USB to stand alone or firewire

[Uk Ant]

So, what are the pros and cons of stand alone digital recorders, USB audio interfaces PC/Mac and Firewire interfaces?

I’ll start with USB as they are the cheapest method of digital recording if you already own a computer.
The big limitation of USB is the inability to record more than two tracks (one stereo track) in one take.
So if you’re a one man band, multi-tracking and sequencing things like drums then you probably don’t need more than a USB interface. You can even do a full drum kit, you just have to get the balance pretty good in the first place.

In reality you really need at least four tracks for drums if you want a good, balanced sound and this means either a stand alone mixer come digital recorder or firewire.

Now I’m currently at the USB stage with a little Yamaha MW10. It’s not a bad little device, but it’s only got four mic inputs so recording my whole band, just as a stereo mix, means a certain amount of Heath Robinson type of set up.

Now, I’ve had a look at the next step and cost wise stand alone units seem to start cheaper… but the 8 track porta-studios seem to suffer from a lack of mic inputs.
So it’s up to the bigger boy’s toys and that ratchets you into firewire price.

Now the two advantages a stand alone unit seems to have is you only need to transport the one bit of kit to the recording location and they tend to be less likely to fall over on you mid session.
Firewire seems the more flexible. You can get single rack mount units with more than enough inputs for less than a stand alone device with similar inputs.
Also you’re recording straight to your hard drive so, once recorded, you can mix down where ever you take you laptop. Obviously desk top is not quick as handy, but you still have a nice big graphic display.

Cost per input firewire really wins but I suspect stand alone is less faffy in actual operation.

So, anyone got any preferences, experiences, ideas?
Also, what do you guys use for home recording?

 

[Reload in 5]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

I’ll start with USB as they are the cheapest method of digital recording if you already own a computer.
The big limitation of USB is the inability to record more than two tracks (one stereo track) in one take.

Huh? doesnt the toneport ux-8 record 8 tracks over USB?

"TonePort UX8 supports eight simultaneous channels of studio-quality 24-bit/96 kHz audio"

and it has 8 mic inputs
and costs $299

 

[Uk Ant]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

Huh? doesnt the toneport ux-8 record 8 tracks over USB?

"TonePort UX8 supports eight simultaneous channels of studio-quality 24-bit/96 kHz audio"

and it has 8 mic inputs
and costs $299

Hmm, so if line6 can do it, why can't I find anything else (nothing against line6, I just like there to be options).

Also, it may be $299 in the states, but for some reason that's £299 over here... or the thick end of five hundred bucks... ya got to love living in the uk.

 

[NecroPolo]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

There are some multi-input USB devices like Fast Track Ultra 8R that are supposed to record many inputs without any glitch. Personally I prefer firewire interfaces so I must tell that I have no experience with multi-input USB devices but some buddies do have, they say that some byteflow consistency issues can occur if you go USB but it's very rare. I have a fellow who uses an eee pc and a Fasttrack Ultra for mobile recording and it is a really powerful little combo if I might say.

Standalone units like Roland VS and the like are nice and have very good stability of operation. The menu system, whole operation with switches and 2nd functions and submenus and multi-function knobs and everything on a small display etc-etc and sound editing workflow made me completely insane. Sure, many folks can get used to it. Personally I work with mouse + keyboard 20 times faster.

Considering demo purposes, I rarely turn on the big stuff, just use a standalone machine with an Echo Audio MIA MIDI PCI audio card, a guitar preamp into a small Yamaha MG mixer and mixer out to the MIA input. I never record a full band rehearsal. I used to do it but it's immensely much more efficient to record separate themes, arranging them into full songs togeter with the actual band in a sequencer program then pass it for everyone to learn the full songs by next band rehearsal. Sure, it is not the jamming-with-joy way as it should be but synchronising wholenight jams with everyday life is impossible... Those days are gone for me. I just need to be much more time-efficient if I want keep bands alive and releasing new stuff.

 

[NecroPolo]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

ya got to love living in the uk.

UK? Maybe, it might worth be checking Focusrite interfaces. They are all FW and really good.



edit:

I was wrong, they have a little USB interface, too.

 

[andrizzle]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

Huh? doesnt the toneport ux-8 record 8 tracks over USB?

"TonePort UX8 supports eight simultaneous channels of studio-quality 24-bit/96 kHz audio"

and it has 8 mic inputs
and costs $299

I think this is saying that you can record eight simultaneous channels INTO ONE MIX.... (technically two if you panned 4 channels right, and 4 channels left

vs. FireWire where you can record all of those tracks at the same time, into 8 seperate mixes that can be edited later

i hope that made sense


FWIW: I use an Alesis MultiMix 12 FireWire and I love it, it's a "standalone" FireWire mixer that does the job for me!

