Re: Newbie query about interfaces

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It depends on what you need.  A majority of the cheap USB interfaces
are USB 1.x and only do 2 channels.  USB 2.x only recently got an
audio standard (< 5 years) and devices that are starting to use that.
With USB 3.x already being out in the wild of sorts.  IMO, if you need
more than 2 channels, you're better off with a firewire device (for
now).  And yes, they cost a good chunk of money as many of them
include microphone preamps.  At $$$ per channel.  Unless you already
have gear than can deliver 5.1 input over optical cable, you're
probably going to have to chunk out some change.  Even at $50 a
channel, 4x channels is $200-ish.

If you have line level inputs and don't need microphone preamps, you
might have a few options.  A used Delta 44 (PCI) runs about $100 USD
on craigslist and is fairly well supported driver wise.  Although
pulse audio still kind of sucks at a default configuration for it.
And various versions of alsamixer seem to disagree with the hardware
specs more often than not.  Bit it's 4 line level inputs and 4 line
level outputs (24/96) on a budget and works fine under linux.  But it
depends on the budget.  It's 1/4" connectors ONLY.  Insert external
microphone preamp(s), and external headphone preamp(s) to use it like
most OTHER interfaces, plus cables and adapters and whatnot.  If you
don't already have a lot of that stuff.  You're going to be looking at
some $$$.  Or squiggly LLL in your case.

Not that I see how any of this is an alsa issue.  Until you have
questions on a specific device.  There's other websites with forums
that discuss various interfaces and whatnot.  I have an M-Audio Mobile
Pre (USB 1.x, 2 channels in, 2 channels out) and it works fine under
linux with alsa (usb class compliant).  I also have a Delta 44 and it
works fine, with a little extra configuration in some cases.

HTH,
- James


On 5/1/11, Graham Dicker <graham.dicker@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Dominique Michel wrote:
>
>> Le Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:28:47 +0100,
>> Graham Dicker <graham.dicker@xxxxxxxxxxx> a écrit :
>>
>>> I have been recording for many years with a Yamaha digital 4 track
>>> recorder. I would now like to switch to using my Suse Linux minitower
>>> using Ardour. I am not sure though what kind of audio interface I
>>> need to buy. Ideally I would like to have similar capability to what
>>> I am used to with my 4 track i.e. up to four instruments being
>>> recorded simultaneously, each on to it's own track. I understand that
>>> an interface like the Yamaha Audiogram 6 will work but it's not clear
>>> that I will be able to route each instrument on to it's own track. Is
>>> that what it does? Or do I need something else?
>>
>> If the audiogram 6 is recognized by alsa, it will work. Beside ardour,
>> you will need jack-audio-connection-kit (jack) and some alsa mixer like
>> the alsamixer. jack have several GUI like qjackctl. with it, you can
>> route the audio channels as you want to.
>>
>> Ciao,
>> Dominique
>>
> Thank you for responding. I already have all the software working using the
> motherboard audio interface and have been using it to record stuff for a few
> months. But I can only do two mono tracks or one stereo track at a time - a
> painfully slow process. I have looked around for an interface with more
> inputs and find they vary from around £80 to £3000 or more. The Audiogram 6
> is within my budget, I don't want to spend more than that. The descriptions
> on the vendor websites for this and similar units in this price bracket
> don't mention simultaneous recording on multiple tracks and as far as I can
> tell they are just a kind of mixer, and can only record one track at a time
> (on any OS). Is that true? If so, what kind of interface do I need?
>
> Thank you
>
> Graham Dicker
>
>
>
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