Sound-card recommendation for Mac/Logic

[orest]

Hi

What sound-card are you using with your Mac?
I need to find a working sound-card fast, preferable with 8 analog inputs.

I'm thinking of the RME Fireface 400 or 800. Do you have any other recommendations?

I'm experiencing too much trouble with my Motu Ultralite and I have reached the conclusion that the drivers coming from Motu aren't good enough for Mac (using FireWire).
I've read a lot of posts from Motu users having the same problem with no sound/crackling popping sounds and so on.

I need a stable sound-card and I'm willing to pay around 1.200 dollars to get one.

[Len911]

Orest, I don't have any of what you are speaking. The Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 looks interesting and is $999 from Sweetwater. I also found a youtube video of a review of it, the guy has one and uses a mac, and says that they key for problem free was to power up the mac first, then power up the saffire 56...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cda44K3-ezw

[Kolstad]

When you are on a Mac, you should get an Apogee, simply because their interfaces has the best converters, and great a/d converters should be your top priority. So, Apogee, def.

[mojobone]

Apogee's converters are excellent, but I don't believe they're the best; Universal Audio's (discontinued) 2192, Burl, Benchmark, Lavery, Lynx, Cranesong, Antelope, Mytek and a few others have been ranked higher in shootouts.

[jdhogg]

Mojo is correct.

Apogees converters are not the best. Fact.

Magne.........have you ever used a RME ff400? No you have not....!

I had a tc but sent it back because the drivers were crap and the top end was not great.

My RME FF400 is rock solid and sounds better.

I have never heard anyone regret buying an RME.

The price has actually gone up since I bought it 4 years ago......that should tell you something.

RME is an industry standard for a reason.

[orest]

Actually, after a lot of work I did find a solution to my problem.
Not even MOTU know this.

I trashed all the files installed by MOTU (latest drivers/firmware/programs downloaded at motu.com) on my Mac Pro, 1 driver and 3 programs. I deleted all the com.motu.. files in the pref list.

I powered down my Mac Pro and my Motu Ultralite.

I started my Motu Ultralite and after a few seconds my Mac Pro.
Mac Pro found the Motu card and installed the driver.

Now it works better then ever!

[mazz]

I'm not a big fan of FireWire audio interfaces. If you have FireWire drives, etc., the performance seems to suffer on the whole system. I prefer Pci based systems. My Motu pci system with 4 outboard boxes has been rock solid from day one and I can use several FireWire drives without bogging down my audio stream.

Also you should be repairing permissions on your system drive from time to time, particularly after installing software. That process can find corrupted files, etc.

Glad you got it worked out.

Mazz

[orest]

I'm not a big fan of FireWire audio interfaces. If you have FireWire drives, etc., the performance seems to suffer on the whole system. I prefer Pci based systems. My Motu pci system with 4 outboard boxes has been rock solid from day one and I can use several FireWire drives without bogging down my audio stream.

Also you should be repairing permissions on your system drive from time to time, particularly after installing software. That process can find corrupted files, etc.

Glad you got it worked out.

Mazz

I don't have any other FireWire drives, only my MOTU card.
I repair my drives every week.

I'm also buying a special design PCI-e card from Texas Instruments next month with 2 dedicated FireWire 800 ports for better performance.

I was looking into the RME PCI-e controller card with a bracket, but I need the FireWire sound card for my coming MacBook Pro, there are no internal connections in that computer, only FireWire, Thunderbolt and USB.

[Len911]

Actually, after a lot of work I did find a solution to my problem.
Not even MOTU know this.

I trashed all the files installed by MOTU (latest drivers/firmware/programs downloaded at motu.com) on my Mac Pro, 1 driver and 3 programs. I deleted all the com.motu.. files in the pref list.

I powered down my Mac Pro and my Motu Ultralite.

I started my Motu Ultralite and after a few seconds my Mac Pro.
Mac Pro found the Motu card and installed the driver.

Now it works better then ever!

That's funny, because it's the exact opposite of what was said in the youtube video I linked to you about the focusrite, It's great you knew what you did, because I've followed software instructions to a T before and still had problems, messed around and got it working but never knew exactly what I did! Great news!!!!

[Mike Barresi]

I was really close to buying an apogee/logic system but, I went with the Avid Omni native bundle with Pro Tooks 9 hd. I had been using protools le before so a move to logic presented a learning curve that I did not want to tackle.

The omni's converters are awesome. The preamps are extremely good as well. I love that unit. It is perfect for my small, but powerful, production studio. In this case it is more about quality over quantity. I have not used more than one channel in such a long time, it wouldn't make sense to waste my money on a bunch of features I wouldn't use.

Plus it was literally plugin, install software and pci card and play. Low latency I've ever recorded with. I run 32 buffer with very little hiccups!