Best Audio Interface

Big name studios use Protools. 
lol !


RME makes very nice interfaces with rock solid drivers and excellent support.

I use one of these, not a huge studio, but the results are fantastic. 
Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56   

My general observations of "Big Name Studios" is that they almost never use a PC for audio. Most of them are using Mac dual/quad xeons, esoteric HD3 systems, 2 inch tape, and lots of Pro Tools. Many of them use the converters in their SSL, AMEK, MCI, or whatever in their $500k mixing boards. Quite a few use modified systems with upgraded conversion by Burl, Apogee, Lynx, Prism, ETC... .
 
Most everything named so far is just not in the same league.  I am not dissing anything as I use a PC and run both Sonar and Protools, but I have never heard of a "Big Name Studio"  that uses Sonar or PC's for primary audio tasks. I'm sure there may be an exception somewhere, but this has been my experience.,
 
Knowing this, I have tried to make my studio as "pro" as possible without breaking the bank.  Since my use is primarily for singer/songwriters, I don't need a ton of inputs.   The room you record in is everybit as important as the equipment.  I have a fairly nice room plus a dedicated vocal booth. Signal path is generally Neuman, Custom made U87 clones, Audio Technica, Shure... etc  into   a ADL700 dual channel tube pre, into a Lynx Hilo AD/DA converter that is interfaced with a V Studio 700 system. I use the JBL LSR monitor system and some old school NS10's for monitoring.  This is as close as I am gonna get! I'm not a big name studio but this signal chain is pretty good.
 
You might check out the UA Apollo as a interface. It works fine with Windows and has gotten rave reviews. There is also a new Prism interface that is a scaled down Orpheus.
 
The Focusrite system noted in a previous post is pretty nice and can be upgraded at Black Lion Audio for under $600 with some really sweet Burr Brown Converters.
 
YMMV...  The most critical component is the musical input and the song. That is what really separates  the "Big Name" Studios.  

Dude Ivey,
     Yours is a very subjective question, however, almost impossible to advise without some idea what kind of budget you are dealing with.  Can you give some kind of idea what kind of dollars you're looking to spend? 

Best,
guitardood

I think the most i could spend would be around 2500.00. Ive seen a few comments on the RME stuff so thats what im reading up on now.

Burl.  UA 2192 for stereo in/out, apogee (which was pretty standard for big studio Protools), JFC. 

For something less analog and big-transformer colored there is Prism, Mytek, lavry.

For something more reasonably priced there is Lynx, RME, TC Konnekt (what I use).

Most of the cheaper interfaces don't have that much difference in sound in the grand scale of things sound.  They are all pretty good and certainly acceptable.  When you look at just the raw stats new cheaper interfaces outperform yesterday's high-end converters.

Even if you have big money to spend (some of those high end converters above cost $1000 per channel or more) you probably aren't going to get your money's worth of difference unless you have a nice room and nice speakers and nice everything else along w/ good ears that are trained.  Nothing wrong w/ spending money but doing it wisely is the trick.  If I had it to do over again I'd probably go lynx - even if it meant buying fewer channels.  Professionals use it all the time so you are getting a solid, pro converter you'll never outgrow yet you aren't selling your first born to purchase.  RME is solid soundwise and has as good drivers as anyone at any price.  I love my TC Konnekt 48 - DA is great, AD is good, onboard DSP and routing as thorough as RME (but more confusing) and great connectivity.  The drivers aren't as good, which brings me to the last point.

If using sonar Roland is a good choice.  The main thing you want w/ an interface is to be invisible and give no problems.  Pick your price point, figure out a couple of options and then get the one that fits you best.  It is unlikely that it won't work well, but if it doesn't move on to choice B since you could be spending precious music time (and temperment) on tech support - not making music.

@

I concur on the Lynx converters. I run them here. That's the most bang for the buck you will find around $2500.

Last December I dumped my RME HDSPe interface because the output channels started failing. I replaced it with a UAD Apollo quad and totally noticed a massive improvement in sound quality. It's above a lot of people's budgets, but it's a fine piece of kit. 

Don't be too concerned about what the "big name studios" use, that's a whole different league. If money is no object though, and you want to join the big boys, go for a Pro Tools HD system. That's 10K at a bare minimum.
 
Someone mentioned the UA Apollo. I have an Apollo Quad, and yes, that is a stellar sounding unit, if you don't mind shelling out $2500. Be forewarned though, those things, along with the UAD-2 DSP cards, cause a deadly disease named "UADPluginitus", for which there is no known cure, other than an empty bank account.
 
