Good question
I wish I could offer some advice, but I'm thinking about the same thing.

Anybody have any insight on this. Whats the differences between M-powered Pro Tools and Pro Tools LE?
Also Pre-Amps aren't a big thing for me as well as I plan on buying an Avalon Tube pre for vocals anyway, and besides I'm running everything thru a Yamaha 03D and using lightpipe outputs into the card anyways.

Thanks for Posing the question xian! Cheers!
Jay

This really is kind of a toss up between the two. The 002r is i think 1200, the 1814 with pro tools mpowered is i think a 1000 so there really isn't a huge price difference at all. The software is pretty identical although I think the mpowered software is a few upgrades behind le. I think mpowered is on 6.8 or 6.9 and LE just introduced 7.0, but I'm sure mpowered will catch up more as it catches on. The inputs between the two are slightly different, 002r has 4xlr's and 4 1/4" inputs, with adat and spdif, while the 1814 is 2xlrs, 8 1/4" inputs and adat. Honestly if mpowered was out when I bought my 002r I wouldn't got the 1814 and mpowered, I like having the 1/4" inputs for outboard pre's. Which brings me to the mixer, you should really look at getting some like the m-audio octane it transfers 8 channels by adat lightpipe and can bump your xlr's on the 1814 to 10 plus you can leave the 1/4" inputs open for some nicer pre's. It really all comes down to your preference though, everyone can tell you everything you want to hear til everyones blue in the face but what matters is what you're most comfortable with.

After further investigation and thought:

Since I was planning on buying the Mackie 1604 anyway. I figured I'd price out one of those new Onyx 1640's with the Firewire Card. That would give me 16 Onyx Pre's (supposedly a very nice preamp) as well as 16 ch i/o with no expansion module neccissary (ie M-Audio Octane). This eliminates the price of the 1814, and the Octane (not to mention the extra wires and chords and stuff - nice to eliminate when location recording.

It also, however, eliminates the possibility of using Pro Tools M-Powered. After doing a bit of reading, it seems like software like Sonar 4 and Cubase SE or SX will give you a bit more bang, for your buck, right now I use Sonar and the though of not having to learn a new program is quite appealing.

I'm getting it priced out at a local shop, I'll post the cost comparison tomorrow when the guy emails me back.

What do you guys think about this setup?

:D

Greetings Christian,

xian wrote: I figured I'd price out one of those new Onyx 1640's with the Firewire Card. That would give me 16 Onyx Pre's (supposedly a very nice preamp) as well as 16 ch i/o with no expansion module neccissary (ie M-Audio Octane).

What do you guys think about this setup?

The only problem, as I understand it, with this is that the [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.mackie.c…"]firewire card[/]="http://www.mackie.c…"]firewire card[/] in the Onyx only transfers stereo (i.e. two channels not sixteen) from your DAW back to the desk. If you can live with that then great, but it does mean that any mixing will have to be done 'in the box'.

HTH

Spy wrote: The only problem, as I understand it, with this is that the in the Onyx only transfers stereo (i.e. two channels not sixteen) from your DAW back to the desk. If you can live with that then great, but it does mean that any mixing will have to be done 'in the box'.

Hmm, that's not how I understood it:

http://www.mackie.com/products/onyxfirewire/ wrote: The Onyx FireWire Card allows you to stream up to 18 channels of 24-bit digital audio to your Mac (OSX 10.3.5 or greater) or PC (Win XP). These show up in your audio software as 16 individual audio inputs, plus a stereo L/R mix. You can also send two channels of audio back from the computer to the mixer for monitoring purposes.

Sorry Christian, I've only just seen this.

xian wrote: [quote=Spy] The only problem, as I understand it, with this is that the in the Onyx only transfers stereo (i.e. two channels not sixteen) from your DAW back to the desk. If you can live with that then great, but it does mean that any mixing will have to be done 'in the box'.

Hmm, that's not how I understood it:

http://www.mackie.com/products/onyxfirewire/ wrote: The Onyx FireWire Card allows you to stream up to 18 channels of 24-bit digital audio to your Mac (OSX 10.3.5 or greater) or PC (Win XP). These show up in your audio software as 16 individual audio inputs, plus a stereo L/R mix. You can also send two channels of audio back from the computer to the mixer for monitoring purposes.

