sound card / interface ... ?

romarr

I've been making music in ableton for a little while ... and have decided its time to get me some better sound quality ... better than the on board soundcard in the laptop will give me ....

question is what's a better option ?

at the minute thinking of mbox 2 mini - futuresounds have a ex demo for sale
http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=51&navid=114&itemid=4962

or echo indigo IO - a bit cheaper
http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/shop/flypage/product_id/2771

or would any of you chaps recommend something else around the same kind of money... ?

To be honest I primarily want this so that I get better monitoring when mixing... I dont need any / many inputs at the moment (just once in a blue moon)... I'm doing most mixing on headphones or through (decent enough) home stereo at the moment ( which is fine - for the moment ;-)

thanks

studiorat

Let the lads know how much money you are going to spend and then you might get an answer...

seannash

romarr wrote: »

I've been making music in ableton for a little while

a few people would tell you to get a new daw:P
seriously though a price range would help,it can get pretty expensive

Setun

http://www.native-instruments.com/?id=audiokontrol1

I picked one up the other week and am delighted with it, works great with ableton and you've got midi I/O so interesting possibilities in terms of sequencing if you've got any external sampler/synths. Two inputs, one is either line or xlr, the other is a line in. You've got four outputs and a headphone input, all with their own gain control. There is a phantom power switch also when using any mics that require it. All the buttons on the top of the interface are programmable to different functions in ableton/cubase etc etc aswell. Expensive maybe, but I picked one up second hand at a very reasonable price. If you can, go for it!

old gregg

just in case 'm-audio' comes up, I bought an m-audio fastrack pro interface a few months ago and have not been overly thrilled with it. My main bone of contention is Vista drivers and having bought into a number of m-audio products at the same time I subsequently found when I changed my lappy to a new vista machine that suddenly some of my new peripherals would no longer work at the same time without some considerable hassle. It's a problem many people have found as far as I can see from the m-audio forums and the company have been very slow in addressing it. My thoughts are that if a manufacturer is not interested in supporting its products/customers then they should be treated with caution.

Jimbo808

You pay little to nothing for an interface expect little to no results.

You wouldn't buy a second hand ford fiesta and expect to pick up some serious tail now
would you??


J*808

anders

romarr wrote: »

question is what's a better option ?

at the minute thinking of mbox 2 mini - futuresounds have a ex demo for sale
http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=51&navid=114&itemid=4962

or echo indigo IO - a bit cheaper
http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/shop/flypage/product_id/2771

or would any of you chaps recommend something else around the same kind of money... ?

If having to choose between the Echo and the Mbox2 mini I would say that the Echo would probably sound better, Echo makes some nice interfaces, but I would bo with the Mbox because of the USB connection and the 1/4 inch connections. The card bus standard (PCMCIA) used by the Echo interface will disappear soon as there is a new standard, ExpressCard34, that's been out for some time now. Also the 1/8 connectors are only good for headphones really IMO.

Then again the Mbox uses only USB 1.1 which is a pain when working with audio and if you won't use it with ProTools then you're stuck with the crappy DigiDesign ASIO drivers... So, I would get the Mbox only if I was going to use ProTools...

I would try to find a USB2 or FireWire interface, but that's just me... I've had it with USB1.1 when doing audio (except when I need to use ProToold LE when I bring out my old Mbox). Don't really have any specific suggestions.

romarr

thanks for the replies chaps ...

money - ideally i'd like to pick up something for max 200 ish ...

new daw, is for the future

hadn't thought of 2nd hand, will keep ears peeled and eyes to the ground

jim - the proof is in the pudding ! only thing ive picked up in my poor fiesta is some kind of fungus !

anders - cheers, ... dont have firewire, but they be cheap enough on ebay (is the quality of the card an issue to take into consideration or is it all the same same when connecting an interface ?

usb 2 also an option - havent looked at any yet ... I am really just looking to use it for monitoring, so i had thought that usb1 would provide enough bandwidth for that ... what you reckon ?

hadnt even contemplated the digi limitations with the mbox ...

and the search goes on ... any other suggestions would be most welcome

ta