What is a good Firewire Interface for a MAC?

[Johnny Mac]

Not the Apogee Ensemble though. As good as it looks on paper its 1500 quid!  :x

[_tom_]

I had a Presonus Inspire 1394 and really liked the button/knob-less interface - you adjusted all the input gains etc on a virtual control panel. It works great on OSX but not on Vista which is why I had to sell it.

[Buddha]

apogee duet, or one might be worth a look

[Lucifuge]

MOTU Ultralite works great for me.

A lot depends on how many inputs/outputs you want, whether you need mic preamps etc.

Also, you may want to think twice about whether a Firewire interface will be a good investment in the long term. It's technically better than USB 2.0 in many important ways, but Apple seems likely to drop Firewire from most Macs sooner or later and you may end up with an audio interface that cannot be used with a new computer.

[MDV]

+1 to number of inputs and general features. If not many, the tops of my list would be the apogee duet and the fireface 400. I have a fireface 800 and its aboslutely superb.

[MDV]

Oh, on getting a really expensive interface, and this as someone that has one that costs about a grand: it doesnt take all that much money for the interface to be far, far, FAR better than the monitors, the room and the mics.

Its a question of what youre willing to go for to kill the bottleneck. I got a fireface in part because I never wanted to worry about my interface, the dacs and the pres, again. I wanted to know that they werent limiting me, that I was limiting me or the room or the mic location really does suck and so on and so forth. So I can trust it basically.

You dont need to spend that much to get something that still exceeds everything else you'll be using (most of all the room and cab location).

[murraymurray]

Im looking for a reasonably priced 8 mic in interface at the moment, I was considering the presonus firestudio or similar. problem is my laptop doesnt have firewire, does anyone know if getting a PCMCIA firewire card will effect the performance or is it basically no different using something like that rather than a built in firewire jack? i know bugger all about computer hardware.
other than that does anyone know of good USB2 interfaces, and also are they just as good as firewire? everything seemed to be firewire initially and ive only noticed usb2 interfaces/recording mixers popping up more and more lately.

[Johnny Mac]

I've had my eye on the Motu 828mk3 for a while http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/828mk3

[Johnny Mac]

Im looking for a reasonably priced 8 mic in interface at the moment, I was considering the presonus firestudio or similar. problem is my laptop doesnt have firewire, does anyone know if getting a PCMCIA firewire card will effect the performance or is it basically no different using something like that rather than a built in firewire jack? i know bugger all about computer hardware.
other than that does anyone know of good USB2 interfaces, and also are they just as good as firewire? everything seemed to be firewire initially and ive only noticed usb2 interfaces/recording mixers popping up more and more lately.

I would go for a new desktop for recording but thats just me

[MDV]

I've had my eye on the Motu 828mk3 for a while http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/828mk3

Motu have a great rep, I doubt you could go wrong with that.

[Johnny Mac]

I've had my eye on the Motu 828mk3 for a while http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/828mk3

Motu have a great rep, I doubt you could go wrong with that.

What about some of the Focusrite brand? I think they're British made products too.

[MDV]

I'm aware of them, but know nothing, and have heard nothing in the way of anecdotal reports either (good or bad).

Motu is solid, and the 828 is pretty much an industry standard. It would be a good choice, imo.