HOW TO choose an Audio Interface – The Ultimate Guide

there are literally hundreds of audio interfaces on the market right now and understandably you might ask yourself the question which one should you buy in this video I will show you the most important things to consider before buying an audio interface and how to choose the best one for you hey Julian cross here and time and time again I get asked which interface you should buy and the clear answer is it really depends on what you're planning to do with it I know that's probably not the answer you want to hear but recommending any interface without even knowing what you're trying to do with it makes hardly any sense and this actually brings me to my first point before even looking at different interfaces ask yourself the question what are you going to use the interface for are you planning to record music in your home studio do you want to use the interface in the live streaming setup or do you want to record a podcast on the go all these different scenarios will influence your buying decision so make sure you know what you want to do with the interface because this has a major impact on the features and specifications that your interface should have now you might wonder which specs and features you should look out for that's a good question let's go through the most important ones and while we're on it I'm going to explain when and why these points should be taken into consideration probably the most important different between different interfaces is the amount of in and outputs and this is already a huge decider let's say you want to record a podcast with four guests then you would need an audio interface that has at least four microphone inputs do you want to reconnect two separate pairs of studio monitors or want to have two separate sets of headphones connected well you would need an audio interface that has two sets of monitor outputs or two headphone outputs or do you want to connect an electric guitar directly to your interface then check if it has an instrument input also known as a high Z input the amount of i o is often tailored to a specific group of users for example if you're a singer songwriter you might be happy with an interface that has just one microphone input and one instrument input The Next Step Up is typically an interface with the two microphone inputs which gives you a bit more reversibility into going upwards from there there are really No Boundaries in terms of i o for example if you plan to record a whole band then you probably want to get as many microphone inputs as possible and even additional outputs might be beneficial one thing to also look out for is the type of connection offered for example some interfaces use an RCA output which is an unbalanced connection some interfaces offer TRS outputs which is a balanced connection and some of them even offer both besides that there can be additional connections like digital in and outputs which allow you to expand the number of channels of the interface even further and if you like to connect since then midi might be another connection type you want your interface to have there are even more special connections like for example word clock output which can be used to sync multiple interfaces send in returns which allow you to place additional output gear in the signal path or even more advanced connections like RJ45 which enables some interfaces to use Dante so there can be a lot of difference between interfaces already purely based on the amount and type of connections they offer and you should check which interface offers the one that you need whether connections are physically located on the the interface is another thing to look out for if you like a tidy look on your desk then you want to maybe route all your cables behind your desk and then you might prefer an interface that has all the in and outputs on the back side if you want to have an easier access because you more often change your microphones than having the mic inputs on the front might be beneficial and this brings me to the next Point interfaces come in all kinds of form factors and while many people tell you that size does not matter for interfaces it does for example if you want to use an interface on the go choosing a big and heavy interface might probably not be the smartest idea on the other hand if you mostly keep your interface in one place you can consider choosing a bigger interface maybe even something that can be rack mounted and this can give you actually more IO and controls in return okay let's talk about controls this is also something that entirely depends on your personal preference some people like to have individual knobs and diets for every single setting on the interface I other people might prefer a multi-purpose encoder knob if you wanted to constantly change in many settings individual controls might make sense otherwise you might prefer a single control dial that's up to you many interfaces also have the controls on the front and some of them have it on the top the controls on the top are arguably easier to use as it is often easier to access them if the interface is placed on the desk but what is also quite common is that you set up the interface below a PC monitor on your desk and then you can save some space and in this configuration the controls on the front make much more sense besides manual controls more and more interfaces also give you the option to control most of their settings via software this is particularly interesting when you cannot physically access the interface while using it for example if it is located far away from your desk one crucial function I want to highlight here is a direct monitoring this allows you to directly listen to your inputs in real time and that can be very useful when you directly want to hear what your recorded audio sounds like with that feature you can also hear yourself while singing which can help you to nail your performance some interfaces have a simple on off button to enable that and that's already great to have but even better is when you have a dial that allows you to dial in the exact amount of audio here from your input and deployed back music from the interface and even better is a full control over the mix via software but I'll get into that a little later direct monitoring is one of the more important features to have and I would also check how this is implemented on the interface you want to buy quick note on phantom power that's typically 48 volts which you need to power condenser microphones nearly all interfaces these days have that but many of them let you only toggle the phantom power for multiple channels at once if you plan to use a mix of condenser which need phantom power and dynamic microphones which do not need phantom power it's nice to have the option to toggle phantom power for each XLR input individually not necessarily A must-have feature but always appreciate it one more thing to look out for in an interface is how it is powered many interfaces are simply powered by the USB connection which is quite convenient as you only need one connection for data and power but especially bigger interfaces tend to have an additional power