Interface advice needed

Jacques_nasi

Still in the hunt for a USB interface on a low budget, I almost got a great deal on the M-audio Fast track pro, at the price of R800.00 I really wasn't too concerned about specs as the price made it a real easy buy. well that fell through....

now I'm buying local and I'm in the R1500.00 to R2000.00 price range, and I'm looking at either the Scarlett 2i2, or Roland's Duo Capture EX of which both fall in that price bracket.
My recording setup for now would be this:

Guitar into Cube 80, Line-out into interface and then USB to DAW. I would also later consider miking up the guitar and amp for recording, and maybe vocals. I'm also planning on recording bass guitar directly with the interface and using software to emulate the amp. Recordings will not be used for anything much, maybe putting some tracks on soundcloud, no professional use or commercial releases or anything

so which one of these would be the best, I read some of the more technical specs but being totally new to interfaces they mean nothing to me. Should I worry about things like 24-bit 96kHz of the 2i2 compared to 24-bit/48kHz of the Roland? Will this even make a difference for the simple features I require for now? ???
Any help/input/suggestions will be appreciated! ?

throwfirewoodatme

Hey hey. 24 48 is great. 24 96 is of course awesome, but a little unnecessary by the time you've bounced and dithered and compressed anyway. Also disk overhead is a consideration.

doc-phil

http://www.presonus.com/products/AudioBox-22VSL

Consider this over the Scarlett. When I was researching that one I came across a lot of people who had clipping issues with the pre-amp using guitars loaded with Humbuckers.

FruitarGeek

I highly recommend you fork out slightly more and get yourself the Scarlett 2i4. Why? Well, Scarlett is the best brand for portable audio interface in that it has the best mic pre-amps, which is exactly what you want. It saves you having to buy another pre-amp which can go for easily around R1000, but more importantly why I say the 2i4 instead of 2i2, is that the 2i4 has MIDI in/outs. You may not play keyboard, but MIDI is the life and blood of the home studio muso. You just need a cheap keyboard, and can plug it straight into the interface, and walla, you can control the world ? At some point in your recording carreer you will be encountering MIDI, so rather save yourself the trouble now and get an interface that has a MIDI in.

In terms of 24/98 v 24/48 . . . bigger is usually better. BUT, this does not mean you will need it. 98 is not as commonly used as 48. In fact, all commercial CD's as far as I am aware use 44.1Khz. Having 98 is a bit of overkill, and the average listener (and even the expert ear) can't tell the difference between 48/44.1 and 98. Soo, having said that, it doesn't really matter. I'd say go for 98 just because it means you can always go that way should you want to, but it shouldn't be a defining feature of your purchase.

AlanRatcliffe

I'm also a fan of the Focusrite interfaces, but the Rolands are no slouches either. Both have good pres and converters, plus both are well known for the quality of their drivers. Focusrite tend to edge out Roland on features in the same price range though.

MIDI isn't as important as it once was, with most controllers and other devices these days having USB connections (in the last decade I've gone from needing eight MIDI ports down to one), but still very nice to have.

Higher sample rates and bit depths are nice, but for most purposes 24 bit @ 48KHz gives you good enough quality and is reasonably light on your computers resources. Also, there's a lot more to a good interface than those specs, and I've had some 16 and 20 bit interfaces that sounded better than other 24 and 48 bit ones.

FruitarGeek

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: MIDI isn't as important as it once was, with most controllers and other devices these days having USB connections (in the last decade I've gone from needing eight MIDI ports down to one), but still very nice to have.

This is true, but, with many USB/MIDI devices you need to install additional drivers, and often the latency is not as good as going straight into the interface. A friend of mine has a USB to MIDI cable, and the latency is just awful. He got the 2i4, and its almost perfect

Jacques_nasi

Hi Guys, thank you for all the replies, I just came back from hopping around from store to store and settled on the Duo Capture EX, once again the guys at TOMS Braamfontein cut me a sweet deal. It has MIDI in/out, and I was able to get it for less money than the Scarlett 2i2, I suppose that at this price range most interfaces are in the same league with only minor features/specs differences. I'm happy with my purchase as its better than my current setup, and I've haven't been disappointed with Roland/s products yet, and besides I don't have anything to compare it to ?.
Once I get comfortable with the whole recording thing I will look into studio headphones for monitoring and a microphone, but for now I have plenty to keep me busy just getting my head around DAW's, Midi, editing etc.!!