Hardware Recommendations, USB or Firewire Audio Devices Options

[SpiralZ]

Ive been creating music for a few months now using Ableton Live 1.5, Reason 2.0 and an Oxygen 8 controller. Im using a G4/450 cube, which some of you may already know has no PCI slots so i cant add an audio card. So, I've been looking for a USB or Firewire device so that i can accept signals from my turntables and other devices as well as send a signal to my stereo receiver which accepts RCA connectors so that i can monitor on something that sounds better than my macs speakers.....
anyway... can anyone recommend any devices to solve this sort of thing? Ive looked at a couple of the eMagic boxes but im wondering if theres anything less expensive...

[rickenbacker]

I don't know about less expensive, but I've got a thing for Edirol products - the UA-5, UA-20 and UA-700 would serve you well. I can't remember what the UA-20 has, but the UA-5 is positively bristling with inputs/outputs. Every digital and analogue jack you could ever need, plus it handles phono, too. The UA-700 does exactly the same, plus it has onboard guitar amp and mic modelling sections.

I like them all a lot and they have OS X drivers, too, which have been working well for me for the past few months. No complaints this end.

Oh, these are all USB devices, BTW. For FireWire, people speak highly of the MOTU 828/868.

This post has been edited by rickenbacker: Tue 14 Jan 2003, 11:36

[ryosode]

I like my Tascam US-428, which not only has Audio I/O, but MIDI I/O and even comes with control surface for the price of emagic box. I've been working with Reason and Live and I've been happy with it.

[Myerzman]

I'm interested to know if one had an Imac with an audio in would it be necessary to add a UA-700 or the like, or would there be a simpler answer? Are you in some way limited by the stock sound card of the Imac (since there's also no PCI slots) and can you overcome this with a one of Edirol's UA series? Could I get a good sound from my guitar and mic with the UA-700 plugged into the stock Imac audio input?

[deaconblue]

Which iMac model do you have? Do you have a newer (looks like an over designed lamp) model or one of the original (more like a lopsided egg)? If you have an iMac DV or later, you have access to both FireWire and USB ports and the UA-700 would work quite well for you. Also, the MOTU 828, or 896 with FireWire would work. The M-Audio Duo is USB and would work in the application you are referencing.

Cheers,
Dekon.

[Presto]

The Audio In on the Mac uses 16bit processing (unless something important has changed). External cards such as the Mbox does a 24bit analogue to digital conversion etc etc.

When you potter with the sound, once digitized and in your computer, calculations involve rounding-off results. Information becomes less and less precise (cf Mars probe fiasco). If its all done in 24bits you end up with let's say 16bit quality. If its done with 16bit numbers you end up with let's say 12bit quality. You need to end up with the 16bit quality of CDs.

[rickenbacker]

Myerzman: if you had a UA-700, why would you plug its output into the iMac's audio input? The UA700 is a USB audio interface, so once that's plugged into your iMac's USB port, you've got stereo audio I/O right there - and at decent quality (16 or 24 bit, 41 or 48khz sample rate) to boot.

[charlieb]

Ive been creating music for a few months now using Ableton Live 1.5, Reason 2.0 and an Oxygen 8 controller.

Hi SpiralZ,

Are you happy with this set up? I was thinking of getting something very similar.

[rickenbacker]

charlieb: I know you didn't ask me but I'm going to answer anyway

I'd prefer Cubase SX (or SL) and Reason 2.0. I have both SX and Live 2.0 and I much prefer recording in SX. Live is cool, but SX is more suited to multitracking. Both work with ReWire, anyway.

Nothing wrong with the Oxygen 8, but have you looked at their Ozone? Same keyboard as the Oxygen, but an audio interface, too. True mobile recording. Don't know about sound quality, but maybe have a look all the same.

[ryosode]

I'm with rickenbacker on this one. I have Live and Cubase, but Cubase is more robust in terms of doing recording.

I was also tempted by Ozone. I would consider selling Oxygen 8 and get Ozone so I could go mobile with PowerBook and Ozone.