Isn't "the Onyx only transfers stereo (i.e. two channels not sixteen) from your DAW back to the desk" the same as "You can also send two channels of audio back from the computer to the mixer"?

Another thing to bear in mind with these mixers (which, again as I understand it, are aimed at the live market as opposed to the studio market) is that you can't use the EQ with the firewire option either, in either direction (to/from the DAW).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to put you off them. I just want to make sure that you're aware of the (potential) shortcomings as well as the advantages.

HTH

Spy wrote: Isn't "the Onyx only transfers stereo (i.e. two channels not sixteen) from your DAW back to the desk" the same as "You can also send two channels of audio back from the computer to the mixer"?

Another thing to bear in mind with these mixers (which, again as I understand it, are aimed at the live market as opposed to the studio market) is that you can't use the EQ with the firewire option either, in either direction (to/from the DAW).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to put you off them. I just want to make sure that you're aware of the (potential) shortcomings as well as the advantages.

HTH

I have to appologize, I misread your first post. I though you were saying that you can only send two channels to the DAW.

(Please keep in mind that when I ask these next few questions, it is becuase I am new to this and I ask them ernestly)
So, if you were using this device as a recording console, would a stereo mix not be sufficient for monitoring? The Firewire sends are pre-fader, but post gain, so you could adjust the gain on the board and do a monitor mix on the DAW and send it back to the board. This shouldn't affect the recording levels so you could get the tracks and mix them later, right? So then, if say, the drummer wanted more kick while tracking, you could just adjust it on the DAW and away you go.

Also, while using this as a recording console, you can set the control room/phones section to monitor either main mix, tape, subs 1-2, 3-4, or Firewire option. So, couldn't you just send the main mix into the headphones and adjust the faders to the artists liking? You can also use the Aux sends to send 6 seperate mono mixes to the artists. It appears that this would work well, as every channel has level controls for each of the 6 Aux sends. So, if your kick drum was on channel 4, say, and your drummer was on aux send 1, just turn up the Aux 1 level on channel 4.

So the issues that remain are not being able to use the EQ or faders while sending tracks to your DAW, correct? Could you, perhaps, give me some examples of where this would be a drawback? I hope I'm not being a pain in the ass! Haha, I just wanna learn about what I'm going to buy, before I buy it.

I plan on doing mostly location recording, using a laptop, board, and a Firewire I/O of some sort. So, if it's live, I figure I wanna be able to mix the show, and simply "get" the tracks for mixdown at home, so I'm not too sure how much I would use the EQ section other than the live aspect of it. Wouldn't it be better to record it flat and add EQ later anyway?

Thank you for sharing your knowledge, it is invaluable to me.

jonnyc wrote: The inputs between the two are slightly different, 002r has 4xlr's and 4 1/4" inputs, with adat and spdif, while the 1814 is 2xlrs, 8 1/4" inputs and adat. Honestly if mpowered was out when I bought my 002r I wouldn't got the 1814 and mpowered, I like having the 1/4" inputs for outboard pre's.

Jonnyc, my 002R has 8 1/4 inch TRS inputs on the back, doesn't yours??

Xian, consider adding a cheap optical balanced patchbay like the Alesis AI-3 (Used $300.00 U.S.) to either the 002R or the maudio box to get sixteen balanced channels of input and output.

Yes Dave it does have 8 1/4" trs inputs however I believe the first four still run thru the preamps, so running another preamp thru it isn't really advised, from what I've been told, anyone PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong I'd love to run better pre's thru the first 4 channels. So the first 4 have preamps built in while 5-8 do not.

While you are right that it is still running thru the preamp it is at such a hot level the preamp is really not amplifying much at this point. The mic/line inputs on my 002R read -88.9 when a load but no signal is present at the input and inputs 5 to 8 read -95.0 with the same setup. So the preamp stage is adding 6 db of extra noise, but it is still very usable. I have yet to have any boutique preamp (Universal Audio,Drawmer,telefunken) read better than -90 S/N in practice so I guess that 6 db doesn't worry me to much. By contrast my Apogee Rosetta 800 reads -95 S/N across all its inputs which is the same noise level as inputs 5-8 on the 002R!