[Badmuts]

If you had to choose between Presonus Firestudio or Focusrite Saffire Pro
26, which one would you buy and why?

Prices are similar. Focusrite has a reputation for its preamps, Presonus has
a nice looking remote control and aux in (is the aux in connected to a/d or
is it just for mixing with the monitor outs?) and separate inserts on the
first 2 channels.

I'm looking for a more or less portable 16 or 24 track firewire solution for
use with a T7700/4GB/320GB dell vostro laptop i already own to do both
studio and live recording.

I don't really want to go the HD24 way as i often make recordings that i
want to mix and edit directly afterwards, with the artists present, i don't
want to be losing time on transferring tracks from a hardware recorder to my
laptop DAW so recording straight to the DAW seems the way to go.

I already own a behringer ada8000, a fostex d108 and a fostex d90, i'll
probably sell the the fostexes to help finance my investment in something
new. I'm now using these for a/d only and have to drag a large soundcraft
studio mixer along just for the mic preamps. I also want to get rid of the
soundcraft for its size, and the fostexes are pretty large and heavy too (i
have a bad back). Further, there is a lot of cabling to connect the fostexes
to the soundcraft. I'm looking for something simpler, more straightforward
and compact.

I was thinking of combining the ADA8000 with a focusrite or presonus to
start out with 16 channels with mic pre's and phantom power, and take it
along with me in a small 2HE box. Only thing is, i'm afraid i will not have
as much control over level and signal quality as with the soundcraft mixer
and headphones. Do the presonus and focusrite solutions have some kind of
software pfl and metering?

Should i also be looking into mixers with firewire interface like mackie
onyx, alesis, phonic etc to have more control? I liked the Alesis IO26
specially for its level meters consisting of more than one led, however it's
not possible to daisy chain 2 of those (according to alesis tech support)
and they don't have ADAT out, only ADAT in (so how do i sync devices like
the fostexes or the ada8000 then?). I think with the other solutions i will
depend on software for proper leveling and monitoring. Coming to speak of
that, how is the quality of drivers and software from both presonus and
focusrite? What about latency?

Are there any other options i'm overlooking or should be considering?

I've also been looking at a solution based on M-Audio ProFire lightbridge.
This box is cheap and will give me 48 channels of i/o max. I could combine
it with two behringer ADA8000's for starters, but then i'd have to buy an
extra ADA8000. If i add those up, for just a bit more money i'd probably be
better off with the focusrite or presonus solution, right? And i suppose the
preamps in those devices will have better quality than the behringer
ada8000's, right? On the other hand, the Lightbridge solution seems more
straightforward: it's more clear which box does what, and i'll have the
option of upgrading to 32 channels (i hope to do some large live recordings,
like a large choir with band, orchestra, solists etc). or 16 channels 24/96.



Could someone help me make a decision?



Thanks,

Theo

rocktech audio - the netherlands

[Badmuts]

I don't really want to go the HD24 way as i often make recordings that i
want to mix and edit directly afterwards, with the artists present, i
don't
want to be losing time on transferring tracks from a hardware recorder to
my
laptop DAW

....And i need preamps.

I've also been looking at a solution based on M-Audio ProFire lightbridge.
This box is cheap and will give me 48 channels of i/o max.

32 that is. Sorry if i confused anyone.


Why doesn't anyone make a nice 2 or 3HE rackmount box with 24 inputs with
excellent preamps, phantom power, good level controls, inserts, good level
meters, good A/D, and 8 outputs for mixing from stereo to 7.1, 2 or 3 high
powered headphone outputs for artist mixes, talkback function, midi i/o and
spdif i/o, perhaps adat i/o, all connectors on the back and all controls on
the front and firewire (with extra loop-through)?
Optional remote with hardware transport, mix, monitor and eq controls like
an analog desk but fully automated...
It would be an excellent, usable "all in one" studio and could set a new
standard.

Would it be any use to send such ideas to R&D departments at pro audio
manufacturers?
Or does such a box already exist and am i simply overlooking it?

[Mike Rivers]

On Oct 4, 3:04 am, "Badmuts" wrote:
If you had to choose between Presonus Firestudio or Focusrite Saffire Pro
26, which one would you buy and why?

