Firewire Audio Interfaces For Os X, Which one to buy ? Options

[snuupy]

Hello everybody,

I just bought one of the new 800MHz iBooks (my first Mac) and I´m planning to buy a FIREWIRE Audio Interface that operates under OS X.

Is there anybody who could recommend a specific product and/or help me with my decision ?

This is what I want to get accomplished with my new "toy":

As a jazz-piano player I´d like to record rehearsals and demos with small ensembles and burn them on CD - I think that 8 audio input channels should be enough for this task. (?)
E.g. bass 1, piano 2, voc 1, sax 1, drums 3 channels.

I don´t expect true professional quality - I simply want to get things done/check things out on my own instead of depending on booking a studio all the time.

My budget allows for approximately 900$ / 900 EUROs.

Until now I took a look at the

- MOTU 828 and the
- M-Audio Delta 1010

MOTU828s two XLR jacks look pretty good to me, because I like to do things with as few technical stuff as possible... Looks to me like you could even just plug in two mics without any adaptors to record a piano/voice duo. Am I seriously mislead about that ???

OK - pretty long post

I´m looking forward to your experiences/suggestions.

snuupy

[damann]

hi snuupy,
you're right. the 828 will amplify(mic pre's) 2 mic sources and provides 6 more line inputs.
in my experience, for the money, you should get one...
which sequencer are you using?

[snuupy]

hello damann,
thanks for your advice !

well, er, ahem, my only experiences in recording so far are in the MIDI field with CUBASE on ATARI1040ST...

is your question aimed at possible incompatibilities between audio software and the 828 ? i thought that a properly installed (correct drivers etc.) interface would work with any recording software like CUBASE or LOGIC. wrong ?

or did you have the OS 9/OS X driver situation in mind ? (i read about that in other forums around here...)

doesn´t the 828 come with some audio software included (audio desk), that might do what i want to do ?

well - i´m planning to buy the 828 around spring/summer 2003 anyway, so i *hope* that OS X drivers and software will be ready by then...

a personal question: damann, do you use the 828 yourself ? in a live or studio situation ? do you know other frequent mac-music visitors who use their equipment for "live" (i mean on the road, mike the band and record a whole 50minute set) recordings ?

Thanks again so far

snuupy

[Levon River]

In OS 9, Audio Desk was a pared-down Digital Performer, but without MIDI capabilities. By the time you're looking at getting the unit, MOTU *better* have an OS X version.

Audio Desk ought to handle your strictly-audio recording plans, at least to get you started. Of course the 828 will work with many other packages, too. Deck is already another possible alternative (also no MIDI capabilities), and both Digital Performer and Metro should be out by then (both of which handle both audio and MIDI), which will significantly expand your choices.

[damann]

a personal question: damann, do you use the 828 yourself ? in a live or studio situation ? do you know other frequent mac-music visitors who use their equipment for "live" (i mean on the road, mike the band and record a whole 50minute set) recordings ?

hi snuupy,
i do use an 828.
but not in a live situation.
i hate to say it, but to record a 50 minute set, 8 audio tracks, sounds like a potential disaster!
you'll certainly need a LARGE external hard drive for this.
and a solid mains supply(most unusual in venues).
also, you'll of course, need to feed outputs from the board into at least the 6 inputs of the 828 that don't have mic pre's.
this requires a fairly decent board that some venues might not have.
having said all this, it's conceptually, great!
as far as the sequencer question.
the issues for me, were related to 1. the cost of these things.
$800 for logic?
$700 for dp.
$700 for cubase?
basically, you need to double the price of the 828 if you intend to purchase one of these.
2. if you're using digidesign or not!
if you are, kinda forget about the 828 and look at their interfaces...

[Johnny Valium]

Hi there,

in my opinion, Audiodesk is a great piece of software at an unbeatable price (packaged with the 828). I reckon it would be perfectly capable of doing all you need it to. I also haven't used it to record longer tracks (10 minutes plus) though. The common thing here would be to record to an Adat and then transfer the files to a computer for mixing. It all probably boils down to the OS's capability to write many (8) very large files relyably.

I'd also like to read anyone's experiences posted here.

Johnny

[Teiwaz]

Here's my 2 shillings worth. Maybe, if your live set allows, you could stop recording between each song so the 8 track files are not continuous on the computer's HD?

Unless you play continuously for an hour...!

I agree, if you get an 828 (THE choice here) then you already have audiodesk to do the job.

[snuupy]

Wow - many, many thanx for the great support you guys (and girls ?) gave me !

damann, about your suggestions:

1) Harddisk size for 50minutes/8track recording:

- I read about the Bruce Hornsby Project on apple.com where his technical guy explained that he recorded the whole show of 2 1/2 hours with 48 tracks - the result was ca. 210GB of audio data per night. So little snuupy did the math in his head and came up with 210GB divided by 15 (48/8tracks=6, 2,5hours/1 (hour)=2.5 ---- 210/2.5/6=14GB) equals 14 GB of HD space. Hmmm. Sounds (at least to me) that it would work on my 30GB internal HD. Or did you want to tell me that the iBook´s internal drive isn´t fast/stable enough to write those 8 large files ?

2) Input situation:

I have a MACKIE 14channel mixer complete with LEXICON reverb in a rack. I guess it would do the job.


To all the other guys: thanks again for helping to make up my mind about the 828 purchase.


See and read you soon
With best regards

snuupy

[damann]

equals 14 GB of HD space. Hmmm. Sounds (at least to me) that it would work on my 30GB internal HD. Or did you want to tell me that the iBook´s internal drive isn´t fast/stable enough to write those 8 large files ?

hi snuupy,
most would agree that you should use an external drive for recording audio. let the app have the internal drive to itself, it's gonna be more stable.
especially on the basis that your internal hd is pretty slow, 5400rpm on an ibook?
get a 7200rpm firewire drive for the audio. ice warrior from box clever is really good but there are plenty to choose from, and they're cheap as chips.
teiwaz' suggestion of stopping recording between songs is extremely sensible. will actually save work as well as provide more stability...

[snuupy]

Thanks again for all the support !

I promise to take all your suggestions into consideration and will even post my experiences "when the day comes"...

See you all around here or stages all over the world ;o)

snuupy

[urbanmatador]

get a 7200rpm firewire drive for the audio. ice warrior from box clever is really good but there are plenty to choose from, and they're cheap as chips.

most important thing besides rpm's on an external firewire drive is the chipset. firewire drives are just ide drives with a firewire interface snapped on the back, and the oxford 911 chipset is the only one which has been pretty much universally approved as being up to the task.

w.r.t. disk space: at 44.1khz, 16 bit audio costs 5mb per channel per minute. so eight channels, 50 minutes weighs in at around 2gb. the 828 can do 48khz, 24 bit recording, so figure around 15mb per channel per minute, and your total is around 6gb. so your estimate of 14gb is a little high, unless i'm forgetting something which is likely.

but even so, my advice is get a drive that's around twice as big as you think you'll need. there will always come the time that the band plays longer or does a double encore, or maybe just a time when you don't get a chance to do a mixdown... it won't cost too much more, and you won't regret it. drives are cheap. if you go above 40 gig or so, though, look for something faster than 7200rpm.

cheers,
sk