[SML] Audio interface recommendations for Qlab

[Andy Lang]

On Fri, Nov 7, 2014 at 9:35 PM, Paul Schreiner via Stagecraft
<stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
> If M-Audio still made the FastTrackUltra, I'd recommend that...it was
> listing at ~$400 new, so if you can find a gently used one for less,
> that's probably going to be the lowest price point for anything of
> trustable quality.

As a guy who makes his primary living providing support for QLab and
the rest of the Figure 53 software stable, I would strongly recommend
against anything from M-Audio, Presonus, Echo, or Avid/Digidesign.
While there are folks with good experiences with all four, the
overwhelming number of problems I've seen, both firsthand and via
customer support inquiries, are with those manufacturers. They simply
don't build high quality hardware and/or drivers.

In general, on the lower budget end, the only ones I'd suggest looking
at are Roland's Octa-Capture and anything current from Focusrite (half
a decade ago, I had bad experiences with some Focusrite interfaces,
but they seem to have really stepped up their game lately). Moving up
the food chain gets you to RME and, eventually, Metric Halo at the top
price tier.

In my previous job, running the computer department at one of the
leading Broadway rental shops, we were nearly exclusively on RME
Firefaces, having sold off a large used stock of MOTU 828s and
UltraLites of various vintages after having so many problems. We
supplemented with Rolands towards the end of my tenure when the output
count fit, having started stocking them as input devices for Smaart
rigs. My desk right now has an Octa-Capture on it, and not only do I
think it sounds pretty fantastic (punching pretty well above its price
class), but one of the guys from Fulcrum Acoustics, a very, very good
speaker design/manufacturing firm, tested one a while back and had
raves about its output quality:

http://www.rationalacoustics.com/forums/showthread.php?800-OctaCapture-Listening-Test

The other big brand is MOTU; as far as I'm concerned with them, the
jury's still out. They used to have awful support, consistent hardware
problems, and many firmware and driver bugs. They've put some
significant effort into addressing many of these issues the last few
years (in part due to my calling them out on it and getting put in
touch with somebody up at the top of the food chain there), but I'm
still personally cautious until I see a more established track record
of hardware and software reliability.

-Andy