Topic: Multi Track home studio upgrade..

[beanstalk]

I'm helping my friend upgrade is home studio somewhat with new gear. He's currently running into a Allen Health mixer > out to 4x4 M-audio delta pci card > PC > Nuendo. Total 16 tracks right now. He's been having issues with digital pops. We were thinking it might have something to do with 4 delta cards.
Looking for some recommendations on gear to choose from and some opinions on them. He maybe wants to aliminate the Allen Health mixer also, so something with mic pre is a plus. Must be 24/96, and 16 tracks+.

thanks in advanced...

[TNJazz]

budget?  there are a million and a half ways to go with this...

[beanstalk]

budget?  there are a million and a half ways to go with this...

forgot about that +t... I'd say $1500.00 and under...

[TNJazz]

Does he want to replace the whole setup?  If so, does that mean 16 preamps and some kind of interface, along with a control surface?

If so, there aren't many options and they're all low to low/medium quality.  M-Audio ProjectMix I/O or Tascam 1884 plus an outboard preamp maybe?  Not sure if either of these supports 24/96 though.

If he doesn't need a control surface and is mixing with a mouse in the box, I'd probably go with an 8 channel interface like the Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 (8 decent quality "utility" preamps) and a Mackie Onyx 800R (8 very good quality preamps).  S/MUX will allow 24/96 on both units, and the Focusrite is a firewire box, so an additional interface wouldn't be necessary.

Lots of different ways to do this, depending on your friend's exact needs.

Is he actually recording 16 channels simultaneously?  If not, the above suggestions can be drastically altered.

[beanstalk]

Does he want to replace the whole setup?  If so, does that mean 16 preamps and some kind of interface, along with a control surface?

If so, there aren't many options and they're all low to low/medium quality.  M-Audio ProjectMix I/O or Tascam 1884 plus an outboard preamp maybe?  Not sure if either of these supports 24/96 though.

If he doesn't need a control surface and is mixing with a mouse in the box, I'd probably go with an 8 channel interface like the Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 (8 decent quality "utility" preamps) and a Mackie Onyx 800R (8 very good quality preamps).  S/MUX will allow 24/96 on both units, and the Focusrite is a firewire box, so an additional interface wouldn't be necessary.

Lots of different ways to do this, depending on your friend's exact needs.

Is he actually recording 16 channels simultaneously?  If not, the above suggestions can be drastically altered.

He doesn't need 16 preamps. I'd say at least 8. He may want to replace everything up to the PC.

All the mixing is done in the pc and it's 16 tracks simultaneously.

Edit: he has an M-Audio ProjectMix control surface I believe which he uses for post mixing through nuendo.

[TNJazz]

Wow, then I'm really confused.  Why does he record with an Allen & Heath to 4 Delta cards if he has a ProjectMix?  Does he just like the sound of the A&H preamps?

[bluegrass_brad]

Does he just like the sound of the A&H preamps?

. I almost spit coffee all over my keyboard at that one. Those good ol' "musical" british preamps   I'm confused too.  Wouldnt it be simpler to use the control surface for everything?  There is a good chance it might eliminate the pops as well since I would bet that those are being introduced by the cards. Im pretty sure the M-Audio pre's are on par with the AH pre's, unless it is a vintage AH board (which would actually have pretty good sounding pre's in it).

[beanstalk]

my bad it's a Mackie Control Universal.. Looks like the m-audio mixer. When I looked at the m-audio picture I got confused myself and was wondering why he wouldn't use that.

[TNJazz]

In this case I would go with one of the firewire interfaces below (ranked in order of MY preference; YMMV of course):

Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 I/O
Presonus FireStudio
MOTU 896HD
MOTU 8pre

All the above will give him 8 preamps to start with, plus expandability via ADAT to accomodate outboard preamps with lightpipe outputs in the future.  All are under a grand (some are even in the $500 range)...

If he's not looking to make a move immediately, the soon to be released Mackie 1200F will probably be the best possible option (although it will completely tap out his budget).

I think the Focusrite offers the best overall package, with the Presonus a close second.

Of course his MCU would still be used to control the faders.  All the above units have MIDI I/O *except* the MOTU units.  Of course, a MIDI to USB adapter would easily take care of that (that's what I use).

Good luck.
Dirk