I've been browsing for a few days now looking for a new audio interface. Searching through this forum I am way more confused then when I started..
Anyway, I need the following:
6 - 8 inputs and outputs
1 additional master out and 2 headphones out
2 of the inputs should have preamps
A nice volume knob
Midi in and out
The sound must be great - this is most important
It must be fast and work with Windows and Ableton
If it cost maximum 1500 € we have a winner.
Im gonna write a lot now, so feel free to ignore this if you already know a good candidate.
So I have a soundcraft signature mkt 12 working as my audio interface right now. It works OK. It sounds good (to my ears) and it works great to multitrack when I jam with the modular, some synths and my drum machine. As a soundcard, it is fine. I have issues with latency and I don't like the headphone out. Another issue is that it does not have any inserts, no midi and no outputs.
I want to get a few preamps and maybe a compressor or two. I thought it was just a matter of getting these and hooking them up, but apparently it is pointless because my soundcard doesn't have inserts? Is that a thing? If I send something to a preamp and then to the soundcards preamp, it sounds bad? Why?
After looking around here on muff it seems that the popular choices are Motu, RME and Universal Audio. The UA is basically everything I want, but honestly it's 2000 €+. That is a lot of money... Motu seems affordable, but some have experienced issues with the drivers and software. The bigger one doesn't have any preamps, so then I need to get 8 external preamps. That would also break the budget. RME then. A contester to UA. Im a bit skeptical to their interface to be honest, but otherwise they seems to be alrite. They cost more or less like UA however.
Just for fun I had a look at Focusrite. The Scarlett 18i20 cost a fraction of the other ones. But every input has a preamp. If I got it right, a preamp on a preamp is BAD (don't know why) so that rules out the Scarlett? Why is Focusrite so cheap in comparison to say RME?
Im very confused and would greatly take some advice on this.
