Dubstepforum.com

Hey guys, i need more in's & out's on my interface witch is a Focusrite Saffire 6, can i not just get say a Behringer Ultrapatch Pro PX2000 Patchbay to extend my in's & out's (to connect outboard gear too), rather than forking out £££ for a new interface? Or is that not how it works? Cheers in advance!

A patch bay won't really increase the amount of I/Os you have to work with, it's more like a routing nerve center. You plug all your gear and interface into it and it makes it easier to reroute your signal through various devices.

If you only have 4 ins and 4 outs you will still only be able to use 4 ins and 4 outs. I have that patch bay BTW.

Ahh thought as much. How would i connect a pair off mackies up, and a couple off piece off outboard gear up to my interface then? Would the only option be buying a new one?

Vanity wrote:Ahh thought as much. How would i connect a pair off mackies up, and a couple off piece off outboard gear up to my interface then? Would the only option be buying a new one?

I'm assuming you only have 2 audio I/Os?

But yea basically you need more I/Os. If you are only wanting one stereo channel at a time to process stuff through outboard gear you'll need an additional 2 outs and 2 ins. But honestly if you think you'll be wanting more I'd highly recommend upgrading to something you can grow into.

BUY USED

I got my 8 audio I/O MOTU for around 250USD used.

4 ins and outs total will give you 1 processing chain if your using 2 outs for monitors. You could create 2 processing chains if you have a seperate out for headphones (so that basically 6 outs total), but lose the monitors. To expand your I/O count you'd need to get a AD/DA converter with the needed amount of channels and connect it via ADAT to your interface.

EDIT: Just noticed you're are using a saffire 6, which isn't expandable at all, I fear. Your best bet would be to upgrade your interface. Motu interfaces are more than decent and a bang for your buck regarding the amount of I/O.

Cheers for clearing this up for me guys! I'll be upgrading to the Motu 8Pre/Saffire 40 soonish.

Don't go with the 8Pre, not sure if you noticed, but it has only 2 outs. The Saffire 40 would be a good upgrade regarding the I/O, but not so much in terms of conversion/sound quality compared to the Saffire 6. Don't know what your budget is, but I'd consider a second hand fireface 400 (firewire) or UC (newer exactly the same but USB). The 400 goes for about €400-450 second hand, UC a bit more. 8 ins (2 mic/line & 6 line) and 8 outputs (7&8 is phones out). Expandable though digital I/O. With this you don't have to upgrade unless you go high-end imo. Great converters, stability/driver, super low latency and clean mic pres. Couldn't be happier with mine. If you can't stretch it, i'd go Motu 828 like fragments suggested, more I/O for less.

The 828 is fantastic for the money IMO. The pres are decent, I run digital sounds through them all the time. Watch if you get a Firewire 828 though, supposedly they only run on Texas Instrument firewire chipsets. It ran fine (as far as I could tell) on my default generic firewire that came with my motherboard (I was never able to source what chipset it has). But I bought a class compliant FW card with a TI chipset just to be safe. You can read about this if you google it.

I want to upgrade to the new 828 MKiii ultralite at some point in the next 18 months.

But I got my 828 for around 250USD

Good call on the firewire chipset. Without the TI chipset it's pretty much a hit or miss with most firewire interfaces. TI or go USB.

Yea. I was surprised to find out most fireware chipsets are not class compliant. No wonder the format is dying.

Yeah the 828 looks like a much better option, cheers for the suggestion!