Is it worth upgrading my audio interface

John_A

Currently using a Zoom TAC-8 which overall I’m really happy with, thinking about an Antelope discrete 4 and keeping the zoom as an ADAT preamp for tracking drums

Trouble is its £800.  My recordings are never going to be released, so is it worth it?  Main area I’m hoping for improvement is vocals and acoustic recording 

poopot

Spend the money on a mic!!!!

John_A

poopot said:

Spend the money on a mic!!!!

The other thing is that Antelope have the discrete 4 bundled with their edge mic.  Have a decent collection of mics already, nothing hugely expensive, but all decent

poopot

John_A said:

poopot said:

Spend the money on a mic!!!!

The other thing is that Antelope have the discrete 4 bundled with their edge mic.  Have a decent collection of mics already, nothing hugely expensive, but all decent

Spend the money on a mic pre then

John_A

poopot said:

John_A said:

poopot said:

Spend the money on a mic!!!!

The other thing is that Antelope have the discrete 4 bundled with their edge mic.  Have a decent collection of mics already, nothing hugely expensive, but all decent

Spend the money on a mic pre then

Had considered that, but having listened to comparisons between hardware and plugins think I’d need to drop a lot of money on one to see any improvement 

sounds like I’m talking myself in to a new interface:)

Danny1969

Unless you can hear something wrong with your interface I wouldn't bother. The sound of the convertors probably counts for less than 4% of the finished recorded product. Mic's and pre amps make much more of a difference, as does technique and the room the recordings done in. 

John_A

Danny1969 said:

Unless you can hear something wrong with your interface I wouldn't bother. The sound of the convertors probably counts for less than 4% of the finished recorded product. Mic's and pre amps make much more of a difference, as does technique and the room the recordings done in. 

Common sense, know how and logic getting in the way of my GAS 

Danny1969

A nice pre amp would be a good gas, maybe one in kit format you can build. They do some good kits in lunchbox 500 format. A producer friend of mine has built a few and they do sound fantastic for drums and rock vocals 

poopot

Here you go:

https://www.soundskulptor.com/en/products.php?cat=2

WiresDreamDisasters

If the Zoom is performant, then keep it I'd say.

But an outboard compressor, EQ, or preamp.

And release some music!

John_A

WiresDreamDisasters said:

If the Zoom is performant, then keep it I'd say.

But an outboard compressor, EQ, or preamp.

And release some music!

Consensus seems to be don't spend my money on a new interface.  Released plenty of music in my time, these days it's really just tinkering on for fun

poopot

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole last night and came across this:

https://youtu.be/Js_bKnnLOSI

f£&king brilliant idea!

and they don’t make it anymore!... I’d have one of those in a shot!

John_A

Good job they don't make it, saved you a fortune . impressive though and a nice idea to integrate outboard with computer audio

Branshen

When I upgraded my interface to RME from a scarlett, I did it for more ins and outs, better stability, reverb during direct monitoring, lower latency (helpful for sample instruments) and higher quality sound overall.

Combined the above, it was worth it but hoenstly, I can't really tell that there was an improvement in recorded sound over my scarlett and I would be pretty disappointed if that was my sole reason. 

poopot

John_A said:

Good job they don't make it, saved you a fortune . impressive though and a nice idea to integrate outboard with computer audio

Bugger!!!

https://studiocare.com/products/cranborne-audio-500r8?variant=31467411963950&currency=GBP&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google+shopping&gclid=CjwKCAiA4o79BRBvEiwAjteoYF6YSVvjClsdWOwwSngMCrwAafzPHszDoEYUpv0GmlEfCzPpvQZxNhoCaPsQAvD_BwE

John_A

poopot said:

John_A said:

Good job they don't make it, saved you a fortune . impressive though and a nice idea to integrate outboard with computer audio

Bugger!!!

https://studiocare.com/products/cranborne-audio-500r8?variant=31467411963950&currency=GBP&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google+shopping&gclid=CjwKCAiA4o79BRBvEiwAjteoYF6YSVvjClsdWOwwSngMCrwAafzPHszDoEYUpv0GmlEfCzPpvQZxNhoCaPsQAvD_BwE

and 8 slots to fill too!  No presents for your kids this year them

John_A

Branshen said:

When I upgraded my interface to RME from a scarlett, I did it for more ins and outs, better stability, reverb during direct monitoring, lower latency (helpful for sample instruments) and higher quality sound overall.