 

[Uk Ant]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

I think this is saying that you can record eight simultaneous channels INTO ONE MIX.... (technically two if you panned 4 channels right, and 4 channels left

vs. FireWire where you can record all of those tracks at the same time, into 8 seperate mixes that can be edited later

i hope that made sense


FWIW: I use an Alesis MultiMix 12 FireWire and I love it, it's a "standalone" FireWire mixer that does the job for me!

That would make more sense to me.

I've looked into the Aleses multimix, it may be just the thing.
The Focusrite stuff also looks good.

 

[andrizzle]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

That would make more sense to me.

I've looked into the Aleses multimix, it may be just the thing.
The Focusrite stuff also looks good.

Honestly, if I was starting over I'd probably go with a rack-mounted system that would incorporate one of the PreSonus FirePod (or whatever they're called) systems. But, that's cause my space will allow for it pretty well, maybe you're in a different situation.

I've got a buddy that has that and it does some pretty top notch stuff... might be worth a look

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

The obvious advantage of a computer over any standalone, portal digital recorder is the Graphic User Interface. Even when manipulating audio, a picture paints a thousand words.

The advantage of a standalone portable digital recorder over a computer set-up is that, being entirely self-contained, you can take it more or less anywhere.

I use a Mark Of The Unicorn Firewire 400 box. This is because I am a stinkin' Mac user. My entire portable multi-track studio fits into a shoulder bag and runs from a single wall wart PSU.

Despite this, I still prefer to slam things down onto (shock, horror) analogue tape.

 

[uOpt]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

So, what are the pros and cons of stand alone digital recorders, USB audio interfaces PC/Mac and Firewire interfaces?

I’ll start with USB as they are the cheapest method of digital recording if you already own a computer.
The big limitation of USB is the inability to record more than two tracks (one stereo track) in one take.

That is USB 1.1.

The problem with USB, however, is that you don't surely know what you are getting. It is very easy to take down a whole USB bus with all devices to 1.1 Many mainboards have a couple 1.1 and a couple 2.0 ports without labeling them.

The main advantages of firewire are:

• You know you always get high speed.
• The drivers for everything from chip, cards to devices are much better. There is some pretty serious driver trash out there in USB land, in particular for Windoze.

In Linux land things can be even more messy. Most USB 2.0 soundcards also implement a standard software interface that doesn't need special drivers. So those work with default drivers but without warning take you down to USB-1.1 again.

Also, what do you guys use for home recording?

A good PCI sound card. Turtle beach with CMI8738-MC8 chip. I also have a Tacsam US-122 and a US-428 (yes they are USB and USB sucks).

I have a decent analog mixer (Tascam M216), so if I had to record a drumset I would mix the whole set into stereo and then record that.

 

[Uk Ant]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

The obvious advantage of a computer over any standalone, portal digital recorder is the Graphic User Interface. Even when manipulating audio, a picture paints a thousand words.

The advantage of a standalone portable digital recorder over a computer set-up is that, being entirely self-contained, you can take it more or less anywhere.

I use a Mark Of The Unicorn Firewire 400 box. This is because I am a stinkin' Mac user. My entire portable multi-track studio fits into a shoulder bag and runs from a single wall wart PSU.

Despite this, I still prefer to slam things down onto (shock, horror) analogue tape.

Nowt wrong with being a stinkin mac user

There are times when I wish I had the space, money, patience for tape based studio.
Great big two inch 24 track running at 30ips with a massive desk with more buttons and controls than most people would be able to cope with. There's most definitely something about using tape that is, in some odd way, more pleasant than slaving over a computer.
Plus there's that bit more warmth in the tone... but as I've not got the space or money I'll stick with digital.
Once upon a time I went to visit a company called AMS, who'd not long brought out one of the first ever fully integrated digital mixing desks come multitrack recorders. It cost half a million pounds (back in 1991 or so).
These days you could pick that level of performance for about two grand, and that's pushing the boat out.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

IMO, what is good about analogue tape is;
1) You could deliberately run into the red. The clipping effects can be advantageous.
2) Without automated mixing and microscopically detailed levels of editing, everything depends upon human beings being able to give a performance in real time. (A dying art.)

 

[Uk Ant]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

IMO, what is good about analogue tape is;
1) You could deliberately run into the red. The clipping effects can be advantageous.
2) Without automated mixing and microscopically detailed levels of editing, everything depends upon human beings being able to give a performance in real time. (A dying art.)