I've never used a Firestudio, but I can tell you that the Saffire Pro
26 sounds very good. I found it lacking in a lot of "convenience"
features however. I would not like to have to work with this as a
replacement for my mixing console. But to be fair, it may not be any
worse than any other product in this class. I don't work that way
normally so I don't have a good way to compare one to another.

I don't really want to go the HD24 way as i often make recordings that i
want to mix and edit directly afterwards, with the artists present, i don't
want to be losing time on transferring tracks from a hardware recorder to my
laptop DAW so recording straight to the DAW seems the way to go.

There's a standard and simple way of dealing with this. It's called
"the dinner break." Unfortunately, you don't get one. You will
GREATLY miss the convenience and reliability of recording on dedicated
hardware (though I don't know how easy your Fostex recorders are to
use).

have to drag a large soundcraft
studio mixer along just for the mic preamps.

Aren't you also using the mixer for monitoring when you're working
outside the studio? That's where a console is really important, and
it's not completely (nor very well, IMHO) replaced by an inexpensive
piece of hardware that's also your mic preamps, A/D and D/A
converters, and computer interface.

I was thinking of combining the ADA8000 with a focusrite or presonus to
start out with 16 channels with mic pre's and phantom power, and take it
along with me in a small 2HE box. Only thing is, i'm afraid i will not have
as much control over level and signal quality as with the soundcraft mixer
and headphones. Do the presonus and focusrite solutions have some kind of
software pfl and metering?

I don't know about the Presonus, but the Focusrite has no metering
other than a single CLIP LED associated with each analog input. You'll
need to depend on your DAW program's meters. There's a SOLO function
in its on-screen control panel that you can use to solo an input
through the control room monitors (if you don't like carrying a
console around, you probably don't carry speakers either) or
headphones, if you push the right buttons.

Should i also be looking into mixers with firewire interface like mackie
onyx, alesis, phonic etc to have more control?

The Onyx with the Firewire option is excellent for recording live
shows, but lousy for doing studio work like overdubbing. And of course
it's useless for mixing recorded tracks - the only return from the DAW
to the mixer is a single stereo pair that's hardwired to the monitor
section.

how is the quality of drivers and software from both presonus and
focusrite? What about latency?

I don't know how to measure quality of drivers, but I can tell you
that the Focusrite is fussy about synchronization and it drops off
line if there's a glitch. When connecting a Mackie 800R preamp to an
ADAT input of the Pro 26, I found that it worked fine using an
external (BNC) word clock connection, but although the audio was clean
with no clicks, using the ADAT stream as the clock source for the Pro
26 led to sync dropouts, and periodic restarts of the interface. This
is the only device I've tried to sync to the 800R's ADAT output so the
problem could be with the Mackie (and I had no way of determining that
with what I have around here) but I certainly wouldn't use this
combination in this way.

Are there any other options i'm overlooking or should be considering?

Oh, geez, there must be a dozen of 'em.

I've also been looking at a solution based on M-Audio ProFire
lightbridge.
This box is cheap and will give me 48 channels of i/o max. I could combine
it with two behringer ADA8000's for starters

You'd have no monitoring capability other than through the DAW. You
could probably get away with that for live recording of a performing
band (where the band doesn't hear through your signal path) but you'd
be tied to the DAW latency for overdubs. This may be a problem with
you. It is, for me.

My recommendation is that you get a van and a helper and keep your
console.

[Mike Rivers]

On Oct 4, 3:55 am, "Badmuts" wrote:
Why doesn't anyone make a nice 2 or 3HE rackmount box with 24 inputs with
excellent preamps, phantom power, good level controls, inserts, good level
meters, good A/D, and 8 outputs for mixing from stereo to 7.1, 2 or 3 high
powered headphone outputs for artist mixes, talkback function, midi i/o and
spdif i/o, perhaps adat i/o, all connectors on the back and all controls on
the front and firewire (with extra loop-through)?
Optional remote with hardware transport, mix, monitor and eq controls like
an analog desk but fully automated...
It would be an excellent, usable "all in one" studio and could set a new
standard.


It would be too big and too expensive for the mass market. Have you
looked at the TASCAM X-48? Or one of the large Korg workstations?

Would it be any use to send such ideas to R&D departments at pro audio
manufacturers?

It's not an R&D decision, it's a marketing decision. Send your idea to
the Marketing department along with a link to a thread with about
1,000 posts from people who think it's a great idea and say that
they'd buy one (and for how much).

[Badmuts]

Niemand?

