I have been using a Fireface 800 for more than 6 years now. In order to expand my I/O, I bought some extra ADAT-interfaces.
One of them is the Steinberg MR-816x.
Initially I kept on using the Fireface as my output device, but one day I decided to see (well, hear actually) how the MR-816X would sound compared to the Fireface. It sounded as if someone just lifted some blankets off my speakers.
I still use both interfaces together, with my Fireface 800 as main interface, but my main outs still come from the MR-816X.
My Fireface is on it’s way out now, because I need more I/O (it’s going to be replaced by an Antelope Orion 32), but I’m definately keeping the 816 untill I’m 100% sure the Antelope sounds at least as good as the MR-816X…
I’ve long used RME RayDat HDSPe (PCI-Xpress) on Windows 7 64bit with adat connected to external converters (radar24) for many years with 0.7msec latency (32samples). With a SOLID power supply and mainboard, it is absolutely the most rock solid I/O you can hope for. I’ve built multiple Cubase / setups with the RayDat as the central digital interface and have had the same results on every machine I’ve built. USB cannot and will never be able to compete with PCI / PCI-x digital audio interfaces with solid drivers.
Well to be quite honest enjneer I did not mention that I was not wanting a massive in/out track count as a small project studio. It certainly suited my needs and when I talked to RME they had taken that into account. I am sure that If I was wanting something for live recording and playback they would have recommended an alternative. (jessenemitz)
I think the point I was making that it does not hurt to talk to the manufacturer and find out which of their products are must suitable for your needs. I also did not mention that at the time I was running a Solo and Duo UAD2 cards and 2 UAD 1 cards which made the PCI/PCIe slot an issue. Notwithstanding I have been really happy with my eventual choice.
Yeah, I’m hoping something else, like Thunderbolt, will be ready on Windows PC Motherboards by the time I’m ready to do my next build, which will hopefully be a few more years yet. As it is, the Mobo I got last year is working like a dream and just stepping on everything I throw at it. Mind you, I have two UAD cards and a PowerCore Element For my Access Virus, though I had to buy a pcie to firewire card for that because this Mobo didn’t have Texas Instruments chip set for its on board firewire port.
Still, 4 - 5 years is an eternity in today’s technology. But if there’s a Mobo with a legacy PCI slot available then and my emu is still working I’ll probably stay with that
Many years ago I used the Echo PCi internal cards which were rock solid. Now, setting up a new recording PC I decided to go with the Echo audiofire12 I wanted a Laptop mobile studio and thought this would be the way to go. Little did I know 99% of laptops can’t do firewire with the generic firewire chipset and had no option for adding a good firewire card. This combination was unusable with pops, clicks and drop-outs.
Sold the Audiofire12 and bought a MOTU 828MK3, although it has firewire and USB connections I went straight for the USB and although once I get it running it has no problems, but many times I have spent 30 minutes or so just to get running. A lot of the time I have to unplug and re plug the USB lead to get it working even though it shows up in Cubase and other times I have to reboot the computer.
Sometimes it even looses all sound when loading a song into Cubase resulting in a full computer restart I have never found out if it is the audio interface or the USB ports on the laptop. (I have the usb set to never power down and the audio interface is the only hardware on that port).
Maybe I need to ditch the laptop and build a good DAW tower system.
Anyway after finding this thread It got me thinking of trying the firewire port on the MOTU unit, but I doubt it will be usable with the firewire port on the laptop.
Of course, “professional level” doesn’t really mean anything. It’s rather about specific expectations, requirements and technical specifications. RME interfaces are very difficult to beat in terms of reliability. The Fireface UC is USB2 and it is perfectly reliable, if you respect the host computer hardware requirements. Ditto for the Fireface UFX. The RME USB implementation uses a proprietary USB protocol which is more efficient than the standard protocol (see the RME website for more detals).
Hi all,
obviously everyone is recommending what they use themselves…
Firewire might end up to be some legacy, specialty interface like serial for certain applications, who knows.
But my experiences with Firewire 400 even are really nice, since I discovered that the Firewire IRQ on my system is shared with the network card I use and whenever I have a larger project or when I need low latency, I disable the network card. I’m not really sure how important that whole IRQ thing still is with modern systems, but whenever I run a DPC latency checker, it DOES make a difference.
My interface is an actual mixing board, the A&H ZED R16, and since I love outboard, the flexibility having 18 in/18 out channels with a really nice EQ and hardware inserts is cool. Plus, I use my space for live band rehearsals, and then having a mixer and a nice HP distribution is very convenient.
I actually mix in analog and use Cubase for effects and automation, and yes, I take photos of the mixer when I’m done with a mix…
All effects are of course pre-fader this way, but I got used to this quickly. I find that whenever something needs to be louder in a mix, it doesn’t hurt to have it drier as well anyway.
I also use an ADAT expander to feed the (non-Firewire) stereo channels of the board for non critical stuff like effects returns, so my “in the box” send effects actually come in on the board and get mixed in analog as well. This gives me a total of 26in/26out to and from the board. Old skool…
The converters are nice enough for me and I do everything at 48/24.
I’m not sure if anyone still works like this around here, but it sounds good to me.
From what I gather the key issue is whether your firewire port uses the Texas Instruments chip set. I had to buy a PCIE to Firewire card for my PowerCore Element because the firewire port on my latest mother board doesn’t have that chip set.
Yes this is correct and the Texas instruments chipset firewire would work but as i’m using a laptop there is no PCIe slot or no card slot either so only onboard firewire, which will not play nicely. I do have a Texas instruments firewire card for my tower PC but really wanted the laptop to be my music DAW. That in mind I suppose I will have to put up with it’s problems or just change and use a tower instead.
funny you should mention the uad in consideration of the PCI-E slots… as I’m running an Asus Maximus IV Extreme Z mainboard with two UAD2 Quads, a UAD2 Solo, GeForce GTX590 and a RAYDAT w/ 48ch of adat + TCO card all playing together perfectly as PCI-E. You shouldn’t have to choose between great FX and SOLID I/O. That being said… one of my favorite mix engineers runs a Fireface UFX professionally (even though when I’m working on projects with him I can realllly tell the latency). It seems very reliable from what I’ve seen. Hopefully you are making great progress with your setup no matter what that may be.
I had a FF800 for 5 years and went over to the UCX about 2 years ago; I haven’t had one issue with it on USB and I can track at 48 samples without a hiccup. Love their stuff.
Been using an Echo Audio Gina with never any problems but now that is old and reading this thread, I think I might get the RME Babyface. I always have had bad luck with USB interfaces. Maybe I will try one more time. I know RME has stellar quality and I want to make some samples.
I’ve had opportunity to try quite a variety of interfaces and the one I personally settled on was Steinberg’s own UR series interfaces. UR824’s on the studio setup and UR44 on the laptop.
The tight hardware integration with options in the Cubase mixer and the Morphing Channel Strip plugin are actually tough to beat for under 5 figures ($$$$$)!
I had in my closet my old EMU1820M when I needed a PC update.
Since then, (and back to the topic) I use one UR824 as my main interface, with a Focusritte Oktopre MKII using ADAT and (just when I need some extra inputs) the crappy convertes of a DDX3216 that I use as surface controller.
The UR824 uses USB 2.0 but I was able to record 24 tracks at once without latency. Besides, the 824 got total integration with Cubases Control Room so I can set all my cue sends, monitors, mixes and even cue FX’s directly in Cubase, also the Morphing Channel Strip can be used while tracking also without latency
