what hardware is recommended to get more mic inputs?

[blackdot]

as my computer only has 2 microphone inputs i wanted to see what options one might have for adding more. i really dont know much about all those audio devices, so i'd like to get some reassurance from you guys.

at first i was looking for soundcards with multiple inputs, but wasnt that lucky. i had more success looking for "audio interfaces", often midi or usb or firewire.

i found this pci card (http://www.m-audio.com/products/view/delta-1010lt) which looks awesome, and also i thought "pci, so that must be very fast which is good", however this particular model seems as it's nowhere to be bought. so i kept looking and found these:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/motu-8pre-usb , 8 mic inputs, 700 bucks

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audi ... ductDetail , also 8 mic inputs, 500 bucks

http://www.lucassoundstore.ch/epages/16 ... tViaPortal , also 8 mic inputs, 800 bucks

http://www.toppreise.ch/pic_196208.html , also 8 inputs, 700 bucks

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audi ... -interface , 12 inputs, 650 bucks

my only indicators to look are amounts of inputs and price, however there seem to be another whole range of technicalities to this and i have no clue what is important and what not. have you guys any experience in this? i'd be happy for any hint.

also these interfaces all seem to be connected via usb or firewire. is that fast enough? pci not needed? also how do they work in general, can i just hook it up and 8 additional mic inputs plop up on my computer?

also what's with the firewire, whole world is using usb. i think i dont even have an input for that on my pc.

[Magic]

i found this pci card (http://www.m-audio.com/products/view/delta-1010lt) which looks awesome, and also i thought "pci, so that must be very fast which is good", however this particular model seems as it's nowhere to be bought

Yeah that's the main one I use. I like it a lot but unfortunately they don't sell it anymore. Maybe you can find a used one though. It's a great value considering it has 10 inputs (8 analog and 2 digital). Very solid performance. I've never had any problems with it.

also these interfaces all seem to be connected via usb or firewire. is that fast enough? pci not needed?

USB or FireWire is usually good enough. But USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 are limited in bandwidth, so they might not be able to handle as many inputs at once as PCI. Even if a device says it can do 8 inputs over USB 2.0, you should test to make sure it will really work on your system. It depends on things like how your USB host controller is connected.

also how do they work in general, can i just hook it up and 8 additional mic inputs plop up on my computer?

In most cases, that's exactly how it works. For Windows though, make sure you get a device that has an ASIO driver, which is what you need for multiple simultaneous inputs. Most professional or semi-professional cards come with ASIO drivers though.

my only indicators to look are amounts of inputs and price, however there seem to be another whole range of technicalities to this and i have no clue what is important and what not. have you guys any experience in this? i'd be happy for any hint.

If it were me, I probably wouldn't spend more than $500. You don't need pristine recording quality unless you are also going to do commercial-quality multi-track recordings.

Maybe have a look at these:
http://www.behringer.com/EN/products/UMC1820.aspx ($200 but not available yet apparently)
http://tascam.com/product/us-1800/ ($230)
http://www.m-audio.com/products/view/m- ... JBckCvF9sM ($400)
http://www.presonus.com/products/AudioBox-1818VSL ($425)

A good place to search for them is here:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Audio ... 4294550051
It lets you filter by number of analog inputs.

If I were you I'd try to order from a place that has a good return policy so you can test the device thoroughly to make sure it will work with your system.

also what's with the firewire, whole world is using usb. i think i dont even have an input for that on my pc.

I think FireWire used to be preferred over USB but not any more, especially since USB 3.0.

[blackdot]

thanks a lot Eric!! this brings me one step closer

[damstraversaz]

as first a musicien, i'm using a lot of soundcard, so maybe I can help a litle.
sorry for my poor english..

