Moog Music Forum

i have a little phatty, and im trying to figure out which audio interface to go with. i dont want to castrate the bass on my phatty with some sub-par interface. im using an intel imac, and a phatty stage II... my DAW is logic 8. ive looked around, and im considering getting the apogee duet. any suggestions/reccomendations?

another option im considering, is.. i have a virus TI desktop. it has like, an audio interface built into it... so i can use it as an external soundcard, and record the moog thru that.. anyone have any experience with this?

any input or reccomendations would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

myfilthyheart wrote:i have a little phatty, and im trying to figure out which audio interface to go with. i dont want to castrate the bass on my phatty with some sub-par interface. im using an intel imac, and a phatty stage II... my DAW is logic 8. ive looked around, and im considering getting the apogee duet. any suggestions/reccomendations?

another option im considering, is.. i have a virus TI desktop. it has like, an audio interface built into it... so i can use it as an external soundcard, and record the moog thru that.. anyone have any experience with this?

any input or reccomendations would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

The apoget is a nice interface but ur limited with ins and outs. Virus is cool. I had a TI but never fancied using it as my main interface..I dare say its wicked though.

My recomendation for what you have described would be the Motu 828 mk3....Solid audio quality and plenty ins and outs for your hardware. Plus its the 1st interface where you can add effects on the way in via its cuemix software. Google the 828 mk3 and read up about it)

Other recomendations ive had experience with and are good are the Presonus Firebox and Motu Ultralite (although was glitchy as hell on my PC) Oh and the Fireface 400 is great as well....

Dont by shy to spend a few quid on ur interface. Technology has moved on leaps and bounds in this department lately there are some amazing ones..

Ciao

Apogee stuff is built to work with logic. The duet has the same preamps that are in it's two thousand dollar big brother the Ensemble, the duet just has two preamps though. For the money you can get more features that's for sure, but probably not better sound quality. It has amazing sound clarity and headroom. If you can get by on 2 inputs it's the best audio interface out for the money. Very portable and very effortless to use. Just no bells and whistles, all quality. If you need more features, the Ensemble is worth checking out and it is worthy of it's price tag.

I use the emu1616...excellent a2d converters, and a decent price aswell

I've always had issues using the TI as an audio interface - just dont think usb1 can cope with it

Something that you might want to think about if you don't have an interface is you can do what I do.

I record my Analog instruments on a digital mixer and I use the computer to master only. THe good part about it is that when my partner has his computer setup, his has a digital optical input on his soundcard so we don't lose ANY sound quality because theres no A/D conversion.

THis may not be practical for alot of people but since were dealing with Analogue synths theres no digital optical outs lol.

Eric

EricK wrote: I record my Analog instruments on a digital mixer and I use the computer to master only. THe good part about it is that when my partner has his computer setup, his has a digital optical input on his soundcard so we don't lose ANY sound quality because theres no A/D conversion.


Eric

I use a Blue Snowball and record from the amp into GarageBand. Sometimes I get fancy and bust out the old Revere reel to reel tape recorder.

The apogee duet is pretty amazing, but a super-nice preamp will change your life. think API, Great river, Pacifica, Neve, et al. Expensive, but worth every penny if you want stuff to really sound thick and like it should. The better your signal going into your converters, the better your recordings are going to sound, especially once you start layering things.

As you know since you already own a moog, good sound isn't cheap and there aren't too many shortcuts. I'd say an Apogee Duet is one of the only ones I know of! $500 and it sounds pretty dang impressive.

For me, it all comes back to magnetic tape data storage.

AHHHH,

Eric

EricK wrote:For me, it all comes back to magnetic tape data storage.

AHHHH,

Eric

I wish I could afford to buy all the 7 inch magnetic tape reels I wanted...the Revere is a beautiful machine, although it does falter after a half hour or so...just showing it's age. Needs a new belt, is all.

so... ive tried using my virus as an audio interface, and im extremely impressed with it... the only real issue ive run into with using it, is that the sound isnt quite as loud as the actual output on the phatty. easily resolved though, i just have to increase the volume of the track in logic... thanks for the help!

Can't you boost the input signal in the config menu of your Virus.

Go to : Config -> Inputs -> Boost (globally/something like that)

Tape is definitely best, but for those of us on a budget...
The Apogee is hands down the best these days in my opinion, but the only cheap one only has 1 input. With that said, I did a lot of research and decided on the MOTU 8-Pre. It has 8 ins that are pre-amped and sound really great. I send my cable from the LP through a Presonus tube amp, then on to the MOTU 8-Pre. I also have a Mackie mixer that is a newer model I've been meaning to experiment with. I've had great success with this sounding warm and wide. My final EQ'ing is done in Logic with the EQ and Soundstaging. For my limited budget, I've been pleased. I know most professional musicians would look at this set up and laugh, but you have to work within your means.
I'd also like to mention that the MOTU 8-Pre is very stable and friendly with MAC. It is hot swapable so you can literally pull the firewire right out and tear down your system on the fly. This is great for me since I am on a laptop that I travel with frequently.

So, I would vote to the TC Konnekt 24D, because I have this one, and I like it very much.
I have an Intel Macbook, and these are my dream audio-pair, and not so expensive.

I use Ableton Live, and the TC plugins, like Fabrik C and R are wonderful.
The Assimilator is a fantastic plugin too.

Look at the TC site about it. Maybe Konnekt is cheaper, but not worse as the others...

myfilthyheart wrote:i have a little phatty, and im trying to figure out which audio interface to go with. i dont want to castrate the bass on my phatty with some sub-par interface. im using an intel imac, and a phatty stage II... my DAW is logic 8. ive looked around, and im considering getting the apogee duet. any suggestions/reccomendations?

another option im considering, is.. i have a virus TI desktop. it has like, an audio interface built into it... so i can use it as an external soundcard, and record the moog thru that.. anyone have any experience with this?

any input or reccomendations would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

See this post about audio interface

http://homestudio-recording.blogspot.com/

hi i have virus ti snow i use as interface for some time because my main interface(audiofire4 was working pretty nice in fact) collapsed some month ago so in the meantime i use my virus as interface was good the midi worked flawlessly in my case but i didnt like so much the recording quality maybe i was wrong but was decent though.
Now i have RME fireface 800 and is a truck man amazing converters you dont loose nothing in the recording full quality and no latency is just WOW.

but well i dont advice to get virus as permanent primary interface but for some time is killer and is amazing sinth

but my moog is my moog i just love my phatty =)

my 2 cents =)