The Audio Interfaces Thread

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Just thinking there might be value in a place to discuss audio interfaces in general.

I like it when I come across something new in an interface that’s worth commenting on, but doesn’t necessarily warrant a thread all to itself.

Sometimes I want to complain about the general lack of innovation in the standard feature set in each of the usual form factors.

Sometimes I want to ask for suggestions but not seriously enough to warrant a whole thread asking for recommendations that I probably won’t act on.

So, to kick off:

Something New

I like the look of this new SSL Alpha8 interface. But I don’t think there’s a manual up yet or anything saying what those buttons on the front do. The description mentions routing flexibility, so I’m wondering if it’s a matrix type system where you hold the channel button and then press one of the digital/analog destinations or dbu level buttons?

Or another new one with missing documentation of features. I may have just missed it, but you would think whether the built in recording to SD card was just stereo or all inputs would be an important thing to clarify in the feature list?

Something to gripe about

Why are there so few rack mount interfaces that have all the 8 inputs on the front?

I want to run the group outs from a mixer into an interface without having them permanently patched in. Or I want to make connections from the front of a patchbay into the interface (the patchbay is otherwise normalled to the mixer channels).

Some suggestions?

I don’t really need suggestions for interfaces with front inputs. There’s so few I think I’ve seen all the recent and current options.

But what would you do to solve this in 2 or 3 rack unit spaces?

Make a breakout patch panel that has just those inputs and outputs? Get a whole extra patchbay?

I understand having all the connections on the back for a rack mounted audio interface if you’re just making TRS connections. But if you’re regularly plugging mics into them and using phantom power etc, surely front mounted is more convenient?

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I like the idea but maybe rename the thread to “Genereal Audio Interface Discussion” or something more meaningful than a question as the title.

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The SSL Alpha8 you mention looks like a stripped down version of their also newly announced SSL18. Maybe an expander for adat, or possibly an audio interface for those that don’t want preamps, or even headphone amps. Regarding the matrix you mention, I imagine, like many interfaces, that any routing will be done via software on the computer.

This is interesting, and there should probably be more of a market for this. Personally, I prefer all connections on the back, but, I would like gain pots for each channel on the front. This keeps the footprint of the interface smaller. I dislike when there are like 8 inputs on the back, and 2 on the front. Just put them all on the back. Just my preference though. For your scenario, could you get a bigger mixer, so more channels? Why switching so much with the patchbay?

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That thing is so new they didn’t even have pics of the back panel on the website when I 1st saw it.

If it’s the same SD recorder that’s in the Aurora(n), you can choose to record between 2 and 32 tracks at once sourced from inputs and USB Outputs from the DAW.
There is no overdubbing or punching in.

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Regarding the front panel, Is it not a trade off between really good metering or inputs and signal present / OL leds?

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I think this is mostly due to the fact the eight XLR inputs take up a considerable amount of space which gives you less room for controls, displays and headphone outs. It also most likely makes things a little less convenient rack-wise when you are working with outboard gear and have your patchbay normaled to your audio interface.

You can run phantom power through a standard TRS patchbay just fine, when you remember to turn PP on after you’ve made the connection. It isn’t necessarily the best thing to do ever and is prone to user error, but it is doable. Alternatively you could use preamps with line outs / breakouts or have a XLR patchbay.

Another patchbay is what I most likely would do. Cheap and convenient. Alternatively an AD box with the inputs on the front, connected with ADAT/MADI/AVB/Dante/whatever.

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I think of the SSL Aplpha 8 mainly as an ADAT expander. The controls are just used for setting the dBu levels of the i/o I think. Thinking I’ll be buying one of these for my RME digiface actually. I have enough mic inputs already

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Probably gonna get scoffed at. I’m recording ssd usually through ios. TX-6 works wonders. You can get quite creative workflows with it.

I like the fact that you can make it listen an input get the bpm and send ppqn to euro (only 8 and 16 though)

And also Eurorack signals are way too hot for tx-6. Love the size but might give zoom l6 a try. I need something that’s not a desk sized.

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I am and probably always will be a Focusrite fanboy. As a guitar player I’ve always found the latency to be a cut above a lot of others and I think they pricing, as well as bundled plugins is bloody convincing.

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It was kind of my plan to pose it as a question to start with in case I actually had missed an appropriate thread this could be merged with, and then change it to a proper title. Mostly I couldn’t think of a decent title :slight_smile:

That’s what I figured, software controlled, but then what are the input buttons on the front for? Will await the manual.

