Audio Interface Suggestions [Home Recording]

[FACTplayers]

Lately I've been getting asked to do more and more home recordings. These are typically high school kids that work with our community theatre who just want to record covers. Right now I've been running the AT2020 for vocals and a 1/4" for guitar into my analogue board, then the outs of that into a Zoom H4n, which connects to my MBP via USB. Finally, I use Audacity to capture the sound and edit.

Sometimes they will only want to sign along to an instrumental track. In this case, I will load the track into Audacity, then headphone out of the MBP into my mixer. The mic will also run into the mixer. From here, I will create the mix of vocals/track in their headphones and send ONLY vocals to Audacity. This way I can re-record the same track multiple times and mix certain parts together to make one awesome track.

I want to eliminate my mixer and purchase a audio interface and I am looking for suggestions and places to start looking/researching.

At a minimum I will need 4 inputs. XLR / 1/4" combo jacks (like the H4n has) would be awesome. It will also need to be able to supply phantom power to power the AT2020 and another mic if/when I need to use one. I would like to be able to record just vocals while I play an instrumental track similar to what I described in my second paragraph. Recording to an SD card and being able to run off of batteries would be a huge plus. I've used the Zoom R16 before and really liked it, but I think it's a bit overkill for what I need.

My MBP is 6 years old and only has USB 2.0 and Firewire 400/800 ports. Sometimes I do have access to a rMBP with USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt connections. Ideally, I would like to be able to use either computer; however, if push-comes-to-shove, I would rather go with the USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt connections.

As far as price, I like free... A couple hundred dollars would be fine to spend. I don't need top of the line for what I'm doing. I'll most likely try to find whatever I decide upon second hand. Any suggestions and advice will be much appreciated.

 

[Footer]

Get on ebay. I bought a focusrite scarlet 2x2 for 70 bucks. I use it for my Smaart rig and it works great... very clean. You should be able to get a 4x2 interface for 200 bucks or less. Presonus, Focusrite, Maudio, and the like are all good places to look.

 

[FACTplayers]

Thanks, Footer. This may be a dumb question, but let's say I have the Scarlett 2x2 (2i2?). How would I go about recording someone if they want to sing along to an instrumental track? Would I have to connect both (say) my iPhone and the mic into the scarlett? Or could I have the track queued up on the computer so that way when we record multiple takes everything will be aligned. Or maybe there is a 3rd option I'm not aware of.

 

[Footer]

I have not I used audacity in awhile, but it does do multi track. Load the track into one track, monitor it, and tell the software to send the vocal input to another track. That will keep it all lined up. Audacity should be able to handle that.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[FACTplayers]

Is there another software you would recommend? Free or not.

 

[FMEng]

Wavepad and Mixpad. Not free but very reasonably priced.

 

[pmolsonmus]

The newer M-Audio and any of the Digidesign stuff comes with ProTools. You should be able to find an older interface w/ a useable version (the Digi stuff in particular) for a very reasonable price. An M-box has 2 inputs and will run as many virtual tracks as your computer can handle. If you're trying to have multiple inputs you would need to step up to a 002 or 003 rackmount or standalone. Again with the recent updates/upgrades the older stuff (that still works great) is reasonably priced. ProTools (even the LE/SE versions will run circles around Audacity) and was originally geared toward Mac.

 

[Joshualangman]

I really like the Presonus AudioBox. It comes in a number of configurations. You can certainly get one that has four inputs. The box has a really nice feature which is a knob that mixes between recording and playback, so the singer can control how much they hear themselves vs the backing track. It has a dedicated output for headphones (for the singer) and monitors (for you). I've used it with GarageBand to record multiple vocals and instruments to separate tracks simultaneously.

If you already have a Mac, doesn't it have GarageBand? If not, I think the program is only about $20. Not professional grade, but certainly a step up from Audacity as far as music recording goes.

 

[FACTplayers]

All of these suggestions are awesome! I have a few questions now.

1) How do you guys handle clipping? With a board I can see when it's about to clip and adjust the gain. I know these interfaces have gains and a clip light, but will it only tell me when it's already clipping or does it give a warning, too? I realize that each interface is different and this may be VERY difficult to answer. The Scarlett series goes from green, to yellow, to red which I really like. Edit: I'm answering this question as I look at most of these. Still, does the Presonus AudioBox give you a yellow light?

2) What other components do you typically add, if any? Or is this all done in post? Depending on the track, I will typically normalize everything and maybe run a light compressor over vocals.

 

[Joshualangman]

I don't think the AudioBox gives a warning for clipping — the light just turns on if you've actually hit the clipping point. I don't find this to be much of a problem because I set a level while having the singer do a test run before recording anything, and I tend to keep the gain pretty low anyway, lower than strictly necessary to avoid clipping.

Also, the software will show you level meters. So I just watch the screen as I'm recording and it will show if I'm getting into the yellow. You can also watch the waveforms as you're recording and see visually whether you're clipping. And, of course, you'll be listening on monitors or headphones so you'll hear it. But as far as anticipating it, the software level meters are probably your best friend.

 

[DomLauria]

+1 on Focusrite bang for the buck, the Sapphire series is awesome and the Pro14 provides you with the 4 needed inputs (2 combo 1/4-XLR) and phantom power.

http://us.focusrite.com/firewire-audio-interfaces/saffire-pro-14

 

[FACTplayers]

+1 on Focusrite bang for the buck, the Sapphire series is awesome and the Pro14 provides you with the 4 needed inputs (2 combo 1/4-XLR) and phantom power.

http://us.focusrite.com/firewire-audio-interfaces/saffire-pro-14

Does the Saffire (pro or not) allow me to customize the mix between playback from the computer and the mic while recording like the PreSonus and M-Audio do?


This is a really basic question, but I feel I need to ask it anyway...

Since the PreSonus Audiobox only accepts mic level inputs, if I put a DI box between a line level input and the Audiobox, will the (passive) DI box convert the signal to mic or will it remain at line level?

 

[DomLauria]

Does the Saffire (pro or not) allow me to customize the mix between playback from the computer and the mic while recording like the PreSonus and M-Audio do?

Yes, that will be done via your software controls, either within the DAW you select or the Sapphire Mix-Control software. I've done similar simple setups for guitar + vocal backing via Ableton.

 

[FMEng]

Does the Saffire (pro or not) allow me to customize the mix between playback from the computer and the mic while recording like the PreSonus and M-Audio do?


This is a really basic question, but I feel I need to ask it anyway...

Since the PreSonus Audiobox only accepts mic level inputs, if I put a DI box between a line level input and the Audiobox, will the (passive) DI box convert the signal to mic or will it remain at line level?

A DI box will work fine with a mic input. That's what they are for.

 

[FACTplayers]

Thank you everyone for your help. I really like both the PreSonus Audiobox and the Focursrite Scarlett so I'm tracking them on eBay. You guys have been very helpful, as always.