, and it's been as rock-solid as any hardware I've ever owned. Note that, while the BabyFace Pro doesn't have native Linux or BSD drivers, it does have a USB class-compliant mode that, while feature-limited compared to the proprietary drivers, may be sufficient for DAW use — AFAIK, the primary limitation is limited control over the hardware mixer, so problematic if you need low-latency monitoring of multiple input channels simultaneously, but possibly irrelevant otherwise. There's also a full-featured iPad mixer app that works in class-compliant mode, so full control is at least theoretically possible, lack of published details notwithstanding, and there appears to be at least some support for this in the Linux kernel, https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/2eb29d59ddf02e39774abfb60b2030b0b7e27c1f/sound/usb/mixer_quirks.c#L2514 https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/2eb29d59ddf02e39774ab...
- Aldipower 4y ago
  I have a RME and it does not work with Linux or FreeBSD, which is a bummer. So, it is fair not to list it here.
krossitalk 4y ago
Focusrite makes higher grade options for the pro studio space. They offer a variety of rack mount interfaces.
selykg 4y ago
I prefer the Universal Audio Volt series over the Scarlett. Plus, if you ever think of upgrading you'll have some familiarity with Universal Audio, who is a pretty big player in this area. This is coming from a guitarist perspective, in case it matters. I really like my Volt.
- wyager 4y ago
  The all-aluminum UA volts are made in TW, aluminum-wood models are made in CN, FYI. The Volt 1 and Volt 4 are a good deal. Software is atrocious though. Their spyware DRM crashes any windows VM I try to install it on.
tonyarkles 4y ago
A couple other thoughts for people who are looking around. - I had a consumer M-Audio interface that was always a bit weird. One day well outside the warranty period I popped the lid off and discovered a tombstoned resistor and two bodge wires on the PCB. I reached out to M-Audio on Twitter and the best they could do was offer me a $20 discount on another interface. Very unimpressed. - I replaced it with a Behringer UMC404HD and the very first thing I did when it arrived was pop the cover off. I'm an EE by trade and I was very impressed by the design. The board layout etc was nice, but the part that really surprised me was the pre-amps for the mic inputs. Maybe I'm weird for feeling this way, but the folks who designed it have taste. The pre-amps are designed around some NJR op-amps; NJR parts are notorious for being slew-rate-limited for a lot of applications, but to my ears they sound absolutely buttery smooth. The fact that the designers used those parts instead of some jelly-bean "flat" op-amps really made me appreciate the consideration that went into the design. Edit: and yes, I know Behringer has a bit of a reputation for being "kinda cheap and kinda crappy" but I have zero complaints and I've had this unit for a few years now.
- bluGill 4y ago
  IIRC the UMC404 was designed just after they bought Midas, and those engineers had a lot of input. Behringer has gotten a lot better, their early days (20 year ago) they made cheap junk clones. Now they have some good gear as well. Though the company itself has other operating practices people don't like. You should for sure do your research on them. I have some of their gear, but I'm not sure I'll buy more.
wyager 4y ago
What would you say are the distinguishing features between home/semi-pro/pro interfaces? Universal Audio recently released some really nice made-in-taiwan desktop interfaces in the same price range as the Scarletts. I have scarletts on my rackmount setup, UA Volt on my desk. UA's software is atrocious though. Their spyware DRM crashes any windows VM I try to install it on. Scarlett's software is relatively good by comparison, although you have to start their server by hand from the terminal if you don't want it running all the time.
- filoleg 4y ago
  > What would you say are the distinguishing features between home/semi-pro/pro interfaces? Without going into tons of nitty-gritty details, the major ones are the number of inputs/channels, size, and price. Scarlett 2i2 is more than enough for most people, with its 2 channels (both with independently controllable headphone and monitor outputs). Motu 828, the one listed as semi-pro tier, has 20 input channels. I suggest reading reviews of each of them, but basically the rule of thumb is that if the review is listing bajillion things that you have no understanding of at all, you don't need that tier and can safely move to the tier below. No shame in that at all. Even the home/hobby level of audio equipment today is functionally crazy, and priced insanely cheap compared to just a couple decades ago.
  - wyager 4y ago
    I meant more between e.g. a Scarlett 18i20 and a Motu 828. I went with the Scarlett because A) it was relatively cheap and B) it had quite good reviews, but I'm curious what I'm losing on a technical basis by going for the $500 option over the $1000 option.
chuchana 4y ago
Did you have a positive experience with the 828? I've always read it worked great on Mac OS, but it never did for me (on Mac OS 9 and X).

speed_spread 4y ago

I use a Zoom Livetrak L-12 mixer. It's more than just an interface but it sounds great and has a excellent functionality for the price.

eropple 4y ago

I am not a musician, but I am a live events operator, and since almost everybody has a Zoom setup now I want to asterisk something for folks who are reading: the interfaces recommended in other comments are great interfaces if you are a musician, but for spoken word they're all overkill. If you're in the market for that, start slow. I recommend a good USB-powered dynamic microphone, such as the Samson Q2U or Samson Q9U. If you're going to buy an interface (maybe to drive some monitors as well as a microphone) and an XLR microphone for exclusively spoken-word stuff, the "buy a dynamic" advice still applies--I like the sE Dynacaster but I'm also the type to spend $300 on a microphone, you don't need to be--but you really don't need more than something like a Behringer UMC22 for an interface. Not a UM22, that's different and a bit below-the-bar, but you don't need to spend more than $60-$70 for an interface that will do everything you need. I wrote this near the start of COVID when at a previous company and my advice still holds. https://www.mux.com/blog/zoom-like-you-mean-it-1 https://www.mux.com/blog/zoom-like-you-mean-it-1 https://www.mux.com/blog/zoom-like-you-mean-it-2 https://www.mux.com/blog/zoom-like-you-mean-it-2

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
https://ardour.org/faq.html#say-no-to-usb https://ardour.org/faq.html#say-no-to-usb
- eropple 4y ago
  Can you explain why you posted this link-and-run? Because this is not a responsive criticism to what I wrote. And, if one reads the document you linked, the authors of that document expressly do not intend it to be responsive. > If you plan to use your USB mic with its own headphone jack, then most of what is written here does not apply to you, and you can regard the microphone as a small, not particularly good, simple audio interface just like one of the boxes you might otherwise connect to you computer. Yup. This is true. I recommended the Samson Q2U or Q9U in no small part because of this. It is a single-purpose audio interface and it's fine for people who want a good-sounding Zoom presence. They are also both microphones that provide some nontrivial improvement when they are used over XLR, which can rationalize later buying an interface once you've decided that you want to do so. > If you're making a podcast, or working with some audio where the highest possible fidelity to the original sound isn't particularly important, you're probably going to be just fine with this resampling taking place. You can use your USB mic, the operating system will resample one or both audio streams, things will seem to just work, and you'll probably be happy with the results. As it happens, I agree with the general thrust of what they're saying--for music. This is a reason why I have a very large and moderately expensive digital mixer. But they themselves are not intending to cover general-purpose, spoken-word uses, like podcasts (which I think one can reasonably expand to "teleconferences"), with their criticism. So can you enlighten me as to your point?