brick which provides the needed power for all the i o for stationary use a power brick might not be a big deal but if you're out and about with your interface you might not always have access to wall power in which case an interface with a USB connection is preferred on the topic of USB connections if you're planning to use an interface with a phone or tablet I would specifically check if it supports that many USB interfaces these days are Plug and Play even with the smartphones but better double check just to be sure while we're still on the hardware side I would also like to mention build quality some of you might want to spend a bit more just to have a really nice feeling interface for others this is less important but in general it's something to consider besides the hardware features there are a lot of software features these days that interfaces can have and they can offer a very big value which might actually be the biggest deciding factor for some one type of feature that has become more and more popular is the integration of real-time Effects by that I mean audio effects like EQ compression gate and the like interfaces that offer this feature can apply these effects into your recorded audio in real time if you record audio for an album and add all the effects in post this might not be that interesting for you but if you're in a live streaming setup and you want the audio that is sent to your viewers to be processed straight away then this might be a really handy feature to have these effects actually don't always have to be digital the focusrite air mode ssl's 4K mode and Universal audio's vintage mode are all examples of Hardware based effects which can shape the sound of your recorded audio in real time one more software functionality that can be found on interfaces is the option to create custom mixes this means that you can precisely choose which audio input should be routed to which output and how much each input contributes to the overall mix some interfaces even allow you to create multiple mixes so different people can hear their own customized mix in addition to that loopback is a feature that has gotten more and more popular loopback allows you to record the inputs of the interface and simultaneously the output from your PC for example if you're singing to a song that is played back on your PC then loopback allows you to capture your voice in addition to the playback song that you sing to you might have noticed that until now I have not talked about any technical specifications and there's a very good reason for that are you ready for the uncomfortable truth about audio interfaces if you're not able to produce a world hit record with a 100 interface you're not going to make one with a thousand dollar one what I'm trying to say is that the difference in audio quality between interfaces is getting smaller and smaller and even very inexpensive interfaces can produce High Fidelity recordings these days so I know this is a controversial point but after testing listening and measuring over 50 different interfaces from all kinds of price ranges I can confidently say that you shouldn't expect one audio interface to sound magically better than all the other ones modern Electronics simply have become so good that for the majority of interfaces the audible differences between them are becoming negligible and to a degree already are so while technical specifications are still important to look at they shouldn't be the only deciding factor for an audio interface with that in mind here are a few tech specs you should have a look at to ensure that the interface performs as you expect it to sample rate and bit depth are often the first specs that you will come across for an audio interface sample rates are often ranging from 44.1 kilohertz to 192 kilohertz or even higher it's a common misconception that higher sample rates will give you a better audio quality when in fact they just let you record higher frequencies and sometimes that can also help a bit of a latency while higher sample rates are nice to have in many situations 44.1 or 48k are just fine at pretty much all interfaces these days support these sample rates the most common bit depth are 16 and 24 bit although some companies even produce 32-bit interfaces with a higher bit depth there is the potential to have a lower noise law in the recording device for Less demanding recordings like voice over 16-bit is totally fine but at this point in time there's hardly any reason why your interface shouldn't have 24 bit higher than 24 bit this is only really useful in specific scenarios and for the most part I wouldn't say that this is an essential feature to have now only because the device has a high bit does not necessarily mean that it has a low noise floor preamp noise and dynamic range are the two important things to look out for preamp noise is especially important when you use Dynamic microphones these type of microphones output a very low level signal which accentuates preamp noise to get the lowest noise recordings with a dynamic microphones you want your interface to have at least around -125 DB you are equated the lower the number the lower the preamp noise so something like -129 DBU for example would be even better with such low noise there's also no need for an additional inline preamp like a cloud lifter Fathead or dm1 when you use condenser Max the preamp noise is much less important because the noise flow is actually limited by the microphone itself so if you want to achieve a low Noise recording with condenser mics buy a microphone which has an inherently low noise level also called equivalent noise level I would aim for about 15 DBA or or lower so there's a little bonus tip for you when using condenser mics the dynamic range becomes much more important because with a higher dynamic range you can leave yourself more Headroom while recording without introducing any additional noise how much you really need depends on your recording scenario but I would say that you want to have at least 100 DBA luckily the majority of interfaces these days can provide the just fine a dynamic range lower than that definitely isn't the end of the world but you will have to make sure that you set your gain more carefully to avoid noise in your recording the amount of gain and interface provides is usually not that important but there are some cases where it becomes relevant this is mostly the case when you use very low sensitive Dynamic microphones and you don't have the chance to amplify your recording in post in these cases you want to make sure that the interface has enough gain to bring your microphone up to a proper recording level sadly the gain numbers that are stated by the manufacturers are virtually useless to compare the gain correctly and I've made a whole video about this topic but in short here is the game compared of all interfaces I measured so far all the interfaces in the green and blue category should amplify your microphones just fine with interfaces in the yellow category they might need some more additional gain in post one thing that can change the sound of an interface quite a lot is the output impedance of the headphone output especially if you use