USB Audio Interface

Greetings,

I must get a Audio Intercafe for recording into my laptop.

I'm a one band man, Doom Metal composer so I will need to record my drum computer, bass and guitar, voice, and use a midi controller keyboard.

I don't want to spend a lot of money so I narrowed my searches into 3 machines:

Tascam US-144 - 149€

http://www.tascam.com/products/us-144.html

Edirol UA-4FX - 120€

http://www.rolandus.com/products/productde...px?objectid=758

Alesis IO2 - 125€

http://www.alesis.com/io2

The Edirol has internal FX in realtime, nice guitar overdrive, reverb, etc...

But is this just a add-on to compensate something else?

I never used a unit like this and really could use some help here.

Best regards

we used an edirol in college. generally good quality, but i'm really not sure.

i'm in the same boat as you. i need one too.

I have the US-122, which I guess is similar to the 144. Sound quality is good, never had any problems recording with the line-ins. Not used the midi on it or the XLR inputs, so I cannot vouch for those. Unfortunately I've never worked out how to use it to record audio that comes from the computer itself into Cool Edit/Audition...

i recently purchased the native instruments audio kontrol 1

I got it for $200 after some haggling a bit at Guitar Center... excellent USB device

Ooh, thanks, goffer, I didn't know about the Audio Kontrol.....looks excellent, and free FM8 too....

Does anyone know if the Novation Speedio is any good?

i have a tascam us-428 i've been very disappointed with; plastic piece of shit, wouldn't buy a tascam again

i feel edirol is only a slight notch above behringer

alesis is ok

novation has left me satisfied (so far) but it's a bit overpriced

thanks hahathhat, I'm not sure I want to buy it yet, because I've read some posts on other forums saying that the MIDI isn't working or that the output gives no sound

  goffer said:

i recently purchased the native instruments audio kontrol 1

I got it for $200 after some haggling a bit at Guitar Center... excellent USB device

im selling one for $100

Got an IO|2....having a few issues with it :(

I have the Creative Profession E-MU 0202. It's served me well, but I'm going to need some more features.

I've been thinking of upgrading to the 0404 because it has MIDI I/O and phantom power, but what do you guys think of E-MU? Solid or should I go in another direction?

cliche, but you get what you pay for.

i started off with builtin soundcard. impossible to get a clean recording... or playback

i got an m-audio audiophile 2496. great card, still use it in an old comp, but it only had stereo in/out.

i got an m-audio delta 1010 used off ebay, $300. 8 channels of audio, any of which could be in our out. loved the shit out of that until it broke. powered it on and a capacitor blew -- literally blew -- launching the metal shell into the top of the metal casing with a disturbingly loud noise i got an earful of. turns out i had a REV A board, which had shit caps. god bless the honest people of ebay.

i was at school and didn't have the tools to fix it there. i wasn't in the mood to gamble on ebay again, so i got the tascam us-428, $300 or so new. only 4in2out, but i never used that many inputs anyways at that point (mostly plugins) but i liked the idea of having some hardware controls. however... i had driver issues from the start, the thing feels cheap, the software is terrible. it is by far the most annoying piece of gear i own, in that it frequently does things that are just mind-bogglingly infuriating. this interface has probably taken a few years off my life.

eventually, fixed the delta 1010. it served me well for a bit longer, gradually got flakier, and finally died again last april or so.

from there, i sprung and got an RME fireface 800. my wallet hurt badly, but i forgot that very quickly. i always have enough channels, it sounds fucking fantastic, and it's a trooper. i can't see needing another for ten years -- and at the rate i was going (outlined above) this actually saves me money.... and hair.

don't let price blind you. look at everything out there, even if it costs $20k and there's no fucking way you could afford it. the point is to develop an understanding of what's out there. if you need a $500 interface, but you buy a $300 interface, big fucking surprise you'll never be happy, you'll have wasted $300 in fact.

on the note of buying what you need, not what you can afford -- have you maybe considered guitarest-targeted interfaces? i'm sure they exist.

ya I've got a m-audio mobile pre.

2 channel in 2 out phantom power ect.

Got if for 150 w/ 2 condenser mics from guitar center.

It's not the quietest thing, but if you're going to be using lots of effects then it's just dandy.

not bad for the money actually.

the alesis io preamps really suck. the whole thing is on big cheat&cheapo.. friend got it. bough it for her vocal sessions.. shes utterly depressed by its white base noise and the general crappiness.

the edirol you suggest seems outdated, at least what it is in europe.

i'd suggest to save up a bit more and get much more from it.

try at least the: M-AUDIO FAST TRACK PRO, the EDIROL UA-25 EX or the LEXICON OMEGA STUDIO.

my old s-card is the edirol fa-66 the bigger brother of the ua-25 and its solid&clean sound, not a complain so far.

does anyone have a usb audio interface that works well with osx mavericks?

i've been looking at focusrite scarletts but it looks like people run into glitches and crashes..

I have the m-audio fast track ultra with OSX Mavericks. It only crashes when I put the laptop to sleep and then I unplug the device, and then plug it back in once the laptop is running again. I think that is it, I can never really replicate it to be honest, but sometimes plugging in and out can cause a crash. I mean in terms of using with software, I use Pro Tools 11 and Ableton 9 without any problem whatsoever in a year of solid use.