Yeah, the 2 on the front, 6 on the back is fairly frustrating, but I imagine it suits a lot of people. I think it’s RME or maybe MOTU who usually do the full 8 on the back and an extra 2 on the front, I’m ok with that.

Nah, don’t want a bigger mixer. It has plenty of channels. It’s not that im switching all that often, it’s more that I can do stereo over USB to the PC, or I can make use of its AUX and Group outputs to send additional channels to the DAW via the mixer. I can currently do this with an ADAT expander to my interface. But that interface only has an ADAT input, no output (another gripe), so I’ve been annoyed not having a separate output from the DAW I can do stuff with.

Having a 1RU interface with inputs on the front means I can more easily choose between mixer outputs to the interface, or synths going direct to the interface without needing the mixer. I could just dangle some TRS cables from the back of an interface onto the desk where they could reach the mixer or the patchbay. That would work just be a bit messy.

None of this is that big a deal, I could just get another desktop interface with an ADAT output and call it a day, but it seems more efficient to cut down to a single interface instead.

Oh, that’s some good sleuthing. Yeah that would be nice. It’s still too pricey for me to justify, but I like that it’s a newish take on the form factor.

Yeah, come to think of it, all the ones I can think of with all the inputs on the front don’t look very attractive - and by attractive I mean gleaming with LEDs and information and buttons etc.

Whatever happened to the 2RU audio interfaces. I feel like at the tail end of firewires heyday that there were quite a few of these, that would solve most of the problems here.

Yes, of course, but I would definitely do a user error haha. What you say about normalling to an audio interface is right though, that’s probably what the majority are doing. But I decided to go with normal to mixer this time, and then have 4 stereo group outputs directed to an interface instead.

And I think I probably will go with your suggestion for another patchbay. There’s maybe 12 outputs from the mixer I’d like to have access to on a patch panel, and if I had 8 inputs and however many outputs from an interface that I wanted to bring to the front of the rack, then a patchbay is more efficient spacewise.

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Just a guess, but I think they will probably be for setting input and output levels.

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It does seem weird that more companies haven’t done more interfaces with all-on-the-front connections. I imagine it would sell, sort of like when a company does a left-handed version of a guitar. Maybe it’s not the most requested thing, but there are probably more people who would love to have it.

As for another option, if you like having a mixer, want more inputs and outputs, and want it all-in-one unit, maybe look into something like the Tascam Model 2400. It’s a full-fledged mixer, you get a lot of ins and outs over USB if you wanna record to your DAW, or you can record to an SD card if you want to go DAWless. And the input jacks for each channel is located on the top of the mixer for easy access if you need to be switching things around.

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Ironically, the 2400 was announced less than a month after I bought my current mixer, the Korg MW2408. I was a bit bummed at first but I got the Korg for half the rrp of the 2400, so that was some consolation (< unintentional pun?).

In terms of mixer/monitoring inputs, the Korg has all I really need, 8 stereo channels, and on the first 8 mono channels you can have the xlr and trs input both active at the same time, which lets you keep a bit more plugged in than you could otherwise.

I don’t really want to multitrack more than 8 channels at a time. I can use my Behringer ADA8200 at the moment to achieve this. I’m mainly looking at new interfaces because I need more DAW outputs than the Audient id14 can provide if I want to send audio to external fx.

I use the same PC for music and gaming, but the gaming actually happens at a different desk, so it’s nice to have a small desktop interface there for speakers and headphones without having to turn on a mixer.

I’m not real good at making music, but I excel at finding niche setup rabbit holes that are just outside of the norm enough to be inconvenient.

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You may be right about this. The Focusrite Liquid Channel 56 (IIRC) was the last 2U FireWire interface I can remember.
Most of the modern interfaces I can think of that are larger than 1U are the 500 series interfaces like the Cranbourne and Burl products.

I am leaving the “mixerfaces” such as the Allen & Heath, Behringer, and Soundcraft offerings for their own category.
This seems appropriate since they double as interfaces, but primarily focus on live mixing, leaving out talkback, comprehensive monitoring and cue routing, and multiple sample rate support.

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Yeah the Liquid Channel 56 was one I had in mind, and also some of the MOTU ones like the 896 hybrid thing.

That also falls a bit in the digital mixer camp, but I think primarily it’s still in the interface realm.

I agree with you on the digital mixers, I think of them as a different category as well, but welcome discussion of their audio interface capabilities here. I’ve found that because they’re mainly mixers, most user experiences you read are focused on that so there’s not always heaps of user feedback on all the models relevant to a synth home studio. It tends to bug me with these that they often lack an analog volume knob for the main outputs. I kind of get why, but if you just want to use it as an interface it’s nice to have a physical control you can reach for (without getting an external passive volume controller).