I will speak about professionnel soundcard , so quality, latency and solidity ( hardware AND software, no crash on stage !! )are important :

first about firewire and usb: the only chipset supported by most of sound card is the TI ( texas instrument). most of computers ( especially laptop) does not use this one, and you could have a serious issue with other chipset. So if you're thinking to use a firewire card with your computer , check this before. as firewire is near dead, most of the last development by manufacturers are for the USB 2.0, and it works really great now. there is no need to use the usb 3.0 for the bandwidth : you can have 30 in /30 out with usb 2.0, due to the progress of the chipset ( especially intel) and the drivers. So you willl not find Usb 3.0 interface, and with serious manufacturers , the latency is actually the same between USB 2.0 and firewire.
another aspect to think of, there is mini firewire port on laptop, and this port is really fragile. I have broke one on stage , because the Engineers forget to fix the cable and someone shot it unintentionally

If you 're thinking to use your interface with an USB 3.0 port, check the manufacturers site before (for exemple , Native instrument product are not working well with usb 3.0, but they update the driver and all is fine now). all the soundcard below works wiyj my usb 3.0 chipset, but check this before

in my opinion, the most important thing is the driver, and some manufacturers are really the best for this: Roland and Focurite for "medium" budget, and Apogee RME for high budget. the focusrite and roland are really great products. for exemple I can have a asio buffer of 64 samples with the roland soundcard and 128 for focusrite on my computer, that's near real time. I'm usiing RME product in studio , and these is really some great product , but the price ..
the second point is the preamp quality, there is no need to have a lot of input if they are bad, so in my opinion forget low cost manufacturers like tascam , behringer etc. they surely can made great products, but the marketing option is to create low cost soundcard with lot of input. there is no really good drivers ( exemple I tried the tascam card with my computer, and I can go lower than 256 samples buffer , without glitch)

I have these card and they are very good :
http://www.roland.com/products/en/UA-1010/
http://us.focusrite.com/usb-audio-inter ... lett-18i20
based on the same engine of the roland UA 1010:
http://www.roland.com/products/en/STUDIO-CAPTURE/

don't forget to optimize your computer, these is not a option, you MUST do it !
windows 8:
http://www.native-instruments.com/en/su ... rocessing/
windows 7
http://www.native-instruments.com/en/su ... rocessing/
http://support.presonus.com/entries/119 ... -Windows-7

the audio processing mode is really important, I think it can be useful for magic too ( what do you think Eric ?) I'm using it with all my computers, and it make a real difference for audio with big project for soundtracks
http://support.presonus.com/entries/203 ... Studio-One

I hope it helps

[blackdot]

awesome, thanks a lot. this really helps a lot. as i'm not from a music background, i have no clue about this stuff. thanks

\\Edit: so the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 seems to be the best in this case? 18 inputs and only about 500$, while the OCTA-CAPTURE ua-1010 only seems to have 4 inputs but costs about 650$ and the STUDIO-CAPTURE ua-1610 has 16 inputs but costs 1000.

\\edit2: aah no wait the scarlett only has 8 analog inputs. would make it still better than the octa capture though.

[Magic]

Ahh, sorry Blackdot, I think I misunderstood. I assumed you only wanted to get a new sound card so you could have more inputs to use with Magic. But Damien is right, if you also want to use it for recording and/or live music creation (DJing, etc.), it's better to get a higher-quality one.

the audio processing mode is really important, I think it can be useful for magic too ( what do you think Eric ?) I'm using it with all my computers, and it make a real difference for audio with big project for soundtracks

That's interesting, thanks! I haven't seen that before. Usually I choose "Always On" or "Maximum Performance" when it comes to power settings, but maybe it could be even better.

[blackdot]

nono you got me right, Eric. i dont want to do any recording, just more inputs for live performance. be it a sound card or one of those usb devices.

[damstraversaz]

the scarlett could be a good option, Eric is right, it's always agood idea to test a soundcard with your computer before buying ( local store are great for this). The problem I have with local soundcard is often the quality of the Asio driver ( and It must be related to the hardware, at least for some part) . it's really hard to have low latency with ship soundcard, and for live it will be a great difference to use small buffer, and especially with drums piano etc , it can really be a issue.