Takealot deal today - Focusrite 2i2 scarlett...R1469!

V8

http://www.takealot.com/focusrite-scarlett-solo-usb-audio-interface/PLID37016349

that's cheaper than I see them going 2nd hand.

Only 16 left @ 09h32...!

Nitebob

I think that's about what I paid for my 2i2 roughly 8 years ago...good price!

ezietsman

Beware the 2i2. I have one and they're great for microphones but your passive electric guitar WILL clip the high impedance inputs. You need a active DI box for your passive guitars to use this with your software amps OR like me, you just ignore the fact that your input is being clipped every here and there. The other scarlett interfaces don't have this bug.

V8

ez wrote: Beware the 2i2. I have one and they're great for microphones but your passive electric guitar WILL clip the high impedance inputs. You need a active DI box for your passive guitars to use this with your software amps OR like me, you just ignore the fact that your input is being clipped every here and there. The other scarlett interfaces don't have this bug.

That's interesting, my 2i4 didn't have this issue. Good to know.

A pro for the scarlett is that it sounds sweeeeet. If you need a dac for listening to audio, it really shines (imho).

A con is that on a windows pc, with their usb drivers I couldn't get the RTL to under 30ms on my (admittedly low spec i3) laptop. Make real time monitoring of software effects a absolute pain. I believe the RTL issue is less noticeable on a Mac?

Eventually I got a Roland quad capture which is around 8ms RTL, but doesn't sound quite as sweet as the scarlett.

ezietsman

V8 wrote:
ez wrote: Beware the 2i2. I have one and they're great for microphones but your passive electric guitar WILL clip the high impedance inputs. You need a active DI box for your passive guitars to use this with your software amps OR like me, you just ignore the fact that your input is being clipped every here and there. The other scarlett interfaces don't have this bug.
That's interesting, my 2i4 didn't have this issue. Good to know.

A pro for the scarlett is that it sounds sweeeeet. If you need a dac for listening to audio, it really shines (imho).

A con is that on a windows pc, with their usb drivers I couldn't get the RTL to under 30ms on my (admittedly low spec i3) laptop. Make real time monitoring of software effects a absolute pain. I believe the RTL issue is less noticeable on a Mac?

Eventually I got a Roland quad capture which is around 8ms RTL, but doesn't sound quite as sweet as the scarlett.

Yes, I use my scarlett for games too (teamspeak on my audix i5 lol) and it works great. Windows is rubbish for realtime anything. You have to 'tweak it' to get it to run reasonably low latency. On Linux and OSX no problem (although Linux again needs tweaking but you can actually do hard realtime on Linux). If you're doing audio, just get a mac and be happy.

V8

ez wrote: If you're doing audio, just get a mac and be happy.

Nooooooooooooooooooooo!!! Made the bad man stop...

Heh, The older I get the less I'm inclined to tweak, but crossing to the dark side to OSX is a step too far, as the machocist in me would miss the intimate relationship my head has with the brickwall it keeps on hitting ?

ezietsman

I should add, with a Mac you're getting all kinds of other nice things (Super nice screen, super battery life, FAST) plus Logic Pro is pretty cheap as DAWs go ($199) and it seems to be a well-loved system and pretty easy to use according to friends and reviews online. So far I've just been using Garageband as my DAW and that works fine for my simple needs. If I get to the point where I want to do fancy recording and mixing and mastering I'll prob just buy Logic Pro.

ezietsman

V8 wrote:
ez wrote: If you're doing audio, just get a mac and be happy.
Nooooooooooooooooooooo!!! Made the bad man stop...

Heh, The older I get the less I'm inclined to tweak, but crossing to the dark side to OSX is a step too far, as the machocist in me would miss the intimate relationship my head has with the brickwall it keeps on hitting ?