[philicorda[_4_]]

On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:04:28 +0200, Badmuts wrote:

If you had to choose between Presonus Firestudio or Focusrite Saffire
Pro 26, which one would you buy and why?

I just went through the same decision.

In the end the Firestudio won, as the Saffire's monitor mixer only lets
you set up a single headphone mix. (You can set up more than one, but
their only difference is the balance between the computer's output and
the shared single monitor mix.)
The routing on the firestudio is far more versatile, and lets you do
stuff like a combining monitor mixes with straight through inputs to
outputs on just some (or all) of the channels.

Also, I have not been impressed with the mic pre's on the low end
focusrite stuff. I've only used the octopre, but it just did not sound
great compared to a Motu Traveller and Mackie 24/8/2 I was using as
comparison. The noise floor was not clean noise either, it seemed to
contain some digital crud. Could have been subtly broken I guess, but it
was brand new.

I've not heard the Firestudio's pres, but I hope they are a little better
now I've ordered one!

So, with any luck, a Firestudio + another 8 pres and A/D (not decided
which make yet)+ 4way headphone amp, will give me a nice portable rig
without having drag a desk around.

[Badmuts]

I've not heard the Firestudio's pres, but I hope they are a little better
now I've ordered one!

When will yours be in? Curious to hear what you find.

So, with any luck, a Firestudio + another 8 pres and A/D (not decided
which make yet)+ 4way headphone amp, will give me a nice portable rig
without having drag a desk around.

Exactly what i'm looking for. I have a Behringer ADA8000 waiting for this
purpose.

I've also been looking at Mackie Onyx 1640 and its half-priced more or less
same functionality peer Phonic Helixboard 24 FW.
Those are still small enough to drag around, i suppose, but i wonder whether
they're solid enough, how the drivers are, if they work on vista and if the
cheap pots will hold up after a few years of use (not abuse).

Thanks for your input so far!

Theo

[Mike Rivers]

On Oct 11, 4:19 pm, philicorda
wrote:

In the end the Firestudio won, as the Saffire's monitor mixer only lets
you set up a single headphone mix. (You can set up more than one, but
their only difference is the balance between the computer's output and
the shared single monitor mix.)

Acutally, you can set up two headphone mixes, or more if you use other
outputs than the headphone jacks. You have a choice of mixing the
inputs with either DAW outputs 1-2 or 5-6 on one headphone jack or 7-8
on the other. But you need to know how to send two (or three, assuming
you want an independent control room mix) mixes out of your DAW back
to the Saffire Pro. This is part of what I found awkward, but it was a
fault of [Mike + DAW] and not of the Saffire.

The routing on the firestudio is far more versatile, and lets you do
stuff like a combining monitor mixes with straight through inputs to
outputs on just some (or all) of the channels.

I spent some time with the new Firestudio Project at the AES show. I
think I might be able to get to like this one. It answers a lot of
gripes that I had with the Saffire Pro:

- It has a few steps of metering on the front panel and full range
meters on the software console

- All four stereo mixes from the DAW come into the monitor mixer so
you can submix drums, vocals, keyboards, and such and use those
submixes in your monitor/headphone mixes.

- Unused inputs can be "grayed-out" on the mixer so you don't reach
for a slider that doesn't do anything (though there are occasions when
you want to do that g).

- Individual mixes to each output can be saved, loaded, and copied to
other outputs. If you want to send almost the same mix to two players,
you can set up one mix, copy it to another output, and tweak it as
necessary.

[philicorda[_4_]]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:09:11 +0200, Badmuts wrote:

I've not heard the Firestudio's pres, but I hope they are a little
better now I've ordered one!

When will yours be in? Curious to hear what you find.

It should arrive tomorrow, with any luck.

This part of the Presonus advertising blurb about the preamps put me off
a little:

"No op amps. Only transistors, resistors and capacitors. Op amps add
noise, coloration and harshness to a signal."

But I read a long Craig Anderton review of the Presonus Digimax (same
preamps), and he liked it, so I took a chance.


So, with any luck, a Firestudio + another 8 pres and A/D (not decided
which make yet)+ 4way headphone amp, will give me a nice portable rig
without having drag a desk around.

Exactly what i'm looking for. I have a Behringer ADA8000 waiting for
this purpose.

