adef Posted November 28, 2009 Share Posted November 28, 2009 I'm coming close to the end of my studio room acoustical treatment and painting and now have the daunting choice of which interface to go for! It is a toss up between RME fireface 800 or the ensemble? I have been using PC's for years with RME interfaces but having moved over to mac I'm tempted by the ensemble from what I have read on the forums. Both have pro's and cons I suspect that the numerous threads I have read about the ensemble being noisy are due to faulty units either that or the noise floor is just high and the unit is prone to hiss even without any inputs going on?. I like the idea that the ensemble is designed to integrate into logic. My worst fear would be to shell out on the ensemble and a couple of good monitors only do find hiss coming from the unit without any inputs. My room will be quiet so I expect my gear to be as well. The RME gear is an unknown as far as integration for me so I guess I would have to carry on looking. I appreciate that this subject may have been flogged to death but once again I would like to hear from actual users of the gear for opinions. Outboard wise all i'm going to have coming in is maybe a couple of mics and some analogue gear from days of old to track in. Saying that I have also looked at the fireface 400 because that may suit my case of not needing too much ouboard gear. I'm ultimately trying to keep everything in the box so to speak and just use my mpc as a glorified midi sequencer. The old triton rack and virus is just gathering dust with the introduction of great AU synths what a shame, Once again any views on this subject would be greatly appreciated. Cheers chaps Adef Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarekith Posted November 28, 2009 Share Posted November 28, 2009 Just went through this same decision myself, and after A/Bing the two decided to go with the FF400. I personally thought it sounded better, and don't need all the inputs of the Ensemble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adef Posted November 29, 2009 Author Share Posted November 29, 2009 I'm sure this is a hard personal preference thing as from reading about the RME equipment I hear things like the pre's colour the sound where as the ensemble is transparent etc. I too do not need a lot of inputs and outputs and have been using the RME HDSP9652 units for years. I the unit absolutely silent noise wise with no output signals active Tarekith? Also the fireface 400 is cheaper but I get the feeling some users may say you get what you pay for and this is the bug bear at the moment for me when choosing just because the fireface is less cost wise does this necessarily mean a drop in sound quality? hmmm this is a tough one. Cheers for the response Taerkith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarekith Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 I don't notice any noise when no output is active. As for the pre's coloring the sound, I honestly don't use the pre's the that much here, so I really haven't had much need to compare them that critically. In my initial tests I thought they were definitely what I would call transparent and not 'colored' pre's, but compared to the Ensemble I'm not sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adef Posted November 29, 2009 Author Share Posted November 29, 2009 Another question tarekith how do you get on with the integration of RME totalmix and logic? That seems to be a selling point of the ensemble as the mixer software integrates straight into logic. Cheers Adef Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ski Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 how do you get on with the integration of RME totalmix and logic? That seems to be a selling point of the ensemble as the mixer software integrates straight into logic. TM is great. No problems. It provides "direct monitoring" so that you never have to use software monitoring in Logic ever again (unless you want to use plugins on your input channels as your record). The only things I record are microphones for my piano and various wind and percussion instruments, and I always record direct. So having virtually no latency when recording is fantastic. Another great thing about TM is that you can get out of the "mix everything down to outputs 1&2" restriction and work with subgroups. Let's say you're working on a rhythm section. You can route all of the drums to outs 3/4, guitar 5/6, bass 7, keyboards 9/10. TM lets you monitor all of those outputs out of a stereo output from the interface. When it's time to record a 2-mix, you click some buttons on TM to route all of those outputs back into Logic. There's never any "feedback" unless software monitoring is on (which it doesn't need to be). Then you record a realtime pass onto two tracks into Logic on a new channel. (Note: you have to set the recording delay to -75 when you do this, but that's the only technical aspect you have to worry about). This approach gives you the advantage of being able to mute/solo the different sections (submixes) in Logic, and even automate them if you want (automating the submixes). Meanwhile, you have a unity gain mix coming back into Logic. And if the level's too hot you simply lower all of the outputs in TM by the same amount. Anyway, I love how TM works. The only issues I have with my FF800 is that the audio will stutter from time to time. And so far, from what I've read on various forums (including the RME forum), no one seems to know what causes this. But on the plus side, the sound quality is very good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redlogic Posted November 30, 2009 Share Posted November 30, 2009 I've got the FireFace 400 here and have never had a problem. In my opinion, the mic pre's are neutral and definitely not "colored". TotalMix is great and full of routing possibilities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarekith Posted November 30, 2009 Share Posted November 30, 2009 Totalmix so far has worked fine here. Takes a little while to graps all the possibilities, but there's some very handy tutorials on youtube that helped me get up to speed quicker. As for integration with Logic, well, aside from the direct monitoring aspects mentioned earlier, there's really not any sort of integration. Certainly nothing like the Ensemble has. While that level of integration would be nice, I honestly have never found myself wishing for it with the FF400 to be honest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adef Posted November 30, 2009 Author Share Posted November 30, 2009 Nice to get a good cross section of users commenting on this. I'm very tempted to go for the ff800 but I can't see the real world advantages over the 400 other than inputs. Thanks so far to everyone who has commented (including ski for the in depth response). Cheers people Adef Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adef Posted November 30, 2009 Author Share Posted November 30, 2009 Alternatively I could go for something like this http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_hdspe_aio.php and get a separate outboard mic pre like a Focusrite ISA One Classic Single-Channel Pre-Amp? Are internal devices more reliable than firewire. Having used PC's with the internal PCI cards they never gave me a problem. Also will it have a better data rate? Does anyone our there have the AIO?. Sorry for so many questions but shelling out a grand or just over on various things hits your pocket. Especially when it will come down to an upgrade of monitors etc it all adds up. Cheers Adef Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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