Quick question for Musicians / Home Studio peeps
 

I am in need of an audio interface but I'm not sure what to get. I am looking at the Apogee Duet

http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/duet

but I'm afraid I might be limited too early, so I'm thinking about the Quartet instead:

http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/quartet

Does anyone have either? Care to give me a general review / overview?

I'm also looking for a mixer of sorts. I have a guitar and Amp, and I use the same computers for work as I do for play. Currently I am always connecting / disconnecting Mics, headphones, and Guitar iRig out of the back of my computer. I would rather plug them all into a single elegant interface, along with some good quality studio monitors, so I can switch between devices when necessary instead of plugging / unplugging. Can I use the Apogee Duet / Quartet for this too? Or am I looking at a different unit completely?

Thanks in advance!

I have been looking at the apogee stuff and wondering why it's so expensive. Personally I think my tascam US1800 is great, with a boatload of ins and outs for less than half the price. For my home studio I only use 4 of the 16 inputs, but when I was recording a demo for a band we used them all.

Maybe if I hear the Apogee I'll be blown away by the preamp quality, so who knows but so far it looks like you're paying for fashion.

I have an MBox and Yamaha HS8's. My setup would cost you around $1k, but I love it and it would take care of all of your needs. The MBox will give you multiple instrument inputs allowing for your guitar and mic, HS8's are simply beautiful.

A friend of mine has the Scarlett instead of the MBox. It's quite a bit cheaper and does a great job as well. http://www.amazon.com/Focusrite-2i2-...udio+interface

Whatever you do, don't go cheap just because it's cheap. You'll only be disappointed and you will end up buying something better shortly thereafter and effectively will be wasting your initial cheap expense.

What DAW are you using? Logic?

I just looked at the Duet. Does not seem to give you much for that price. Hell, get an Eleven Rack if you are going to spend that much money.

http://www.amazon.com/Avid-9900-6518...ywords=11+rack

I used Pro Tools for a few years. Had a pretty nice setup.
But I got sick and tired of all the damn updates. Everytime that there was a system update (I was on windows) it would screw everything up. Then I'd have to wait on updates for Pro Tools and all the plugins.

It got to the point where I was spending as much time tinkering with the computer than I was actually recording music.

So I went "back to the future" and bought a used Roland VS 2480 on Ebay a few years ago.

No more "updates". No more new fancy plugins to catch my attention and make me want them when I don't need them.

No more blue screens and losing all my songs.

The thing sounds great and works everytime.

Here's some of the stuff I've been recording on it: https://soundcloud.com/robbie-boyette

Most of that stuff are songs I recorded for the scenes on Claudia Marie's site. On those songs I actually wrote, recorded, and mixed them in a couple of hours time. I couldn't even imagine doing that on a computer based system. I got too distracted with it.

There are also a few full length "stand alone" songs on there that I took a week or so working on and polishing.

But using a piece of hardware to record has definitely freed me creatively.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. This is really helpful.

I forgot to say that I am also looking for a Chorus / Harmonizer / Vocal processor, something like the TC-Helicon VoiceLive 3 Processor:



It looks and sounds amazing. Does anyone else here have one and use it? Is it worth the money?

I have one and to me it's totally worth it. Aside from being great for vocals it's a also kind of a swiss army knife for guitar.

I have this one > https://www.steinberg.net/en/product...delle/ci1.html < pretty basic but it does what I need it to do :)

I have a Duet and I must say that there is a noticeable difference in terms of quality...it's quite a great piece of hardware. However, the quality of the hardware in no way justifies they cost.
I have recently switched away from my Duet and I am now using the Focusrite Scarlett 6i6...and it is fucking awesome in every way.
It's totally reasonably priced and sounds killer.