What New Hardware & Audio Interface? Fire Wire vs. USB? Solicitation for Advice...
It's been 11 years since I've posted here, I was a little surprised to discover. Other things have kept me occupied, I guess. Long story shortened: I've decided I want to stick w/ Win10 and tombstone the old DAW (described in my signature if I did that part correctly). The plan is to upgrade to Sonar Professional from X3 and move to a NEW audio interface at the same time as buying a new Win10 computer. Oh yeah - I should say up front: I won't go the Mac route. I respect the Mac, but everything else in my life is Windows. I like Win10. I'm stuck and comfortable in this rut, please don't ask me to change.
- For the interface I'm leaning towards a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8, but can be swayed by input here. I think I may ultimately end up regretting NOT having the dedicated extra outputs like I currently have w/ the old M-Audio 10/10 LT - but since MOST of my recording is either just me multi-tracking / songwriting along w/ some more recent live-in-the-studio recording w/ the new trio, maybe I'll be okay w/ the 18I8. At the same time, I'm thinking the Saffire Pro 40 might be nice; I just have reservations about going the fire wire route vs. native USB 2.0. I see where fire wire ought to be faster - but USB seems like it might be more stable in the PC world. Maybe there's another, alternative, similar, solid (at least 6-in+/6-out+) multi-channel interface w/ USB I'm overlooking? I see the Behringers, but they seem VERY new & I've heard uneven accounts of Behringer hardware reliability (not audio interfaces though, I'll admit). Maybe someone here can convince me installing a firewire card is the way to go? Thoughts?
- For the new DAW, I'm looking at an ASUS Desktop PC M32BF-US011S A10-Series APU I'm seeing on NewEgg for a decent price and thinking down the road apiece to an SSD upgrade. I KNOW my current rig is woefully under-powered, but I mostly record acoustic stuff & SELDOM (if ever anymore) use the virtual instrument plug-in synthesizers. (Also: My last Dell experience made me decide I'm not giving them my business anymore. Prior to that, I used to put together my own machines, but I'm paring back on hobbies & pursuits these days for more time spent enjoying making & hearing music.) Thoughts?
- I guess I'm trying to keep the overall upgrade outlay under or close to $1K, but I may be able to plead my case for more to spousal unit given I've been a pretty good boy this year, & the new trio is starting to pick up paying gigs fairly regularly.
I didn't mean to stay away from the forum so long. Maybe it's just that back in the days when my interface was a Gadget Labs box (Anybody remember them (w/out clenching their jaw / fists)?), I needed to come here a LOT more often looking for help.
LASTLY: I don't see my signature in the preview - so just in case, here's my current (sad) set-up where the M-Audio is NOT happy running under Win10 (What precipitated much of this):
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 1.9 GHz / 4G RAM / 64 Bit Windows 10 Home / 128G SSD
CakeWalk Sonar X3 / M-Audio Delta 10/10Lt