Building my home studio

[DeLouise]

So i am building my home studio, and i am looking at audio boxes.

I currently have a Casio CTK 4400 keyboard that i want to record with and i am buying a mic and speakers asap. I use abelton live at this stage and i have an ASUS laptop with 16gb of ram.

These are the audio boxes im looking at are the following
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Novation-Aud ... SwCQNWgDq7

https://www.videoguys.com.au/Shop/p/251 ... oCt3Pw_wcB

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Focusrite-Sc ... Sw42JWDhDq

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/M-Audio-M-Tr ... SwNyFWgEHK

Which is best or are their others im not considering that might be better?

[mojobone]

If I were you, I'd opt for either the one with the MIDI I/O or the one with the best mic preamps, depending on your primary styles/genres and your instrumental/vocal proficiency. (and maybe also your mic locker and recording chops) It also matters whether you want to sell your music or license it.

[mikeymike2000]

Option #1 seems funky. I am not a fan of USB connections for this application. Although it did not show a picture of the back. But I don't think using mic's that have USB connections is a good idea.

Option #2 is what I have, it is fantastic for MIDI based production with occasional vocals. (But if you get this one, get the white one! I originally had the blue one but it was picking up AM Gospel talk radio). It should have a metal box, not plastic. I feel like the blue was plastic but I could be wrong.

Option 3 and 4 are similar to 2.

So, the main question is what are you gonna do with it? If you are doing mostly MIDI and limited vocals or piano / guitar live and over dub vocals 2, 3 or 4 would be fine.

If you are going to be recording multiple live instruments at the same time I would look for other things with more XLR's on them. But then you will not want to run phantom power either.

Also get a good mic. You might get a "free" mic with some of these interfaces but they are not very good. I use an AKG P220 and it is really nice and the most versatile for a good price. It is built for vocals, strings and louder instruments like drums and horns (it has a built-in 20db damper).

However, it should be noted that after you are in the $200-ish range for mics, there is not going to be much difference in more expensive mics until you breach the thousand's range. So don't over-spend on the mic, but don't get an cheapo one either.

[mojobone]

I had some time to do a quick feature comparison; hope it helps:

Option 1: no mic preamps, bus-powered, would best interface with consumer/DJ/hiphop gear. 2 balanced quarter-inch outs, two stereo unbalanced, RCA outs, plus USB and bonus hub. Rugged chassis. Can only connect cheap bus-powered USB mics or line-level signals directly. No zero-latency option. reasonably priced.

Option Two: Two decent mic preamps, connect your balanced/unbalanced keyboard outputs, bus-powered, globally switchable phantom power, Rugged chassis. Zero-latency monitor option. Approximately 45dB of gain means it can be a tad noisy with ribbon and dynamic mics. DAW software; Studio One's pretty easy to learn, the only thing that beats it is Tracktion.

Option Three: Similar to Option Two, but with slightly better preamps plus more usable gain and some useful plugins for your compatible DAW,and includes Ableton Live Lite, which accepts third-party plugins and VIs.

Option Four: Compares favorably on features, but is legacy technology; a couple generations older than the Focusrite and a generation distant from the Presonus. M-Audio's latest Avid-certified iteration has superior preamps/conversion that are about on par with options two and three, some say on par with Apogee's Burr-Brown driven offering.

[Len911]

https://www.storedj.com.au/products/YAM-MG10XU

This is $255 Aus dollar, new. The Novation was $199 Aus dollar. A difference of about $39 U.S.

http://au.yamaha.com/en/products/proaud ... mode=model

+ 4 mono mic/line with +48v phantom power
+ 3 Stereo line in
+ USB Audio Class 2.0 compliant, Sampling Frequency: Max 192 kHz, Bit Depth: 24-bit
+ STEREO OUT 2
+ MONITOR OUT 1
+ PHONES 1
+ AUX SEND 1
+ SPX algorithm: 24 programs
+ PAD 26 dB (Mono)
HPF 80 Hz, 12 dB/oct (Mono)
COMP 1-knob compressor Threshold: +22 dBu to -8 dBu, Ratio: 1:1 to 4:1, Output level:
EQ HIGH Gain: +15 dB/-15 dB, Frequency: 10 kHz shelving
EQ MID Gain: +15 dB/-15 dB, Frequency: 2.5kHz peaking
EQ LOW Gain: +15 dB/-15 dB, Frequency: 100 Hz shelving
PEAK LED LED turns on when post EQ signal reaches 3 dB below clipping
Level Meter 2 x 7 -segment LED meter [PEAK, +10, +6, 0, -6, -10, -20 dB]