I've also been looking at Mackie Onyx 1640 and its half-priced more or
less same functionality peer Phonic Helixboard 24 FW. Those are still
small enough to drag around, i suppose, but i wonder whether they're
solid enough, how the drivers are, if they work on vista and if the
cheap pots will hold up after a few years of use (not abuse).

This is my first bit of firewire gear, and I have read quite a few horror
stories about unreliability and driver problems.
Apparently there is even more variation between different manufacturer's
chips than there is with PCI, so I have my fingers crossed!

I've not used the Phonic or the Onyx. It remains to be seen if doing my
monitor mixes in the sound card (without eq or nice big knobs to turn)
will be fun or not. I've done monitoring like this with a MOTU traveler,
but not in a stressful live situation at a gig or whatever.


Thanks for your input so far!

Theo

[philicorda[_4_]]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:01:12 -0700, Mike Rivers wrote:

On Oct 11, 4:19 pm, philicorda
wrote:

In the end the Firestudio won, as the Saffire's monitor mixer only lets
you set up a single headphone mix. (You can set up more than one, but
their only difference is the balance between the computer's output and
the shared single monitor mix.)

Acutally, you can set up two headphone mixes, or more if you use other
outputs than the headphone jacks. You have a choice of mixing the inputs
with either DAW outputs 1-2 or 5-6 on one headphone jack or 7-8 on the
other. But you need to know how to send two (or three, assuming you want
an independent control room mix) mixes out of your DAW back to the
Saffire Pro. This is part of what I found awkward, but it was a fault of
[Mike + DAW] and not of the Saffire.

Right. That's handy.
What bugged me is I could not figure out how to give four people an
independent monitor mix, each with their own instrument slightly louder
in the headphones, and without going through the computer so they are
'zero' latency.


The routing on the firestudio is far more versatile, and lets you do
stuff like a combining monitor mixes with straight through inputs to
outputs on just some (or all) of the channels.

I spent some time with the new Firestudio Project at the AES show. I
think I might be able to get to like this one. It answers a lot of
gripes that I had with the Saffire Pro:

- It has a few steps of metering on the front panel and full range
meters on the software console

- All four stereo mixes from the DAW come into the monitor mixer so you
can submix drums, vocals, keyboards, and such and use those submixes in
your monitor/headphone mixes.

- Unused inputs can be "grayed-out" on the mixer so you don't reach for
a slider that doesn't do anything (though there are occasions when you
want to do that g).

- Individual mixes to each output can be saved, loaded, and copied to
other outputs. If you want to send almost the same mix to two players,
you can set up one mix, copy it to another output, and tweak it as
necessary.

Interesting stuff. I hope the firestudio pro does all the software mixing
and metering part.
I tend to set levels by hitting record and looking at the waveforms in
the DAW arrange page nowadays, but more metering is always a good thing.

[[email protected]]

This part of the Presonus advertising blurb about the preamps put me off
a little:

"No op amps. Only transistors, resistors and capacitors. Op amps add
noise, coloration and harshness to a signal."

But I read a long Craig Anderton review of the Presonus Digimax (same
preamps), and he liked it, so I took a chance.

Neves are full of 1034 and 5534/5532 opamps and i would not call them
harsh sounding....

Harrie

[David Morgan \(MAMS\)]

wrote in message ps.com...

This part of the Presonus advertising blurb about the preamps put me off
a little:

"No op amps. Only transistors, resistors and capacitors. Op amps add
noise, coloration and harshness to a signal."

But I read a long Craig Anderton review of the Presonus Digimax (same
preamps), and he liked it, so I took a chance.

Neves are full of 1034 and 5534/5532 opamps and i would not call them
harsh sounding....

Harrie


My D&R's were full of them as well..... not an issue at all. I am, however,
less than enthralled regarding most of my experiences with Presonus gear
in general thus far in life.


--
David Morgan (MAMS)
http://www.m-a-m-s DOT com
Morgan Audio Media Service
Dallas, Texas (214) 662-9901
_______________________________________
http://www.januarysound.com

[Romeo Rondeau[_2_]]

David Morgan (MAMS) wrote:
wrote in message ps.com...
This part of the Presonus advertising blurb about the preamps put me off
a little:

"No op amps. Only transistors, resistors and capacitors. Op amps add
noise, coloration and harshness to a signal."

But I read a long Craig Anderton review of the Presonus Digimax (same
preamps), and he liked it, so I took a chance.