Combined the above, it was worth it but hoenstly, I can't really tell that there was an improvement in recorded sound over my scarlett and I would be pretty disappointed if that was my sole reason. 

number of inputs, Latency & stability are all great on the Zoom, think you are all right, I'll spend my money on something else like a preamp

Ramirez

I don't think you'd find much difference between preamps to be hones, unless you intentionally overdrive them.

Unless they have some extra features beyond the preamp itself (some drive/saturation/enhancement options, or channel strip EQ/compression features etc.), one preamps pretty much sound like any other when used cleanly. In my opinion there's a lot of b******* being written and believed about the merits of one mic preamp over the other!

Danny1969

Ramirez said:

I don't think you'd find much difference between preamps to be hones, unless you intentionally overdrive them.

Unless they have some extra features beyond the preamp itself (some drive/saturation/enhancement options, or channel strip EQ/compression features etc.), one preamps pretty much sound like any other when used cleanly. In my opinion there's a lot of b******* being written and believed about the merits of one mic preamp over the other!

I agree to a certain extent but there's  somethings that really shine into the right pre amp. Drums for instance is one and a powerful rock vocal.
One of my regrets when running a professional studio was spending too much money on the space and getting the acoustics right and not enough on some good pre amps and some better mic's. I always though get the fundamentals right first and then I can upgrade the mic's and pre's. In reality though the money was never there to do that so we recorded everything through the same 24 sterile clean Tascam pre amps for 5 years. A friend of mine though, who I sub let'ed some space spent all his money on pre amps and his end results were better than mine. There's something very musical about a transformer coupled pre class A discreet chipless pre amp. Even when your not really driving into it  

LastMantra

I got a little Art pre-amp with a mic and it adds a lovely bit of warmth when you turn the gain up. Nice.

Ramirez

Danny1969 said:

Ramirez said:

I don't think you'd find much difference between preamps to be hones, unless you intentionally overdrive them.

Unless they have some extra features beyond the preamp itself (some drive/saturation/enhancement options, or channel strip EQ/compression features etc.), one preamps pretty much sound like any other when used cleanly. In my opinion there's a lot of b******* being written and believed about the merits of one mic preamp over the other!

I agree to a certain extent but there's  somethings that really shine into the right pre amp. Drums for instance is one and a powerful rock vocal.
One of my regrets when running a professional studio was spending too much money on the space and getting the acoustics right and not enough on some good pre amps and some better mic's. I always though get the fundamentals right first and then I can upgrade the mic's and pre's. In reality though the money was never there to do that so we recorded everything through the same 24 sterile clean Tascam pre amps for 5 years. A friend of mine though, who I sub let'ed some space spent all his money on pre amps and his end results were better than mine. There's something very musical about a transformer coupled pre class A discreet chipless pre amp. Even when your not really driving into it  

That's fair enough, though I think we're polar opposites on this and are not going to agree!

In the interest of balance, I run a commercial studio (didn't design it or buy most of the gear though, it's been here for 40 years!), and I'm so, so glad that they got the space and the acoustics right first before anything else.
We do have decent preamps of course (Amek 56 channel desk, plus some 500-series external preamps), and my partner running the studio is [i]much[/i] more into his preamps than me, but I would much rather track in a good-sounding space like we have through Behringer preamps than I would in a poor sounding room through a Neve desk. For me, the performance, instruments and recording space are everything, followed by microphone choice and placement.
Preamps I care about more than converters, but not my much - they're both near the bottom of my list of priorities!

The idea of matching preamps to sources is a fairly new thing as well, and was mostly unheard of in the days when studios all needed a big desk - the preamps were the ones in the desk, and that was it!

Sound On Sound magazine did an interesting test a few years ago where a range of preamps were tested (NOT driven though - they were all kept within expected operating conditions, so everything was clean), and I think everyone concluded that there was virtually no difference from one to the other.

I have to admit I find it hard to believe that your friend's preamps led to better recordings than you in a nice space. The space has massively more impact on acoustic sound that the preamps have. Are you certain it's not a case of "the grass is greener..."?! And if there really was a marked difference, I'd be astonished if it was down to preamps!

That being said, I do like nice preamps, because I like nice things, and the more expensive ones can be worth it for extra features, or switched gain knobs, or to avoid gain-bunching at the end of a cheaper preamp's gain knob etc. It's just that these benefits are rarely to do with the sound itself.

I did buy a couple of the new-ish Cranborne Camden 500 preamps recently, and I like them very much - the 'Mojo' thing they have is very flexible, and can go from very subtle to no-so-subtle colouration. Great tools. But I'd argue that the 'Mojo' is a feature apart from the preamp circuitry itself.