MP1K and Reason interface ?

I need a bit of advice . I'm had the MP1K about 3 months. AND I've also acquired a 1.42 Ghz lappy running XP and Reason 3 and I want to hook them up.
The question: What would be a hot basic midi interface/audio box for this?
I've seen that the M-audio audiophile USB does midi and audio together?
Is it the bees knees or just not? Bare in mind I've already a midi keyboard from the old setup.
I do have a Unitor 8 which is sweet but as far as I've searched there's no XP drivers in existence.

BTW i bought my 1K with 1.07 and then updated to 2.01. Got's to say a huge well done to yall. was bad now badda

T

temperature wrote:I need a bit of advice . I'm had the MP1K about 3 months. AND I've also acquired a 1.42 Ghz lappy running XP and Reason 3 and I want to hook them up.
The question: What would be a hot basic midi interface/audio box for this?
I've seen that the M-audio audiophile USB does midi and audio together?
Is it the bees knees or just not? Bare in mind I've already a midi keyboard from the old setup.
I do have a Unitor 8 which is sweet but as far as I've searched there's no XP drivers in existence.

BTW i bought my 1K with 1.07 and then updated to 2.01. Got's to say a huge well done to yall. was bad now badda

T

I don't think any usb-based interface could be called the bees knees lol.

U are better off to look into firewire options or pcmcia card.

the usb standard is not really fast or reliable enough for doing music properly.

that's just my picky opinion though... tbh i started with that same audiophile u mentioned and it worked fine for what it was.

But for audio i ended up switching to a nice little echo indigo i/o and it gives better latency and sounds a little better.

I think something hot would be a pcmcia card with a breakout box... i think maybe echo audio makes something like that. Or anything firewire.

sleepersriddle wrote:

temperature wrote:I need a bit of advice . I'm had the MP1K about 3 months. AND I've also acquired a 1.42 Ghz lappy running XP and Reason 3 and I want to hook them up.
The question: What would be a hot basic midi interface/audio box for this?
I've seen that the M-audio audiophile USB does midi and audio together?
Is it the bees knees or just not? Bare in mind I've already a midi keyboard from the old setup.
I do have a Unitor 8 which is sweet but as far as I've searched there's no XP drivers in existence.

BTW i bought my 1K with 1.07 and then updated to 2.01. Got's to say a huge well done to yall. was bad now badda

T

I don't think any usb-based interface could be called the bees knees lol.

U are better off to look into firewire options or pcmcia card.

the usb standard is not really fast or reliable enough for doing music properly.

that's just my picky opinion though... tbh i started with that same audiophile u mentioned and it worked fine for what it was.

But for audio i ended up switching to a nice little echo indigo i/o and it gives better latency and sounds a little better.

I think something hot would be a pcmcia card with a breakout box... i think maybe echo audio makes something like that. Or anything firewire.

the audio/midi interface that i swear by is the USB lexicon omega. though it's usb, i've never had a hiccup with it. and i have the same (win XP and reason 3) setup. i also use nuendo and i can track from the mpc and rewire reason at the same time through the lexicon without a problem.

in actual fact USB2.0 is faster than most firewire interfaces currently available.

although the firewire standard now has firewire 800 which has a data rate of 800Mbits/sec, most firewire audio/midi interfaces are firewire 400 which has, you guessed it: a data rate of 400Mbits/sec.

The USB2.0 standard, which most currently available USB audio/midi interfaces are, has a data rate of 480Mbits/sec, so technically it's better.

I think that even though USB 2.0 looks better on paper Firewire is better in real life. Most of the best audio interfaces are firewire (i.e. Motu, Digi 002, Presonus) or PCI. Not that many USB inter faces are USB 2.0 most only USB 1.0 BTW there is one really good USB interface that is the "bees knees" I think they call it the Apogee Mini Me USB.

sif1949 wrote:I think that even though USB 2.0 looks better on paper Firewire is better in real life. Most of the best audio interfaces are firewire (i.e. Motu, Digi 002, Presonus) or PCI. Not that many USB inter faces are USB 2.0 most only USB 1.0 BTW there is one really good USB interface that is the "bees knees" I think they call it the Apogee Mini Me USB.

i'm inclined to agree that most of the best are firewire. i think it's because a lot of the companies have had sexual relations with Apple, and need to support firewire to the full. an example of the performance of usb2.0 would be motu's very own 828mkii, which is now available in usb flavour too.

Yeah 828MKII (usb 2.0 or Firewire) is pretty awesome but when I was doing research on interfaces. I kept reading about how usb 2.0 compresses the audio during the transfer and that was supposed to lead to lower quality. I ended up going with a Presonus Firebox and I'm very pleased. But it doesn't really matter whatever helps you put yor ideas down.

thanks guys, always great food for thought.

I wana re-open this topic bcos im also looking for a way to get my full songs and sequences into my computer .. Ive been considering this little 8 channel usb mixer with a built in audio interface, tell me what you guys think, and is there otehr alternatives at the same price range??
http://www.zzounds.com/item--ALEMULTIMIX8USB

1

Yeah that Alesis unit is cool you might also want to look at the Yamaha MW10 10-Input USB Mixing Studio as well(Yamaha has always had good Micpres) I think the only thing you need to remember is that both those mixers will be mixing all those inputs down into the main outputs into your computer so you couldn't do all 8 inputs at the same time to its own track

My computer does very well with a USB interface.

sif1949 wrote:Yeah 828MKII (usb 2.0 or Firewire) is pretty awesome but when I was doing research on interfaces. I kept reading about how usb 2.0 compresses the audio during the transfer and that was supposed to lead to lower quality. I ended up going with a Presonus Firebox and I'm very pleased. But it doesn't really matter whatever helps you put yor ideas down.

i don't think that's true.