Neves are full of 1034 and 5534/5532 opamps and i would not call them
harsh sounding....

Harrie


My D&R's were full of them as well..... not an issue at all. I am, however,
less than enthralled regarding most of my experiences with Presonus gear
in general thus far in life.

What have you used from PreSonus? I'm using the DigiMax LT and it
performs well for what it is. Most complaints about PreSonus gear that
I've read are from people that expected way more than the unit was
designed and priced for. An 8 channel preamp with integrated A/D
conversion for $500 is not gonna perform like a megabuck 2 channel
boutique preamp. Expecting it to is unreasonable. I use mine to replace
cheap console preamps for a live digital mixing rig and it performs the
function just fine.

[Paul Stamler]

"Romeo Rondeau" wrote in message
t...

My D&R's were full of them as well..... not an issue at all. I am,
however,
less than enthralled regarding most of my experiences with Presonus gear
in general thus far in life.

What have you used from PreSonus? I'm using the DigiMax LT and it
performs well for what it is. Most complaints about PreSonus gear that
I've read are from people that expected way more than the unit was
designed and priced for. An 8 channel preamp with integrated A/D
conversion for $500 is not gonna perform like a megabuck 2 channel
boutique preamp. Expecting it to is unreasonable. I use mine to replace
cheap console preamps for a live digital mixing rig and it performs the
function just fine.

My experience with PreSonus gear (not counting the ADL 600, which was
designed out-of-house) has been that it's pretty similar to other
inexpensive gear in sound; however, there are real problems with
reliability, as their ribbon cables' connections are iffy and their switches
crappy. I've used three of their little compressors, which sound okay, but
half the time they're not compressing and you have to either jiggle the
switches or open it up and reseat the ribbon cable to get it working. Our
university studio has one of the eight-channel compressors, and it had the
same issue; took a trip back to PreSonus to get it working. Okay designs,
crummy implementation.

Peace,
Paul

[Badmuts]

My D&R's were full of them as well..... not an issue at all. I am,
however,
less than enthralled regarding most of my experiences with Presonus gear
in general thus far in life.

What have your experiences been?

Which alternatives are there to consider?

Bm
(doesn't understand how any piece of gear worth half a month's salary could
be regarded "inexpensive" - it's only relatively inexpensive compared to
VERY expensive gear!)

[Badmuts]

This part of the Presonus advertising blurb about the preamps put me off
a little:

"No op amps. Only transistors, resistors and capacitors. Op amps add
noise, coloration and harshness to a signal."

While that last statement may not be entirely true... nothing wrong with
discrete inputs (as long as they're well-designed), right?

[Scott Dorsey]

Badmuts wrote:
This part of the Presonus advertising blurb about the preamps put me off
a little:

"No op amps. Only transistors, resistors and capacitors. Op amps add
noise, coloration and harshness to a signal."

While that last statement may not be entirely true... nothing wrong with
discrete inputs (as long as they're well-designed), right?

ALL electronics add noise and coloration to a signal. Life is just like
that. Mechanical transducers like speakers and microphones are even worse.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[philicorda[_4_]]

On Sat, 13 Oct 2007 08:20:32 +0200, Badmuts wrote:

This part of the Presonus advertising blurb about the preamps put me
off a little:

"No op amps. Only transistors, resistors and capacitors. Op amps add
noise, coloration and harshness to a signal."

While that last statement may not be entirely true... nothing wrong with
discrete inputs (as long as they're well-designed), right?

Yes, I agree there is nothing wrong with discrete inputs.
It's just that the blurb made me wonder what their designers had done to
those poor little opamps to make them sound so bad. The focusrite preamps
that I like are I think, mainly just a transformer and a 5534.

I suspect it means they are using a four transistor front end into an
opamp anyway, like a Berhringer ada8000. (Which apparently sound quite
respectable).

[John Albert]

My experience with PreSonus gear (not counting the ADL
600, which was designed out-of-house) has been that it's
pretty similar to other inexpensive gear in sound; however,
there are real problems with reliability, as their ribbon
cables' connections are iffy and their switches crappy.

I've only used one Presonus device - the Firebox - and it
was, without a doubt - one of the _easiest_
hardware/software installations I've ever done.

