[LAU] need soundcard recommendations

[S. Massy]

On Mon, Mar 07, 2011 at 02:09:46PM +1100, Leigh Dyer wrote:
> On 07/03/11 13:59, Josh Lawrence wrote:
> >hey everyone,
> >
> >my friend and I are starting a recording project that will require
> >multiple mic inputs.  my soundcard has only two xlr inputs, and I need
> >at least 8.  I could buy a cheap mixer and and sum everything up, but
> >I'd like to have access to all of the channels in ardour if possible.
> >does anyone have any recommendations for "pro-sumer" soundcards that
> >have at minimum 8 xlr inputs?
> 
> I'm very happy with my Focusrite Saffire PRO40 -- it's a Firewire
Just curious. I thought the saffires needed custom software to handle
the routing. How does that work under linux?

> interface with 8 analogue ins and 10 analogue outs. Each of those
> inputs is an XLR/jack combo, and each has a preamp with phantom
> power, so hooking up eight mics is a no-brainer. The first two
> inputs can also be switched to a high-impedance mode for plugging in
> guitars directly. If you need more ports later, it has an ADAT port
> that you can hook one of those Behringer units up to.
> 
> Performance on it is great -- I'm not the best judge, but the
> preamps sound very clean and noise-free to me. On a realtime kernel
> I can run it with 4ms latency in JACK with no problems, but I prefer
> to run it at 8ms on a stock kernel instead.
> 
> To get it working under Linux, you need FFADO SVN (Ubuntu Maverick
> actually ships with a recent enough SVN version for it to work, and
> I think Debian Squeeze might, too), and you need to use the old
> Firewire stack; FFADO does work with the new stack, but there's a
> bug in there somewhere that causes audio output to fail on
> DICE-based devices like the PRO40 when using FFADO on the new stack.
> 
> You'll also need a Firewire controller if you don't have one; I was
> lucky enough to have a TI-chipset controller on my motherboard, but
> it hopefully won't be hard to track down a PCI card with a TI
> chipset.
> 
> Thanks
> Leigh
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