Will the M-Audio Profire 610 meet my gear's ins/outs needs?

Hey forum fam, so I'm taking the giant leap into software (getting Cubase 5), and I'm thinking all I need is an M-Audio Profire 610, however, it only has 2 inputs in the back and 2 mic inputs in the front. The inputs in the front will be used with mics, but I also have an MPC 3000 and Motif ES6, both of which are stereo, so wouldn't I need 4 available inputs in whichever audio interface I use?

Or does it not matter, if the Motif is MIDI slaved to the MPC, only the MPC needs the (2) inputs?

What about when I get new gear, how will I have it all connected and going into Cubase via my audio interface?

patchbay.

Excellent, thanks for that bit of info.

So what are patchbays, and how do you implement them in a home studio situation?

You already got 4 inputs. Just unplug the mics when you aren't using them.
There's a million different ways you could hook your stuff up. You could go mixer, you could go patchbay, you could go multi-input soundcard. Or any two of those. My advice is to keep it simple, so you don't need to focus on troubleshooting when you wanna make a beat.

There's a lot of good info on tweakheadz. For example, this might be helpful:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/setting_up_your_audio.htm

Xandre wrote:What about when I get new gear, how will I have it all connected and going into Cubase via my audio interface?

Welcome to the GAS club.

Thanks mp3, it's much clearer to me now. I will def. check out that Tweakheadz article for further info.

if you wanted to record all of that simultaneously you would need more inputs, but if you dont i would just switch out one or the other when i needed to record the other piece of gear.

i wouldent say you would need a patchbay for this, you barley have any inputs to start with. think of your patchbay as an easier way of switching pieces of line level gear to go into your 610.

i think with just 4 inputs you would be better off just swapping out pieces as needed. if you had 16 inputs, that would be a different story.

Couldn't I also just get a mixer with 16 channels and route that via main stereo outs into the 2 free inputs in the Profire 610?

yeah you could do that i guess, but it would be really weird and you would be limited to the solo bus, so if you had any hardware effects (delays or reverbs) or compressors you couldent really use them without a patchbay.

Xandre wrote:Couldn't I also just get a mixer with 16 channels and route that via main stereo outs into the 2 free inputs in the Profire 610?

yeah, that would do the job, and do it well. but maybe use a stereo buss for sending to the profire rather than the main outs. then use another stereo bus to send to the record ins on the MPC. so it's important to get a mixer with enough busses.

@damien - i don't quite follow your commens on using external effects, delays etc. - he can use inserts and/or send/returns, right?

beach_break wrote:

Xandre wrote:Couldn't I also just get a mixer with 16 channels and route that via main stereo outs into the 2 free inputs in the Profire 610?

yeah, that would do the job, and do it well. but maybe use a stereo buss for sending to the profire rather than the main outs. then use another stereo bus to send to the record ins on the MPC. so it's important to get a mixer with enough busses.

@damien - i don't quite follow your commens on using external effects, delays etc. - he can use inserts and/or send/returns, right?

yes he could use inserts/and sends my bad. i have never hooked up external gear to a mixer myself; just used one that was already hooked up.
i think this would work alot better if you were using more channels than just 4 though. i dont see the point of having a mixer to go into a firewire 610 if you can just switch out a couple cords each time you need to record a separate instrument or mic.
if he was recording a whole band with 16 or 24 channels and wanted to do a mix outside the box (but still synced up to his daw) that would be a different story.

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