are they worth it??   I have been using a mixer going straight into my Macbook's soundcard audio input for the last 4 years now, and am struggling what to do next to upgrade my soundquality.    would it be worth it to invest in a USB interface system? (thinking maybe something like one of the Line 6 pods because I hear Pod FARM is a nice system to use for recording electric an stuff).    Or am I better off looking into something else (eg microphone upgrades, etC)  :o

Its a behringer 8 channel mixer. I don't know the exact model, but I can look it up when I get home later.  I was just wondering if the pre-amps in many of these USB/firewire interfaces would be better than going through my headphone output on the mixer into the 1/8" audio input on my macbook.    I haven't had much problems with latency, but its more noticeable depending on the program I'm using (Reaper Vs Adobe Audition).   

If you have many USB devices then your audio stream gets noisy. I had to go to the length of getting a dedicated USB PCI card for my desktop to use for my M-Audio Fast Track USB. The drivers for it are awful and hit and miss also. If I use it on my laptop I have to disable WiFi to keep a clean signal. It even picks up noise if I use my laptop charger instead of my girlfriend's (we both have similar vaios). That said, it has served me well and has a much greater SNR than any standard line in and has such low latency that it is not noticeable with 10 effects applied.

I am surrounded by EEE or Physicists who record music in their spare time and the general consensus is that firewire, although dated and disappearing, is better in the respect that you just don't get the weird issues you get with USB devices sharing the same internal hub or w/e.

I don't own a machine that has firewire so I would have to get USB if I did it again. I think I spoke to ASE about this donkeys years ago and he said that his Line 6 podstation was the bees knees.

TL;DR - Get an audio interface because you WILL benefit from it, just don't buy an M-Audio one because they're unreliable. When I buy hardware now I google <hardware name> then "problem" and rank my options by number of results.

I do have a firewire port on my laptop, so that might be an option.  I was reading some reviews that said that the focusrite saphire usb interfaces were also pretty good.     have you used an external mixer that was a line-in rather than USB/non direct audio in interface though to compare?

i guess my question is  is there a difference in the audio-in interface through a soundcard versus through an external powered device?  ( i don't know anything about drivers !! )

You should just get an interface with more inputs (if you can afford it) and remove the mixer from the equation, it's just another source of noise. Most boggo standard ones have an XLR input with phantom power and a 1/4" line-in with a switch to change impedance so you can have guitar or other things such as a keyboard.

What are you using this for? I know your using this for recoding. But are you using multiple channels at once or just one at a time and is this just you talking or music related. I will say I don't have a lot of knowledge in mixers (I have one for my let's plays when I play console games but it's not USB but the audio dose get sent out with video hard coded by USB ) I have more knowledge on per-amps that send USB out but that's limited to one brand and that would be tubeArt peramp USB

Also let's talk microphones for min what are you using?

this is for music things  ( http://soundcloud.com/nathanieltann )

I'm using a Shure KSM27 condensor microphone right now.   I've been doing dual channel recording panned so that I can pull the mono tracks seperately from one another, but it'd be nice to have them already into two tracks like you could do with an external interface.    The cables that I have are the best, but I've used cheap cables before on a friend's recording system who had a USB interface and didn't have as much background noise.  Alternatively though ,they were using an AT4040 microphone, which apparently has a much better cartioid for reducing background noise signal
 
+ background noise is not by biggest concern, as I do have noise gates, etc but it would be nice to reduce still.  I'm mostly more concerned about increasing the quality through pre-amps.
 
 
 
also as far as drivers go, what operating system are you using?  I can use OSx, but prefer to use my XP partition just because I have better plugins/VSTs/VSTIs.

I have a focusrite scarlett which only has two inputs but I assume the sapphire would be gud too
 
 supposedly so many fucking inputs/outputs (like on the m-audio fast track) can be a source of noise too

but yeah I didn't notice noise on either but my m-audio sounded too clean or something and I didn't like it. I also had an Apogee ONE which somehow worked on Linux CD but it's designed for Macs. But it seemed good I can only imagine it sounds even better on the platform it's designed for. But yeah there's Apogee One, Apogee Duet and I dunno what else. Kind of expensive though I think?

I don't know much about the recording quality because I don't make recordings that much. So I'm just going by how the headphone amp sounds

i'm curious as to why you'd get an interface like such if you aren't making recordings?  pretty sure there are just headphone amps you can get seperately that are cheaper / better?

Also i'm looking for something that would be cross OS compatible ( i have a mac but prefer using windows to record in just because there are more VSTis, etc)


firewire seems to be more expensive, and I'd prefer to get a firewire one because my laptop only has 2 USB ports which are already being switched out between exernal mouse, hard drive, and USB midi controller.

They're a bit pricey though.  I've read really good things about the focusrites, specifically that they have really good and clean pre-amps, which interests me. I really have no need for more than two inputs, since I do all my drums through MIDI anyways.  That being said though, it may be smart to invest in something with a few more inputs just incase that changes.

I've used a Zoom H4N field recorder before, which I thought was pretty cool, but I'm not particuarly in to field recordings at this point, although I found that the H4N had a really nice microphone for just doing studio things too.  Wasn't so much interested in the whole SD Card thing, would rather be able to just get it on the top computer.  I'm not so good with recoridng that does not involve a DAW.   (Current DAW of choice is Reaper)

I'm using an entry-level M-Audio USB interface for recording right now and it's ok.
My only gripe is that there's just two inputs, but I do a lot of overdubbing so it's not a big deal.

I just recently recorded a band live off the floor with a Zoom R16, which has eight inputs.
That may be overkill for you, but they have other recorders/interfaces that may suit you better.
It records as WAV to SD card, so when you're done you just pop it in the reader + import into DAW of your choice

Example: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41608092/9-17-2012/zanzibarland-mix2.mp3
This was recorded with one guitar solo overdub, everything else is live

just ordered a scarlett 2i2, so i'll post some things about it once it arrives and i've used it a for a bit.

I like it so far, at least in OSX.   In Windows XP it seems to have some driver problems with Reaper, and makes a horrible buzzing noise that is not presented in OSX, so what the fuck is up with that?   The pre-amps seem pretty clear and everything, so I think I just need to upgrade my mic next.

I'm using it right now.  It works shit on XP for the most part (and for some reason it keeps giving me this awful buzz whenever I try to record via 1/4") but works perfrectly in OSX (with no buzz) in Reaper.   However, most of my VST/is are in windows, so i'll have to make due with switching over everytime i want to record/mix.