I am not an expert on hardware but am slowly building a small home studio that so far consists of a macbook, Live, Reason, mackie micro series 1202 mixer, korg padkontrol, and of course the LP. I dont want to lose the sound that makes the phatty what it is, but am not looking to spend 500+ on a interface. I was looking at the presonus firebox which seems like a practical solution, but I would like some advice from other LP users. thanks
I would go with an Apogee Duet if it is compatible with your computer.
the duet is a consideration… but a bit expensive and a few more channels wouldn’t hurt
Apogee’s A/D conversion is great. The preamps have a tone of gain, too, if you need that.
Presonus Firestudio
The Mackie Onyx Satellite is awesome, and is probably the best buy this year for me! I like the fact that it is portable, and it can be docked into the included base station that stays in the studio so you can keep everything hooked up. You cant go wrong with this one. Check it out here:
I am using the Duet for several months now and I am more than happy with its sound quality and integration with my MacBook Pro. The question is whether you are really planning to record more than two tracks simultaneously in your home studio. If not, the Duet together with a small mixer is a good choice.
Duet is the best sounding audio interface for under $1000. Their converters and preamps are incredible, if not the industry standard. It’s really not a good card to use if you need flexibility and quantity with the ins and outs, but that’s not what they made it for. Apogee’s Ensemble unit is the flagship model w/ all those goodies, and it’s really, really expensive.
The Presonus Firebox on the other hand, sounds great, provides a ton of flexibility, and is incredibly undercosted for what it offers.
I’ve been using one since 2005 w/ great success. Having so many extra ins and outs means I didn’t really need a mixer anymore, I just have a neutrik patchbay with mogami cables running to all the ins and outs of the firebox, creating the ability to have my routing handled in Cubase.
You will not find a better unit for how much these cost. Preamps are good, not excellent, but honestly, I have a analog channel strip for vocals, so I don’t use the preamps on the firebox for really anything. I highly suggest going w/ Presonus.
Anton wrote:
[quote=The duet has preamps, so no, you wouldn’t run 2 stages of preamps. Using a mixer should be ok, but make sure your preamps are set so that they aren’t adding any gain and amplifying the signal twice.[/quote]
gotcha, how do you think it would sound if I used the preamps on my mackie into the firebox? again it is an older series mixer
Funktopus…I bet whichever you’d buy would sound great.
A question about the apogee stuff…I was just looking at the ensemble…is this Apple only?
yep, mac only. 
(sad face because i can’t afford the mac that i want for a while and am stuck w/ a dell from 2005)
@Funktopus:
My guess would be that the Presonus preamps would sound better than the mixer’s but you should test both to ascertain that.
Although tempted by the the duet, I think the firebox will suit my needs for now. Maybe after a monitor upgrade, I could then spend a few more dollars in this area… damn that duet would look sexy with my macbook though
thanks to all!
What are the good, high end units for Windows people would recommend? Besides Presonus?
I recommend RME for relatively-high-end interfaces. You can spend thousands more and get the very best in existence, but the RME A/D convertors are widely regarded as the best you can find in the less-than-ridiculously-expensive category. I personally use an RME multiface II and it sounds extremely nice.
For what it’s worth, ditto on RME! Omitted it due to price, but I’ve been trying to save up for a Fireface 400 for a while now. Don’t own one yet as I recently got the chance to upgrade to my monitors to HR824 mkii’s instead for a crazy good deal, but that’s my next move. 
If you have a moment and happen to know, is there really any benefit to getting the Fireface 400 over the Multiface+Express Card (I’m using a laptop)? They’re the same price basically, so I’m wondering if it’d make sense to cut out the cardbus middle-man.
I am currently using a (drum roll please)…nine year old Layla 24! With a cardbus adaptor that is on the fritz, frequently dropping out with horrible pops and the occasional squeal, once blowing up my tweeters, once almost blowing up my ears. I swore after I finished my last album I would drop it off a cliff or something. But since my general experience with this stuff has been it’s such an incredible pain in the ass to get everything to work right, I’ve been hesitant to replace it unless absolutely necessary…which it pretty much is at this point.