I'm like that. I used Linux exlusively for years. Then, one day, my beloved Dell XPS died. Ok, no problem I'll just go buy another one, the old one lasted 6 years so yeah, another XPS, cool. All I wanted was an HD screen, 13" with 8gb ram and the slowest i5 and a solidstate drive. LOL. Nobody has that (the cheapest model) in stock but they do have the kitted out i7 model for almost R30k. Add to that the online reports about how they didn't play well with linux anymore and I went looking for other brands instead. Long story short, I could not find a single PC laptop in 30 days worth of going to shops that didn't actually suck. Either they were robust and had crummy specs or they had better specs but felt like plastic rubbish and were really expensive. The only conclusion I could come to was that the 13" Macbook Pro was actually the cheapest robust laptop with reasonable specs so that's what I got. I really love it. 10 hour battery life, 2560 x 1600 display (on a 13") instant sleep/wake AND you plug in a usb device and it just f**king works.

Also, this little machine with its dual core (+2 virtual cores) running at 2.6GHz is actually faster for parallel computing than my overclocked i7 (4 + 4 cores) running at 3.4Ghz. Go figure.

V8

ez wrote: I should add, with a Mac you're getting all kinds of other nice things (Super nice screen, super battery life, FAST) plus Logic Pro is pretty cheap as DAWs go ($199) and it seems to be a well-loved system and pretty easy to use according to friends and reviews online. So far I've just been using Garageband as my DAW and that works fine for my simple needs. If I get to the point where I want to do fancy recording and mixing and mastering I'll prob just buy Logic Pro.

The vast majority of my mates have macs - they work, and do it well. I've only two real objections left, 1. In SA you couldn't get the 3yr warranty and 2. I've got 20+yrs on windows so I'm extremely used to it and even more lazy to learn a new OS.

But if I have to suffer Windows 8 and up, I'll jump ship to OSX rather.

I'm at a point where I want another laptop to process audio exclusively and a refurb'ed Dell latitude E6320/E6420 w/win7 at around R4500 is looking extremely tempting!

ezietsman

R4500 is small money for a laptop but if you only are going to process audio then for that money you can get a way faster desktop.

I've never used Win 8. Managed to install 10 last night on my desktop after trying multiple nights to get the upgrade from 7 to work. In the end I did a clean installation of 7 then ran the upgrade. Compare that to my OSX upgrade which took less than 5 clicks ?

I guess it depends. I wouldn't spend R17k+ on a laptop I only occasionally use. I use my laptop all day, every day so the money is well worth it for something I know will stay working for years to come and one that plays nicely with devices. I keep forgetting how limited a Windows install is, straight out of the box. It can do almost nothing whereas Linux and OSX comes with batteries included, maybe not the bestest apps ever but they allow one to get on with things.

V8

ez wrote: R4500 is small money for a laptop but if you only are going to process audio then for that money you can get a way faster desktop.

Welllll, I do have a master plan and I need the processing to be mobile...to keep my new "little friend" company ?

HK Lucas 1000. I needed a bass amp, but also wanted something that I could use with the laptop + sound card + software amps. Overkill? Probably, but that sub can scare a taxi driver or two ?

So far I've got a handle on the software , a sound card with a respectable RTL, a sweet floorboard, midi controllers, and a decent amp. Now for the laptop and finish the project guitar (analog + midi pickups).

Let's see IF I can get all that playing nicely together. It's only been around four years since I had the idea :?

theantirockstar

This was the scarlett solo, not the 2i2. its the entry level focusrite device, only has one pre instead of the 2i2's two pre's

V8

theantirockstar wrote: This was the scarlett solo, not the 2i2. its the entry level focusrite device, only has one pre instead of the 2i2's two pre's

True that, my bad.

Well since the special has expired, I was just in at the gear junkie and they have a 2i2 for R1400 (2nd hand)!

Nitebob

http://www.takealot.com/savealot-daily-deals

Boss ME-25 @ R2399

Wizard

V8 wrote:
theantirockstar wrote: This was the scarlett solo, not the 2i2. its the entry level focusrite device, only has one pre instead of the 2i2's two pre's
True that, my bad.

Well since the special has expired, I was just in at the gear junkie and they have a 2i2 for R1400 (2nd hand)!

They do?