The Audio Interface Thread!

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havelock: Jan 20, 2004; IGNORE ME; Soiled Meat

FWIW I have the KA6 and it works fine via usb2 for me. I mostly just play guitar rig through it, but there are no clicks or pops and the latency is fine.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2014 15:56

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 11:42

havelock: Jan 20, 2004; IGNORE ME; Soiled Meat

I'm getting way ahead of myself, but what is music gear for if not endless research?

I have a PC. I have a Komplete Audio 6 (first gen) hooked up to it.
I have an ipad (lightning).

I have several ways of playing around without using the PC (op1, AUM on the ipad, etc), but ultimately I think I want to try actually finishing something and for that I'm planning to get Ableton or Bitwig on the PC. Unimportant question: Ableton or Bitwig? (leaning Ableton because 11 adds comp-ing and I need lots of takes to figure out what I want to do on guitar and then execute it).

Important question - how to use ipad and PC cohesively?
1. I'm going to have a midi controller that I'd like to use with both. Is there a way to do this without having to unplug / replug? I saw some midi over wifi thing.
2. I'm going to want to have some sounds and stuff generated on the ipad and ideally would work in real time with them along with whatever I have going on the PC. Is there a way to do this by sending digital audio directly from one to the other so I don't go DA/AD? (see 3a and 4 below)

Potential ideas:
3. buy an audio interface to use with the ipad. I think my midi controller does midi over usb, so the audio interface doesn't need midi jacks, right? Plug the interface audio out into an in from the KA6 and just get stereo audio.
3a. buy another KA6 or something with a spdif for the ipad and use spdif to connect to the spdif in on the pc avoiding(?) the DA conversions
4. some way to get ipad audio over usb into the pc that I can't figure out?

Hopefully I've figured out enough that my questions at least make sense.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2020 18:57

havelock: Jan 20, 2004; IGNORE ME; Soiled Meat

Trig Discipline posted:

Good stuff about DAWs

Thanks!

It looks like you're right and max only comes with the super expensive ableton.

It seems like lots of interfaces come with an intro ableton so maybe that will work out.

I've now been looking at goofy motu things that are triple what I thought I wanted to spend but they have tons of i/o and future proofing.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2020 04:52

havelock: Jan 20, 2004; IGNORE ME; Soiled Meat

Anyone have experience with the Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 3rd gen, particularly on windows?

I'm thinking I can make this work with my ka6 to get my ipad and computer all connected, especially because it has spdif i/o like the ka6 (which gives me effectively 2 extra inputs and outputs). Between this and getting another ka6, the differences I can see are
$50 more for the focusrite
focusrite runs stand alone and isn't bus powered
ka6 has a few dc coupled outputs
2 more inputs on focusrite, some internal routing

I went down a rabbit hole and was contemplating something nuts like a motu ultralite for 2x as much, but lately I also tried a demo of bitwig and I think I'd rather have a cheaper interface and bitwig than something more expensive because The Grid is so incredibly fun to play with.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2020 18:57

havelock: Jan 20, 2004; IGNORE ME; Soiled Meat

havelock posted:

Anyone have experience with the Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 3rd gen, particularly on windows?

I'm thinking I can make this work with my ka6 to get my ipad and computer all connected, especially because it has spdif i/o like the ka6 (which gives me effectively 2 extra inputs and outputs). Between this and getting another ka6, the differences I can see are
$50 more for the focusrite
focusrite runs stand alone and isn't bus powered
ka6 has a few dc coupled outputs
2 more inputs on focusrite, some internal routing

I went down a rabbit hole and was contemplating something nuts like a motu ultralite for 2x as much, but lately I also tried a demo of bitwig and I think I'd rather have a cheaper interface and bitwig than something more expensive because The Grid is so incredibly fun to play with.

Self quote - I got the 8i6 and it was easy to setup and it's nice so far. I have to do a weird dance to get external spdif sync to work with the ka6 since there's no physical button for it and no control app for ios, but it's all working - and this dance wouldn't work if the 8i6 wasn't self powered so that worked out.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2020 18:46

havelock: Jan 20, 2004; IGNORE ME; Soiled Meat

Achmed Jones posted:

You've already bought it so this isn't super helpful but: I have the 3rd gen 8i6 and like it a lot. I use it with OSX. It's overkill and I probably would've been better served with a smaller interface and a mixer, though - I'd generally prefer mixing to be in hardware than software. But overall it's a very good. The software is fine: not particularly good, not particularly bad. I am colorblind so being able to set the colors for good/almost-clipping/clipping is really nice. If it were fixed on green/amber/red id be unable to tell the difference

That's a nice accessibility touch. The only minor thing I've found so far is that when I exit bitwig the midi driver still thinks something is using it and so my computer (win10) won't sleep. Could be the 8i6, or bitwig, or any one of the vsts I'm using.

Thanks for the extra data point

# ¿ Dec 24, 2020 03:16

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 11:42

havelock: Jan 20, 2004; IGNORE ME; Soiled Meat

Guigui posted:

I'm looking for some advice on an audio interface / sound card; hoping someone may have some great insight.

I'm transitioning from an old Soundblaster Awe 32 that used 3rd party KX drivers, which allowed for ASIO output (at 44,000, barely any delay compared to ASIO4All) - as well as direct control of audio effects from any input source (such as Line in, digital in, main driver output (x8)). With the KX drivers, you could chain multiple effects through from all input sources (either internal or external) to sound output, or recording. I could have, say, my line input pass through a mixer; left and right outputs from the mixer would head to [sound out] and [recording], then run a second line input with a 2 second delay, add change in pitch, reverb, chorus, highpass filter, mix that with the first line in, connect to sound out... then add a 3rd line input with a 4 second delay... etc...

Each of these controllers, which I could assign to a midi controller input, could be used in a sequencer like cakewalk in my digital productions, although it was not necessary - and I could do all this in realtime.

I apologize if this seems like a silly question, but do any of the modern audio interface cards (either PCIe or USB) allow for this sort of audio tweaking in realtime? I'd be using this interface for general midi / synth compositions (Kontact native instruments) - with hookups to legacy midi controllers (an MT-32, an old AD-lib) for that late 80's feel - but I'd also like to be able to speak in my microphone while on zoom conferences sounding like, say, a character in Hades.

Much appreciated, thanks!

I'm not an expert here, but some interfaces offer 'mixing' type features without having to use other software (like a DAW), though the types of effects are usually pretty limited (if at all). I ended up with a Focusrite 8i6 which lets me route any input to any output I want and do some basic level adjustments, but that's it. I was looking at a Motu Ultralite AVB, too, which has a much more capable mixer built in (filter, eq, gate, compressor, reverb), but it's double the cost.

For more effects and MIDI stuff you might have to run a DAW to do all the routing/vsts, etc.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2021 19:12

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > Musician's Lounge > The Audio Interface Thread!