Took me about 10 minutes to go from "boxed" to "working":
- Open box, take out Firebox
- Plug into Mac's firewire port
- Open "Audio/MIDI Setup" app
- Select "Presonus Firebox" as input/output device
- Open GarageBand
- Connect mic and turn on phantom power
- Start recording

No messing with drivers, latency, etc.

Just recently, I moved from a PowerPC-based Mac to an Intel
iMac, and found that the bundled DAW software (Cubase LE)
wasn't running well under the Intel Mac's "Rosetta"
translation (which translates PowerPC code into Intel code
so it will run on the Intel CPU). A call to Presonus tech
support, and they're sending along a new version of Cubase
LE that is now "universal binary" for both PowerPC and
Intel-based Macs. So I'll say that my contacts with them for
tech support have gone well, too.

If you don't mind buying used, you can find these on ebay in
the $125-150 range. A very good deal...

- John

[Mike Rivers]

On Oct 13, 10:48 am, John Albert wrote:

I've only used one Presonus device - the Firebox - and it
was, without a doubt - one of the _easiest_
hardware/software installations I've ever done.

Well, with no controls, it's no doubt an easy installation, made even
easier because you're connecting it to a Mac, which doesn't require
installing any drivers. The PC setup is a little more complicated.

However, with no controls on the panel, it's less intuitive for a
beginner or someone not accustomed to computer recording than one with
real knobs and meters.

[[email protected]]

philicorda writes:

On Sat, 13 Oct 2007 08:20:32 +0200, Badmuts wrote:

This part of the Presonus advertising blurb about the preamps put me
off a little:

"No op amps. Only transistors, resistors and capacitors. Op amps add
noise, coloration and harshness to a signal."

While that last statement may not be entirely true... nothing wrong with
discrete inputs (as long as they're well-designed), right?

Yes, I agree there is nothing wrong with discrete inputs.
It's just that the blurb made me wonder what their designers had done to
those poor little opamps to make them sound so bad. The focusrite preamps
that I like are I think, mainly just a transformer and a 5534.

I suspect it means they are using a four transistor front end into an
opamp anyway, like a Berhringer ada8000. (Which apparently sound quite
respectable).

I've got the Presonus Firebox and the Firepod. Maybe not top quality, but
they sound great for the money. I would say a step up from those cheaper
interfaces, like Edirol UA5, Tascam, etc.

One thing that impressed me is that they use a genuine +/-15VDC supply inside.
This, along with a discrete transistor front end, MC33079 opamps (improved
version of the NE5534) seems to be a solid design. Compare this with an
Edirol UA5 that uses a +/-5V supply and goes directly into NJM4580 opamps.

It pays to look inside these boxes. For example, the old M-audio Duo has top
quality parts (INA163, +/-12V power supply), although I'm sure the newer
models have been sufficiently cheapened.

Richard

[philicorda[_4_]]

On Sat, 13 Oct 2007 15:57:37 -0400, Mannr wrote:

snip

I've got the Presonus Firebox and the Firepod. Maybe not top quality,
but they sound great for the money. I would say a step up from those
cheaper interfaces, like Edirol UA5, Tascam, etc.

One thing that impressed me is that they use a genuine +/-15VDC supply
inside. This, along with a discrete transistor front end, MC33079 opamps
(improved version of the NE5534) seems to be a solid design. Compare
this with an Edirol UA5 that uses a +/-5V supply and goes directly into
NJM4580 opamps.

It pays to look inside these boxes. For example, the old M-audio Duo
has top quality parts (INA163, +/-12V power supply), although I'm sure
the newer models have been sufficiently cheapened.

That's very informative. Cheers.
Still waiting for the courier to bring mine...


Richard

[philicorda[_4_]]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:09:11 +0200, Badmuts wrote:

I've not heard the Firestudio's pres, but I hope they are a little
better now I've ordered one!

When will yours be in? Curious to hear what you find.

Got the Firestudio.
Seems to work well with the built in firewire on an Asus P5K motherboard.
The preamps are quiet enough and sound fine with a 57,58 and a U87. I'm
going to try a Coles 4038 later on to see what happens. Having all the
XLRs on the front of the rack is a little unwieldy, but the thing is
absolutely covered in connectors, so I guess they had to go somewhere.

The mixer and monitoring is great, with separate solo and mute on all the
separate monitor mixes. So I can solo stuff to my headphones without
messing up people's headphone mixes!

Altogether, I'm happy with it so far.