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I believe this is the proper place for this post... So, I've been selling off a lot of unnecessary gear lately, and I think that I'd like to upgrade from the cheap Tascam US-122L interface to a sound board that I can hook into my computer. I just need to be able to record 8 separate tracks at once, mostly for my edrum kit. This question may seem a bit ignorant, but I don't have any experience with recording on a soundboard. If I hook up with USB or firewire from the soundboard into my computer, will a program like Adobe Audition 3.0 recognize all the tracks from the soundboard as separate, assignable channels which I can record on simultaneously?

Th S16 Studiomate from Carvin seems to have nice features at a reasonable price: http://www.carvinguitars.com/mixers.php (Sorry, the direct link doesn't work). Or what about this offering from Yamaha: http://www.gigasonic.com/Yamaha-MW10C.html? My only concern with these is that maybe USB won't be fast enough? Any other suggestions are welcome. I'm not looking for fancy or something with amazing features, just something that will give me 8 solid channels that won't fall apart or have other problems. Let's try to stay around $300? Is that reasonable for what I want to do? Thanks and God bless.

Comments

RemyRAD Fri, 02/06/2009 - 01:12

You really are looking at just shy of $800 for a reasonable 8 microphone input FireWire device. If you want to go with a console/board, USB 2.0 would be fine but most of those only offer 2 simultaneous tracks and are USB 1.1. Stay away from those that's not what you want. You need multi-track simultaneous capabilities.

You want a Mackie with the FireWire option. Pre-Sonus is now offering what looks to be an incredible device. It's an integrated mixer & interface. It's not exactly cheap nor is it in your budget. You're going to need to invest just shy of $2000. And you may be disappointed to find that many of these mixers will not allow you to record with certain features. Some can be modified.

I can tell you're getting serious
Ms. Remy Ann David

Boswell Fri, 02/06/2009 - 02:08

Step back a minute...

"Edrum" is a generic term used by Roland and others, so what make/model of edrum do you actually have? If it has multi-channel analog outputs, does it also have a digital output in some form that you could send to your computer without having to go via a multi-channel analog interface?

TheJackAttack Fri, 02/06/2009 - 07:31

The problem with the USB 2.0 theoretical maximum of 480 mb/s is that it doesn't live up to it's potential in sustained throughput. It never has. That is why all of the more serious devices use firewire despite being "slower."

The story will change completely when audio devices and computers begin to be made with the USB 3.0 standards. Even if the full potential is not realized it will still outclass even SATA 2 and be fully bidirectional. In theory this will begin happening around 2010.

Until that time it is pretty much a given that for stable sustained throughput, firewire is a better option than USB 2.0.

jordy Fri, 02/06/2009 - 07:51

TheJackAttack wrote: The problem with the USB 2.0 theoretical maximum of 480 mb/s is that it doesn't live up to it's potential in sustained throughput. It never has. That is why all of the more serious devices use firewire despite being "slower."

The story will change completely when audio devices and computers begin to be made with the USB 3.0 standards. Even if the full potential is not realized it will still outclass even SATA 2 and be fully bidirectional. In theory this will begin happening around 2010.

Until that time it is pretty much a given that for stable sustained throughput, firewire is a better option than USB 2.0.

yeah yeah jack. i hear ya. lol. didn't we discuss this yesterday also? hah. no seriously, i believe you. i just was going by what i saw on an article once. it seems though that when the connection isn't "dropping out" on me, which is about every 3 months or so, it seems to hold up pretty well.
but yeah, they do seem to make more firewire options for interfaces, but you gotta admit- more and more usb2.0 interfaces have been poppin up recently.

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