I’m thinking of upgrading a key piece of equipment: my audio interface.
In my workstation I use an M-Audio 2496, which is fine since I have yet to do any recording (with one exception, which is the reason for this post) of anyone else in my “project studio” (term used very loosely).
However, the one exception has been live drums. Also, on-location recording more often requires multiple microphones. It would be great to have a USB 2.0 interface (meaning it’s external and - if it’s not rack mounted - portable, which is really what I’m after) that supports 4 tracks minimum. Currently I have a Tascam US-144 but it only has stereo outs.
4 simultaneous tracks would allow me a much greater degree of flexibility since I wouldn’t have to use my Mackie 802-VLZ3 as a mix-to-stereo device. (I will probably still use it since the pre-amps aren’t bad and it has direct outs from each channel.) In the instance with the tuba recording where I forgot to set the panning of the individual mics, it wouldn’t have mattered since I would have had one track per mic meaning I could have set the panning in Cubase.
Any recommendations?
Edit: so far I’ve only found the PreSonus AudioBox 44VSL. Anyone have any experience with this?