Of Recordings

I just picked one up last week.  Here’s what I like so far:

• Firewire.  This leaves both USB ports free (Apple’s pretty stingy with the connectivity).  Also, I’ve heard rumors that the MacBook Pro underpowers the USB port.  Maybe I’m making this up, but I think the more stringent power requirements for Firewire encourage reliability.
• Balanced TRS outs.  Seems mundane, but lots of portable audio interfaces in this price range have RCA outs, which boggles the mind.
• Independent headphone out, which is crucial for performance.
• Stable drivers– so far at least.  I haven’t had it long, but I’ve used it a lot without a glitch.  Contrast that with the nightmare that was the Audio Kontrol 1 drivers (on that more below)
• Hopelessly sexy packaging. It’s tiny and light with a sturdy yet pretty aluminum case.

Left bad, right good.

Here’s what’s not so awesome:

• 1/8″ headphone jack.  All my headphones are 1/4″.  Every 1/4″ – 1/8″ adapter I’ve ever had fell apart in weeks.  But Grado makes this nice long one; seems like that should relieve some of the strain.
• Awkward breakout cable for MIDI (and S/PDIF, but who uses that?)

It’s early yet, but I’m very happy so far and would recommend the AudioFire2 to any performer.

Some background: I got a Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1 about four years ago.  Feature-wise, it’s pretty hot, but it’s been total driver hell.  On my old laptop, it tooks weeks of tweaking settings to get it stable; I even had to uninstall my network drivers.  On my new laptop, no amount of tweaking worked. I’d get hard freezes randomly.

Writing application software, which Native is good at, is very dissimilar from writing drivers.  The AK1 was, I believe, Native’s first hardware audio interface.  I guess I should have anticipated some rockiness early on, but after four years of driver updates it’s as bad as ever.  Echo, on the other hand, literally make nothing but audio interfaces.  That was a big factor for me when shopping around.

5. Korg padKontrol. The bottom left pad occasionally fails to send a note off.  I usually map that pad to the kick drum, which fortunately is not important in electronic music.

4. Faderfox LC2. The channel 4/channel 10/solo button is gummed up.  The other controls just feel so damn nice, making the sticky one even worse in comparison.  It feels like the button might loosen up after pounding on it some more so I am optimistic.

3. M-Audio Keystation Pro. I had to wipe down the keys.  After bangin on low D a few times, it’s no worse for the wear.  One of the knobs is too loose but that predates the coffee.

2. NI Audio Kontrol 1. No noticeable ill effects, although I think this guy was pretty well out of the danger zone.

1. The plank that I put on my keyboard stand to hold my laptop. I just wiped it down and bam, good as new.

If you were curious about the dearth of updates recently, I was preoccupied with travel.  I just completed a move from Norfolk, VA to San Francisco.  For our European readers, that’s about as far as from Brussels to St. Petersburg, except it’s twice as far.

As nooj and I discussed recently, imposing limitations on yourself can paradoxically unlock creativity.  If that’s the case, then I’m about to produce the best music of my life, because this is all the kit I could squeeze into my suitcase:

However, I clearly moved to the right neighborhood: I spotted an HR824 in the back seat of someone’s car today.