Sound cards with 16 inputs?
Sound cards with 16 inputs? Posted on: 13.06.2012 by Rebbecca Fennell Any recommendations? Its a bit surprising the lack of availability of cards with more than 8 inputs, not seeing too many out there. I've gotten pretty used to using my apc40 as a mixer, believeing I just want 16 inputs and an apc20 and I'll be set | |
| Rebbecca Fennell 13.06.2012 | Any recommendations? Its a bit surprising the lack of availability of cards with more than 8 inputs, not seeing too many out there. I've gotten pretty used to using my apc40 as a mixer, believeing I just want 16 inputs and an apc20 and I'll be set |
| Lauretta Loonam 17.08.2012 | Check out the Mackie Onyx range of firewire mixers. I'm using the 1604i it gives me 16 distinct analog inputs plus 2 more that hold the 'master mix' and all get fed into the PC via ASIO. It also is a full analog mixer with preamps, 4 band eqs, 6 aux sends and 4 subgroups. Maybe a bit more than you were looking for, but yes you can get 16 analog inputs no problem with it and it works fine as a regular analog mixing desk when the computer's turned off and you just wanna jam with your hardware. |
| Romelia Stankard 04.08.2012 | I believe I decided on going with a Motu 828 MK3. 8 analog inputs should be fine for a little while until I get more hardware synths then if needed in the future I could expand it with another converter through ADAT. Plus they go for like $550 used which is perfect. I'm also going to keep an eye out for used motu pci-e stuff since it looks like it goes cheapish too but I kinda like the flexibility of having USB2 and firewire as an option. |
| Alyse Plantenga 04.08.2012 | I honestly can't believe of any interface that does more than 8 analog I/O without a PCIe card of some sort as listed above by mostapha. Having that much I/O is never a cheap option and is why big studios for recording and mixing cost so much. What you do you need though if you arent going to go down the PCIe card route is a master interface with multiple ADAT I/O and Word Clock output. You then need to get pre-amps with ADAT I/O as well and hook them up to the master through a lightpipe cable. The master interface also needs to send a clock signal to the extra pre-amp module so that each of the converters record and playback with eachother in time. otherwise you can get weird latency-phasing issues. It can be a complicated process of getting the right gear and a lot of research. It would help if you could get down to a shop and see if they can explain it in a hands on way or even pay a visit to a recording studio and see if they explain the signal flow. I currently have an M-Audio Profire 2626 and am looking at getting say the Focusrite OcotoPre as shown by padi_04. or even the behringer ultragain pro AD8000. I know its a behringer but i have used them before with a pro tools 003 system in the past and worked very well. |
| Romelia Stankard 29.07.2012 | Hmm bumping this thread since I want to figure out something like this in the near future for the same reasons. I want 16 analog line inputs, 12 might be enough though- also want one ADAT lightpipe i/o. I am not totally opposed to pci-e and am assuming it would work fine on a hackintosh but I don't want to spend an absurd amount of cash so probably not an option. I can shop used and would prefer to spend $800 or less (less the better). Even if the motu 24 was in my budget I would lose out on more basic card features features like midi, volume control to run monitors directly from it, etc. Have a slight preference for motu as the outs are direct coupled and can be used to send CV. If I went for an 828 mk3 are there any affordable add ons to expand the inputs? |
| Dorie Scelzo 15.06.2012 | That's about the only way I can believe of to do it unless you're willing to spend a good bit of money and use a desktop. Avid, Apogee, Focusrite, and Motu all make cards that are at least 16 analog ins……but they work off PCI or PCIe cards and vary in price from expensive to stupid. Avid HD Native + 16 analog HD I/O is like $6500 Focusrite Red Net PCIe + Red Net 2 is like $4000 Apogee Symphony I/O 24x8 + Symphony 64 PCIe is like $6000 (closest pre-built configuration…you could do it for a little cheaper) The cheapest is the MOTU 24I/O Core PCIe system: about $1400 for the PCIe card and a 24x24 analog interface. I haven't used the current version of any of them, so I can't compare them……but I'd bet they'd all give very similar and very good performance. Or, you could do the thing padi recommended. That's a lot cheaper. And there are a lot of cards that do that. Anything that doesn't have as much analog IO as the box says it has available will have some way of receiving a digital input…and there are a lot of sound cards that either work standalone as converters or just are standalone converters. I will suggest that if you're going to do that, get stuff that has Word Clock connections. You can use the one connected to your computer as the clock source instead of buying a word clock device, but it kind of seems like the exact situation where you'd want one. The downside of some of that is that running everything over USB won't give you the same low-latency performance as running off one of the PCIe systems. Some of them are really good, though. If I were doing something like that and had the money, I'd probably try the Motu system first and if it didn't work…go for HD Native with a Symphony I/O (which apparently you can do). Edit: Also, depending on price, something like a pair of Echo Audiofire 8s would work. On OS X, they aggregate well. But they also seem to be on the road to dropping firewire…so unless you want to use a thunderbolt FW interface, might not be the best time to go down that road. |
| Nedra Fresneda 15.06.2012 | The expansion goes for 500 tho, so you would be getting roughly to 800 bucks. If you have the cash go for it. If not, see if you can find any info on pairing 2 interfaces (600 bucks) or email/phone Focusrite and ask them directly if Scarlett Mix Control supports this. |
| Rebbecca Fennell 15.06.2012 | That is perfect. I kept seeing that card on the site I do most of my shopping on and knew there had to be something I wasn't understanding when I kept seeing it listed as "18 in" but then it only had 6 analog inputs. |
| Nedra Fresneda 15.06.2012 | This + this is the closest I can believe of. No clue about how their USB line performs tho, I only had experience with their Saffire (FW) cards. Dunno if you can daisy chain the Scarletts (if you can't it's a limitation of their control panel) but you could get away by building an aggregate device (way cheaper than getting the octopre). |
| Rebbecca Fennell 15.06.2012 | There's no USB cards that are capable of being daisy chained for more ins and outs? I remember that could be done with I believe those emu delta 1010 pci cards |
| Rebbecca Fennell 15.06.2012 | Yeah 16 analog inputs. Right now my production set up is maschine hosted in ableton, each group going to its own channel, and my apc40 acting ONLY as a mixer. Used to own a lot of hardware synths and drum machines and trying to get back into collecting. Just bought an elektron machinedrum, and by the end of the year have my sights on a few synths and maybe a korg emx. So I'd like to be able to mix and record all of those outputs in ableton with my apc. It's starting to look like I'm either just going to have to prioritize with a decent 8 input card or shell out big for a couple mixwizards and couple motus |
| Dorie Scelzo 14.06.2012 | I assume you mean 16 analog inputs? Any Mic Preamps? What are you wanting to do with it? Only ones I can believe of off the top of my head are PCIe based or crap. That'll change soon, though. |
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