This is valid. And I will tend to rule out any interface that isn’t class compliant because I also like hooking it up to an iPad.

Yeah, that’s its main deal. I like that they included the interface as an option, it’s a bit niche for a standalone audio interface, so all those level options are a nice touch. Yeah it looks like you select the channel and then maybe cycle the level button.

This defeats the purpose of a something new and shiny and different, but a cost effective replacement to my Audient id14 could be the newer id24.

It has similar small desktop form factor which suits, but also squeezes in an extra set of TRS outputs, inserts for the preamps, ADAT output as well as input, and a word clock out. Pretty classy for the size and price point.

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I had completely forgotten about the 896…

I’m currently doing the Interface + normaled patchbay.

I think the important question is “how many mic / line inputs do you need / want to patch on a regular basis?”

Doesn’t the desktop format make this a moot question since you can just scoot it forward and patch? Or, connect up any AD /DA and leave it normaled to the mixer.

There are many more questions, of course. But there are answers. The RME flagship has 4 mic inputs on front and 8 lines in back.
That Arturia one has 2 mic inputs on the front and like 14 or something lines in the back.
Both of these are 1 rack space, have provisions for headphones and a master monitor volume knob.

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My desktop format interface is on a different desk to my main music setup.

On the regular I want the following:

  • All sources available to monitor via the mixer with no patching. All sources go to a patchbay and are normalled to the mixer inputs. Achieved

  • Record at most eight channels to DAW, either patched from mixer subgroups or patched from patchbay to interface (via ADAT expander). Achieved

  • Have a desktop interface where I sit for gaming and general PC use. I’m so used to the one I have that I can’t let go of having the volume knob right in reach. This has only one set of outputs so I cable swap between the desktop speakers, and the output going to the mixer. Achieved

I’m pretty happy with all of the above. My nice to haves list is:

  • Additional DAW outputs. The interface has only one LR output and no ADAT out. Could use the phones output as a separate output but prefer not to.

  • Nicer preamps/converters than the ADA8200. It’s fine honestly, but in theory I can upgrade this and solve my interface limitations at the same time in 1RU space. Unfortunately that means most options have inputs on the back which is less convenient in my setup than the ADA8200.
    It would also put my main physical volume control out or reach of the gaming station, which is a pain (but if I sit on the music gear side I can reach the existing desktop interface or the main mix fader on the mixer).

Essentially upgrading to a desktop interface with extra analog and ADAT outputs solves the basic problem if I stick with the 8200.

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Yeah, iD24 looks great. Only thing I’d be curious about would be the RTL figures - how do Audient boards fare in this regard?

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Suggestion

Avoid vendors who use planned obsolescence as a business model. Only buy interfaces from vendors who have demonstrated support for their customers by updating their drivers when new operating systems or platforms come out. Or better yet, buy class compliant interfaces that don’t require any drivers.

  • Example 1:
    MOTU FireWire interfaces going back to 2004 (that’s twenty years!) will still work on the latest Macs running the latest MacOS. All you need are MOTU’s driver installer and the right FireWire to ThunderBolt adapters.
  • Example 2:
    Focusrite FireWire interfaces sold up until 2017 will not work on any Mac running the current MacOS regardless of adapter. Nor have they worked on any M-series Mac released in the last 3 years.

I’m sure there are many other examples but these are the two brands I’m familiar with.

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I got the iConnectivity Audio4c some months ago. It lets you connect two computers, and lets you route the signals internally with close to no latency.

I use it to have my iPad host Drambo with all the iPad AUV3s, and also to let Drambo sequence plugins from Windows (hosted in Ableton).

I can record a mixdown of everything from within Drambo, and have just this one small device. I was hesitant about exchanging my focusrite for this one, but it was the perfect choice for me.

The little bit of latency within Drambo (from the sounds that are routed from Windows to iOS) can be adjusted with a script that I found over at the Beepstreet forum (can link if anyone’s interested). It essentially lets you create artificial latency for your local sounds (on the iPad), so that both sound sources are synchronized when creating a mixdown. It works perfectly.
(This latency isn’t relevant when you play the sounds live, because there’s no latency then. But there is a latency when routing sounds between devices)

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The problem with Class Compliant USB audio is its relatively higher RTL compared to audio interfaces with good drivers (such as RME). I’d say the best of both worlds would be preferable, ie. an audio interface which is USB CC but also offers drivers for improved performance

Then again, low RTL figures are not a priority for everyone

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