All jokes aside though, I concurr with all of the other suggestions given in this thread. Let me just add that I really like my Focusrite Saffire Pro 24DSP. It has excellent mic pre's and converters, flexable routing, solid drivers, dual headphone jacks, ADAT in, S/PDIF I/O, and an internal DSP chip that provides real-time reverb monitoring, as well monitoring/printing with compression and EQ on the inputs, should you need to do that. At a street price of $400, that's a pretty good value IMHO.
Apollo is my main interface for use with Sonar and Pro Tools and the Saffire linked up to it via S/PDIF.
JTW
 
 
 
 

Dude Ivey
Does the UA stuff ever limit the amount of plugins u can use? I'd hate to spend that much money on an interface or just buy the card and be limited. 

UA stuff is very cool but you  are limited in the number of plugs.  Say card 1 has X amount of DSP, each plugin uses Y amount of DSP.  Once your number of Y's add up to your number of X, no more plugins.  You can add more UAD-2 cards to increase this limit.  I'm running 4-UAD1 cards (a single UAD-2 should get you a bit more processing power than that) and have been able to mix 50+ tracks with effects.


Best,
guitardood

I put a Firewire 800 PCIe card into mine. Check with the UAD site before buying as only a couple are supported. 

A/D converters are sort of a mixed bag of controversy and subjectiveness. I don't believe anyone would disagree with me in that the mics, mic pre's, source (performer and instrument), and your engineering skills are more important, but I believe the A/D converters are not to be overlooked. I've looked hard at the Lynx product line, and they're great. They are pricey, though. If you're losing contracts because your A/D converters aren't all that, and it's causing your work to suffer, then it's time to invest. 

I personally use the latest MOTU 24i/o Core w/PCIe-424, but I've swapped out the Op Amps for something I found to be a bit more musical, and I added an external clock from Black Lion Audio. Between these changes I found the MOTU to quite nice and transients are tracking well. However, don't go this route unless you know what you're doing, and are great at SMT soldering.

My Philosophy: Exponential Cost results in Logarithmic Returns

Dude Ivey


I'm wanting to get an audio interface so im looking for opinions on the best ones. i dont need a million in's and out's but i want a reasonable amount. In a big name studio what brands do they use? i want the best quality i can possibly get. It has to work with a PC. Suggestions would be great.

You want the best? Here you go...
 
Buy a RME MADI FX

 
http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_hdspe_madi_fx.php
 
 
 
hook up it to a SSL Alpha Link.
http://www.solid-state-logic.com/music/xlogic%20alpha-link/

 
Or
 
Lynx aurora 16
http://www.lynxstudio.com/product_detail.asp?i=1
 
 

.....
 
 
or buy Prismsound Orpheus

http://www.prismsound.com/music_recording/products_subs/orpheus/orpheus_home.php
 
 
it doesn't getter better then that

The Apollo is an excellent audio interface... if you have the talent, you can record using it as well as any higher costing interface.... 
 
I recently have installed PT (you know, like the PROs use) and have come to the conclusion that SONAR is just as powerful except in one area.... for the PC operator.... the keyboard shortcuts remind me of watching an expert in EXCEL... CNTL this, CNTL that and viola, 16 tracks set up to record with each input set to an indepent input from the audio interface, all with the favorite EQ and COMP rolled into the inserts. I am sure that there are ways to do this in SONAR but not as a STANDARD as it is in PTs... which helps the PC TECH to go from system to system and do his thing using the same commands.
 
I watched the operator setup a recording session and even though you can do some things in SONAR, it was nothing like watching this dewd play the QWERTY keyboard and have a session ready to do in like seconds.
 
 
It was amazing.... now, the recording didn't sound any better than what you can do with SONAR and the PLUGINS are cheaper too than the TDM versions.
 
Jim

Swiller
RME UCX is worth a look. I have had one for a week or so and whilst expensive, it is rock solid with a round trip of 4.6ms latency in X2. mixing, routng, sound quality all top notch. Very impressed.

At 48 sample buffer at 48Khz I get 3.4 milliseconds reported round trip latency. 1.5 MSec input 1.9 MSec output.
 
I love my RME. It is also Class Compliant which I find handy.
 
And it comes with RME DigiCheck which I use all the time.
 
RME UCX can be used 3 at a time (same with UFX). So that takes you up to a possible 54 channels with 3 UCXs and 108 channels with 3 UFXs. 
 
I know people are excited about MADI, but I don't really understand where all the costs fall.
 
To me, MADI doesn't really make sense. My place is too small to benefit from the very fast transmission over distance. For me 18 in 18 out is enough. Additionally, I have a Tascam 2488 that can be sync'd using the SPIDF on the RME. That puts me at 24 total tracks simultaneously recorded.