SOUND ON SOUND

[punkyfish]

Choice between:

Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3 gen
Steinberg UR816C
Presonus Studio 1824C

Need the inputs to record bands...way in the future. Will run a Cubase 11 Pro.
Which one would up you choose and why?

Thank you

[Arpangel]

Choice between:

Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3 gen
Steinberg UR816C
Presonus Studio 1824C

Need the inputs to record bands...way in the future. Will run a Cubase 11 Pro.
Which one would up you choose and why?

Thank you

Focusrite, because they sound good.
Nothing more to say really.

:thumbup:

[The Elf]

None of the above. :mrgreen:

It would be RME for me, because of TotalMix. When you're working with bands they will need zero-latency monitor mixes, and everyone typically wants a different mix - TotalMix provides this.

[Sam Spoons]

This could be an expensive Christmas punkyfish :D

[CS70]

Choice between:

Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3 gen
Steinberg UR816C
Presonus Studio 1824C

Need the inputs to record bands...way in the future. Will run a Cubase 11 Pro.
Which one would up you choose and why?

Thank you

They seem fairly similar. I haven't heard them all but I wouldn't expect a great deal of sonic difference.

They all seem to have ADAT, for recording a band 8 channels are very few, so that is definitely good for all of them. Gee, I use 10 channels just on a drum kit. :)

The Steinberg has onboard DSP which makes for one less thing to worry about in a busy band session. They all have analogue gain pots I think - digital gain control is one of the things I really like in higher end interfaces, so again, no big difference.

Not sure about how monitoring facilities compare, with a band you're more likely to have a control room and stuff like talkback etc may take up one channel unless you set it up in a separate form.

On the top of my head I'll go for the Steinberg, but I if I were you I'd really make a research myself, it's all about the available features and what is important to you, only you can know...

[Dave B]

Probably the Focusrite. And Presonus after that.

Focusrite have a good history of support and updating drivers - I'm still using a Liquid Saffire 56 as my main interface. They sound fine and I am used to the control software. Oh, and they are a 10min drive up the road.

Presonus are basically a 'US Focusrite'. They seem to make great gear and nobody I know who has any regrets the decision.

I am negatively biased towards Steinberg due to the their reputation in the past. Not sure if they have changed. But I wouldn't. ymmv

[MarkyC]

Just to say I went the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3 gen way, because the specs seemed good enough. I also wanted to add further channels so also expanded with the OctoPre giving me the channel counts required (I dont record bands but just wanted everything plugged in and ready to go).

Using Cubase as well. Everything just syncs and works without any hassle at all, in fact I was very pleasantly surprised!

[Fishnish]

I've used the Steinberg UR 816's precursor, the MR 816, for about a decade and have been very happy with them. I currently have a rack of 4 of them giving me 32 channels of ins +outs.

They work nicely with Cubase and their controls display directly within the program which makes things very straightforward, they have decent preamps and a feature set that suits my purposes, recording sessions mainly with a just a couple of people, but sometimes with a full band. The onboard DSP is very handy.

Steinberg have taken a bit of stick in the past for not updating the drivers etc for their hardware too often and folk have sometimes moaned about it a bit, but I can't say it's anything that's ever caused me a problem, even on the times when I've moved over to a new computer and operating system.

So my money would be on the Steinberg, but I daresay the others would do the job too.

[punkyfish]

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for the advice, still don’t know which one to get though, aaargh!

[Sam Spoons]

I think it's a case of just pick one and go for it, they'll all get the job done, check which are in stock before making the decision though to avoid disappointment.

[CS70]

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for the advice, still don’t know which one to get though, aaargh!

Let me make it easy:

- do you want/need external DSP => go for the Steinberg
- is there one cheaper => go for it
- they all are the same price => pick the color you like best

:lol:

[Sam Spoons]

I nearly said, pick the cheapest or the one that matches the colour of his guitar but, at this time of year, pick the one that is in stock seemed to make sense :D

[Aled Hughes]

None of the above. :mrgreen:

It would be RME for me, because of TotalMix. When you're working with bands they will need zero-latency monitor mixes, and everyone typically wants a different mix - TotalMix provides this.

I use, and like, numerous RME interfaces, and as The Elf I use Totalmix a lot and find it very powerful. But I also had a Scarlett 18i20, and it's a doddle to set up multiple latency-free monitor mixes on that as well. I'm sure the other interfaces are the same.

Totalmix is very good, but it's far from the only game in town.

[Music Wolf]

I have a Steinberg UR824 which has served me well. The reasons for choosing it were;

Number of inputs
Onboard DSP (so that I could track with direct monitoring but with reverb)
It came bundled with Cubase Pro, which I wanted, so it was a good deal.

IThe UR824 didn't have MIDI (the UR816C does), but I've not missed it. However, for recording bands I use my Behringer X-18 which gives me;

16 Mic inputs + a line stereo pair.
6 Aux sends (which can also be configured as stereo pairs) + 4 onboard fx slots.

I take the Behringer to the rehearsal room to record (using a laptop) then transfer the files into the studio PC / UR824.

[The Elf]

None of the above. :mrgreen:

It would be RME for me, because of TotalMix. When you're working with bands they will need zero-latency monitor mixes, and everyone typically wants a different mix - TotalMix provides this.

I use, and like, numerous RME interfaces, and as The Elf I use Totalmix a lot and find it very powerful. But I also had a Scarlett 18i20, and it's a doddle to set up multiple latency-free monitor mixes on that as well. I'm sure the other interfaces are the same.

Totalmix is very good, but it's far from the only game in town.

Glad to hear it - but I have bad experiences of Focusrite interfaces...