Must be said tape was much more unforgiving and simpler to use, but you did have to play well. Then again I still tend to do things in one take rather than splice bits together.

Hmm, wonder how much a eight track reel to reel would cost me!

 

[J Moose]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

Once upon a time I went to visit a company called AMS, who'd not long brought out one of the first ever fully integrated digital mixing desks come multitrack recorders. It cost half a million pounds (back in 1991 or so).
These days you could pick that level of performance for about two grand, and that's pushing the boat out.

AMS-Neve... still in business and still building $100k + consoles.

http://www.ams-neve.com/Home/Home.aspx

While digital has certainly come a long way, even in the last several years the idea of a $500k desk being the equivalent of today's $2k machine is REALLY pushing it to say the least.

Great analog costs just as much as great digital... great is great. Cheap is cheap... there's a lot of cheap analog out there that sounds crappy too. The great stuff holds up over time... I have a Mytek digital converter that's over 10 years old and it'll STILL hammer any guitar-store offerings like focusrite or maudio. In a few cases it hammered mixes that were printed to a Studer A80 as well... so much for "warmth" eh?

Back on topic...

If you go with a firewire interface you need to be sure that its compatible with your laptop. There are still a bunch of incompatibilities out there... you may run into conflicts with video drivers or daisy-chaining devices with some machines.

That kinda stuff can severely limit your track counts... just because an interface allows for 16 channels of recording doesn't mean the computer can handle it without puking!!!

Honestly at the low-end of things, which is basically what you seem to be looking at there's very little sonic differences between brands that are worth sweating. Best to find the one that has the I/O you need and will work with your PC. Especially if you "must" run a laptop and can't dedicate a machine to recording.

 

[Reload in 5]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

I think this is saying that you can record eight simultaneous channels INTO ONE MIX.... (technically two if you panned 4 channels right, and 4 channels left

vs. FireWire where you can record all of those tracks at the same time, into 8 seperate mixes that can be edited later

I am pretty sure 8 tracks means 8 tracks.
USB 2.0 has more bandwidth than firewire 400
Firewire 800 has more than both. So as far as bandwidth goes, USB 2.0 has plenty for 8 tracks.

 

[nalo1022]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

I've had a Presonus Firepod for a while now and I love the thing. When I was recording my bands and some friends' I built a custom rack case. It looked like this. It housed a desktop, Friepod, slide out shelf for the keyboard and mouse and the screen was mounted on the face. There was a UPS/power-conditioner in it so I only had to plug in one cord. Was it the super portable, no, but it could easily be thrown in my car and brought to a basement show/jam/practice/etc. Obviously this may be a bit much for you, but just wanted to give you my opinion on the matter. The Firepod can also be daisy-chained for more inputs.

 

[Uk Ant]

Re: USB to stand alone or firewire

AMS-Neve... still in business and still building $100k + consoles.

http://www.ams-neve.com/Home/Home.aspx

While digital has certainly come a long way, even in the last several years the idea of a $500k desk being the equivalent of today's $2k machine is REALLY pushing it to say the least.

Great analog costs just as much as great digital... great is great. Cheap is cheap... there's a lot of cheap analog out there that sounds crappy too. The great stuff holds up over time... I have a Mytek digital converter that's over 10 years old and it'll STILL hammer any guitar-store offerings like focusrite or maudio. In a few cases it hammered mixes that were printed to a Studer A80 as well... so much for "warmth" eh?

Back on topic...

If you go with a firewire interface you need to be sure that its compatible with your laptop. There are still a bunch of incompatibilities out there... you may run into conflicts with video drivers or daisy-chaining devices with some machines.

That kinda stuff can severely limit your track counts... just because an interface allows for 16 channels of recording doesn't mean the computer can handle it without puking!!!

Honestly at the low-end of things, which is basically what you seem to be looking at there's very little sonic differences between brands that are worth sweating. Best to find the one that has the I/O you need and will work with your PC. Especially if you "must" run a laptop and can't dedicate a machine to recording.

Ok so ya modern low end stuff is not going to sound as good as an old 500k bit of kit, but the thing with digital is that it's not going to be that far off... once it's recorded, mixed, turned into an MP3 and squashed through the internet most people won't notice difference.
Anyway, in terms of having a dedicated machine, that's not really viable atm and my little mac book should be man enough for the number of tracks I'm likely to want to record at one time.

Not had many people recomending any stand alone bits of kit... surely not everyone uses their computers?