The Biggest Mistake Beginners Make When Buying An Audio Interface

there's one big mistake that most beginners make when choosing an audio interface in fact I made this mistake when I was first starting out my first interface was this M-Audio Fast Track USB I brought it home connected it to my computer and started recording guitar tracks and audacity I remember thinking it was so cool that I could record my own music and edit it in my desktop PC but I quickly realized that there were a few things about this particular interface that would ultimately become very limiting the interface only had one microphone input and one instrument input that meant that I could record a vocal microphone with the mic input and connect my electric guitar directly to the instrument input which is all I thought I'd ever need in the beginning but it wasn't long before I realized that I'd want the ability to record more than one microphone at the same time the problem first came up when I tried recording my voice and my acoustic guitar which both required a microphone I only had one microphone input which meant that I could only record One mic at a time I thought maybe I could just use a microphone with a quarter inch cable or use adapters to adapt the XLR in my microphone to a quarter inch and use the instrument input for the second mic but that's not how it works the instrument input on an interface is typically a high impedance input that's designed for instrument level signals such as the signal from an electric guitar pickup the signal from a microphone is called a mic level signal and it requires a low impedance input with additional amplification in order to be properly recorded that's why the mic input had this preamp gain knob so that the input signal could be boosted to a usable level make sure to read the specs carefully When shopping to be sure but mic inputs are usually XLR or combo inputs you may also see a quarter inch line inputs that are designed for receiving audio from the line output of another piece of audio equipment you may be considering an interface like the focusrite Scarlet Solo or the audience id4 both of which have only one mic input and one instrument input but if you think there's any chance that you'll ever want to record two microphones at the same time I'd urge you to consider an interface with two mic inputs like the focusrite Scarlet 2i2 or the universal audio volt 2. for a solo musician two microphone inputs is a great place to start but if you're recording a band or if you're a podcaster you might even want to consider an interface with more mic inputs I ended up replacing my first audio interface for this very reason in order to record our band's music we either needed to record and layer one instrument at a time using the one microphone input we had or we needed an interface with more microphone inputs the main factor that led us to upgrade was the fact that we needed to record drums recording drums one drum at a time would have just been silly and recording drums with only one microphone would have made it difficult for us to achieve the sound we were going for so we all pitched in and upgraded to an interface with additional inputs if you're trying to record a full band with a drum kit I'd recommend something with at least eight microphone inputs this would allow you to record a kick drum mic snare drum mic two overhead mics for stereo bass guitar and two vocal mics some good options here are the audient evo 16 and the focusrite Scarlet 18i20 of course the more inputs an interface has the more expensive it will tend to be for me in my band we knew we needed the certain number of inputs to record and that's why we had to choose the cheapest interface that would Supply that number of inputs we didn't have any room left in our budget to get an interface with higher quality preamps or more advanced features I'd recommend deciding how many inputs you need from the beginning as this will tell you how much extra money you have to invest in other features you can also expand your inputs later by getting an interface with an Adat input for example this audient id14 has two built-in mic inputs and one Adat input for future expansion so you could start with the two mic inputs now and later on you could connect an external microphone preamp with Adat outputs like this audient sp8 or this focusrite Scarlet octopri using one optical cable between the Adat output of the external preamp and the Adat input of the audio interface you can add an extra eight mic inputs to your system both the focusrite scarlet 18i20 and the audient Evo 16 that I mentioned earlier can also do this in fact the audient Evo 16 has two Adat inputs so you could use the eight built-in mic inputs and add two audient sp8 microphone preamps for a total of 24 microphone inputs that record simultaneously you can also get more mileage out of an interface if it has Adat outputs even though I use this rme Babyface Pro FS when I need more mic inputs I can bring my old interface the focusrite Scarlet 18 I20 and use it for the additional microphone inputs so even though the focusrite isn't my main interface anymore it still has value to me as an 8 channel mic preamp with Adat connections I'd recommend watching the video that's on your screen before buying an interface though because the tips in that video will help you determine if it's worth spending more on an interface for the additional features I'll see you over there

Channel: Audio University

Views: 715,809

Keywords: audio interface, best audio interface, home studio, best budget audio interface, usb audio interface, beginner audio interface

Id: qgHYcfZDsM8

Length: 5min 31sec (331 seconds)

Published: Thu May 04 2023