USB Audio Interfaces/Mixers

[mthrfnk]

I'm about to buy some new monitors (my first pair) and from what I gather it's probably a good idea to get a USB audio interface or a USB mixer interface to connect them up to my PC.

The problem is I don't really know what to go for... I had my eyes on a USB mixer interface but I've read some more stuff on it and it seems to be geared towards mic/guitar recording rather than audio playback and tbh I'm really not likely to be belting out vocals any time soon and although instrument recording would be cool I really have no neccessity for it.

So yeah... I'd appreciate any tips or advice on purchasing something to hook up my new monitors to my PC correctly. Any personal experiences with hardware would be great.

[Reversed]

I've got the Saffire 6 USB interface since I heard it's a pretty good interface for the price, can't complain. It only records 6.5mm in mono apprently, though. No clue about mixers though

[mthrfnk]

I've got the Saffire 6 USB interface since I heard it's a pretty good interface for the price, can't complain. It only records 6.5mm in mono apprently, though. No clue about mixers though

Hmm thanks man, that unit is a little more expensive than the stuff I've been looking at. Managed to find a Yamaha Audiogram 3 interface for sale at £60 - anybody got any experience?

[NKF]

Highly recommend the RME UC. They use a proprietary protocol depending on wether you are on pc or mac resulting in great latency and extremely solid performance.

[RandoRando]

This is what i Use

http://www.amazon.com/Digidesign-Portab ... roduct_top

i use it with ableton though, i noticed a big difference is sound quality, my mixes came out cleaner and clearer.

not to hijack the thread but does anyone know why i get underruns more easily with this, rather than when i was using just asio4all with my pc soundcard?

when i have a lot of tracks open i have to put the buffer to the max which can be annoying when im trying to record into ableton. I rarely had underruns when i was just using asio4all

[ill mindset]

I'm about to buy some new monitors (my first pair) and from what I gather it's probably a good idea to get a USB audio interface or a USB mixer interface to connect them up to my PC.

The problem is I don't really know what to go for... I had my eyes on a USB mixer interface but I've read some more stuff on it and it seems to be geared towards mic/guitar recording rather than audio playback and tbh I'm really not likely to be belting out vocals any time soon and although instrument recording would be cool I really have no neccessity for it.

So yeah... I'd appreciate any tips or advice on purchasing something to hook up my new monitors to my PC correctly. Any personal experiences with hardware would be great.

I absolutely love my:


http://us.focusrite.com/usb-audio-inter ... arlett-8i6


Great sound, very low to zero latency and it looks good too. Tested out the mic preamps last week to record a vocal track for one of my favorite death metal bands' new album. Sounded great! Got it price matched at Guitar Center for around $213.00 before tax. Not sure how you can find a better deal for this quality of an interface with this many I/Os. ONLY drawback is that you have to unplug it to turn it off. There is no power switch for some very strange reason.

[Ongelegen]

^ it's not bus powered through the USB? Or do you also have it on the DC?

[RandoRando]

illmindset, are you using windows 7? if so , how was installing the drivers and using them? is it easy to get everything program to run through the interface?

[mthrfnk]

Well I plumped for the Yamaha Audiogram based purely on the reduced price and Yamaha brand being decent... impressed so far, compared to my previous setup using this dedicated interface sounds so nice. It was easy to setup and install and is obviously easy to use, it also looks nice and feels rugged/weighty so I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a 2in/2out interface