headphones that have a lower impedance ideally the output impedance of the headphone output should be as low as possible I would say anything below 2 ohms is good sadly this is not something that is always stated by the manufacturer and I highly recommend to have a look at some technical reviews that measure this specification besides that you also want to make sure that your headphones get loud enough for that check out how much power the interface provides for the headphone output how much power you really need depends heavily on the headphones you use but in general I would say that if the interface provides about 20 milliwatts add your headphones impedance there's a very good chance that it will be loud enough if your headphones have a higher impedance about 150 or more higher or a low sensitivity or maybe even both then I highly suggest to check out the spec because not all interfaces will be able to drive these kinds of headphones to loud listening levels generally if you're on Windows I would check if the interface supports azio most interfaces do but better be safe than sorry Azure allows you to reduce the latency considerably compared to the default Windows audio driver and this can make the interface feel much more responsive if the interface does not have any integrated processing the audio needs to be sent to your computer is processed there and then sent back to the output for you to listen to the time it takes to do that is referred to as a launch applatency and if you want to listen to your audio processed with effects on your PC in real time like for example when you use the interface as an amp Sim then this can be important for you most interfaces these days have a decent RTL but if that's super critical for you you might have a look at this more closely sadly this information cannot be found in any spec sheet and you only get this from more technical reviews there are of course a lot more technical specifications but in my opinion these are the most important ones because they have the most impact on sound quality today more detailed specs like Distortion and Jitter are great to look at as well but as long as the interface is not terribly designed they play much less of a role in terms of sound quality I know it has fallen a bit out of fashion but I also highly recommend to have a look at the manual of the interface you consider buying you will be surprised by how much useful information can be found in there if you've already narrowed down the possible candidates it is important to have a look at some reviews I'm flattered if you choose to check out mine but also check out other people's reviews to get multiple tags on the device reviews can give you some additional information about a product that you won't find on any website or spec sheet and even more importantly highlight the points that have worked well or not so well for other people I know it's nice to have a look at five star reviews raving about a product but maybe also check out the one star reviews to get a feeling of which kind of problems other people came across also see if you can spot a trend there if there are multiple people reporting a certain issue you have to evaluate if that's something that could also have an impact on you if you're planning to buy an interface it can also make sense to check out which kind of software is bundled with it oftentimes you can get some kind of a free DAW and or effects that might be of value to you the last point I want to mention here is design yes design even that plays a role in choosing an interface in my opinion it shouldn't be the number one priority but if you checked all the things I mentioned before and you found more than one interface that fits your needs there is nothing wrong to choose the one that looks like invest in your setup now that you have an overview over all these specs and features let me quickly recap how you find the best audio interface for you step 1 know what you want to use the interface for this is absolutely crucial to make a proper decision so think about what you're planning to do with the interface first before rushing out and looking at stuff step 2 based on your use case identify the features and specifications that you want your interface to have start with the amount and types of in and outputs and then think about the additional things you expect from your interface for example if you use very low sensitive Dynamic microphones you might want to have an interface that has very low noise preamps if you're in a live streaming scenario you might want to have real-time audio processing if you want to record on the go a small form factor might be important for you and so on so depending on your use case find out the things that you want your interface to have be it technical specification or a specific feature step 3 search for interfaces that meet your criteria and budget with the aforementioned the things in mind check out your favorite gear store and see which interfaces have the specs and features that you need at this stage I would also eliminate the interfaces that are way out of your budget I know it's really nice to have a look at an interface that easily fulfills all your needs but if it's unobplainable for you there's really no benefit at looking at it you must resist gear acquisition syndrome it's hard I know step 4 look up reviews of the selected interfaces after all the previous steps you should be left with a small selection of audio interfaces and the next thing to do is to have a look at some reviews this shows you what other people think about the interface and often brings up the points that you haven't even considered yet step 5 decide which interface is best for you now this is the most difficult part after doing all your research you are typically left with a couple of interfaces to choose from I would say go with the one that provides the best price to Performance ratio for you or the one that you have the feeling that you will use most often an interface with the best specs and features is worth nothing if you don't like to use it that's how you choose an audio interface I know it's easier said than done but who said choosing an audio interface is easy step 6 create awesome content you have successfully chosen an audio interface now you have no excuse anymore to not produce awesome stuff if this was useful to you you can support me by using my affiliate created links in the video's description this doesn't create any extra cost for you but it generates a bit of Kickback for me to keep the channel running I've put all the interfaces that I've reviewed in the last few years in there and if you want to support me directly you can also have a look at my patreon if you're interested you can also check out a particular review of an early interface on my channel and feel free to subscribe for more content like this also let me know in the comments what you're looking out for when buying an interface happy recording and we'll see you all in the next one [Music]

Channel: Julian Krause

Views: 253,513

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Id: O_L86wNbzi0

Length: 20min 18sec (1218 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 14 2022