🚀 go-pugleaf

      Should I give up the onboard compression for the 8 preamps? Do I even
      need a compressor if I use Audition? Which would be more useful as a computer
      interface and as a standalone unit?




In order: Yes you should; No you don't; the 8Pre.

      ...but I would like to use more mics and record multitracks with Audition
      3




Then the 8Pre is a much better bet. Yes, I've got one, although I don't often use it with Audition directly, because it also makes a useful 8 channel to ADAT standalone converter, and that's how I've used it recently. But on those occasions that I have used it with Audition, it's behaved fine, and has sensible cueing options, courtesy of CueMix. If you are doing something like band recording, it's okay - you don't need a lot of monitoring options anyway, but as a studio box it's slightly more limited because it doesn't have a lot of output options. It's not unusable though; you have separately controllable headphone and line outputs, and that's generally enough. And anyway, if you are really desperate you can always expand it - if you get a Behringer ADA8000 (pretty cheap) you can have another eight inputs and outputs if you want.

The other thing you should do is to read the SOS review of the 8Pre - here <http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr07/articles/motu8pre.htm>.

Compressing signals on the way in isn't a good idea, whatever you use - it simply reduces your options when it comes to post-processing. Once you've compressed something on the way in, there's absolutely nothing you can do about it if the settings you use turn out to be wrong. And, on top of that, you get rather more options in Audition anyway; for a start, there's a multiband compressor, which is often rather more useful than a single-band, and you have a choice of single-band ones.

Thanks for the advice; and the good article. With the UltraLite, I was already looking at adding another mixer--kind of defeats the purpose of a compact interface. I'll think on it tonight.

Some mixers like the Mackie Onyx range with the Firewire option allow you to have a mixer and a multi mic preamp converter for your computer in one unit.

 <http://www.mackie.com/products/onyx1620/index.html>

There are other cheaper ones out there as well such as the Phonic Helix or Alesis Multimix

      Some mixers like the Mackie Onyx range with the Firewire option allow
      you to have a mixer and a multi mic preamp converter for your computer
      in one unit.




Hmm... the 8Pre lets you have four mixers and eight channels of mic pre's! You need an ADAT output to take full advantage of this, though.

The idea is that you can have four separate mixes of the inputs available at any pair of outputs per mix. It's the same as on the Traveler, and it works fine. Quite useful for backup recordings on a separate 2-track, in fact.

The nice thing about the firewire mixers is that they have knobs and physical faders etc. Horses for courses, it depends on exactly what you're doing and needing and prefer.

I was originally looking at the Mackie when they first came out but in the flesh (so to speak) they have a pretty big footprint. All said and done I realised that I just need good preamps (and plenty of them) to get a good signal into the box - I don't need to be mixing it into the PC.

I realised that I don't really want to be affecting the signal too much (compression & EQ) but rather good mic placement and do the rest once inside the pc. Recording at 24/44.1 I found less need to be using a compressor.

As OzPeter says getting your hands on real faders etc is good but I found that where this really came in handy was for headphone mixes.

I would go with the 8Pre or even the Presonus Digimax FS.

      The nice thing about the firewire mixers is that they have knobs and physical
      faders etc.




The Traveler certainly does - although operating it from the front panel is neither intuitive or easy (as Ozpeter knows!), but unfortunately the 8Pre only lets you have access to the mixer via the CueMix applet.

Personally, I've not found that to be a particular problem. When virtually all the front panel controls on a device are multi-function, it's extremely dodgy operating them when recording anyway, even if it's just the monitoring levels you think you are changing.

The Traveler has a lot of strengths, but the front panel controls aren't exactly one of them...

I always run some kind of backup recording in stereo and that's where a mixer with firewire comes in handy. I can do the backup recording to stereo using the mixer's normal controls, while simply logging the individual mics to multitrack via the firewire for later remixing. Occasionally I do live sound or broadcast sound at the same time as multitracking - same considerations apply, you really need physical controls. Though another whole approach is to use a knobless firewire interface together with a controller such as the Behringer BCF2000 to do the live mix.

OzPeter has described the way I have worked with my Tascam FW-1884. Record channels individually and feed a total mix back to record on an additional track in AA.

The combination of linked faders and audio via firewire can be a really good easy-to-operate combination. The basics are fine and quite usable. It's just a shame that even more of the hands-on interface hasn't been developed.