Hi All,

I'm running Digital Performer on a Powermac Dual 1GHz
G4. I record mostly rock/blues material.

I want the best sound. I'm debating beween these two,
which are in my budget:

400F

Duet

I almost never record more than two tracks at a time
and dont need any external syncing, ADAT, or digital
ins. Just good audio. The extra preamps/ins on the
Mackie would be nice to have, but are not necessary (I
have a Mackie VLZ-PRO mixer/M-Audio Delta-44 as a
back-up for four tracks at once, if needed).

My only other preamp besides the mackie mixer is a
Great River ME-1NV (one channel).

Is the sound on the Apogee superior to the Mackie 400F
in a noticable way (pre-amps and converters)?

Thanks!
TCW

I'd say it might be a tough call if you've narrowed it down to those 2. I've never used the Duet but have used the Ensemble and if the preamps are anywhere close, then I'd say they're considerably better than the Onyx pres, having used those too.

The I/O doesn't compare between the 2, obviously, and I like that the 400f has inserts.You have 4 additional line in's so your GR and w/e else you want / have can come into play.

But if you're sure that the 2 ch's is going to be sufficient, then I'd imagine that the the onboard pre's and ADDA is going to be better with the Duet. This said, if you're not stacking lots of tracks, the bump in AD isn't going to be that noticeable IMHO.

You could even go cheaper and get a Firebox. I'd say that the AD is near or the same as Onyx, and the pre's a couple of levels behind but still usable. Cheap like borscht too.

I just used one for the first time on a remote gig last week.

As I posted on my other thread, the Duet has no monitoring ability (as far as I can tell). Just 2 in, 2 out. So, I'm stuck with monitoring vocal through Digital Performer, which gives latency when using reverb while recording... But no latency there when not using effects.

My options are:

1. Use one of the two outputs of the Duet for the main mix (in mono...blah!) and one for the vocals, which can be effected in the mixer.

2. Have everything in stereo, no latency, but no effects

3. Find some way to intercept the signal leaving my vocal preamp (Great River) as a monitor signal which can be sent to the mixer to get effects.

4. Buy the Mackie 400f and deal with slightly lower quality preamps/AD-DA conversion.

Hmm, thats a bummer. Well if you're hellbent on tracking with reverb etc, you could just get a headphone mixer that has and aux in, feed your Duet's HP out to it, and insert a reverb? If you don't have a h/w reverb, there's a load of cheapo's out there that would work fine for tracking. This is assuming you're really high on the Duet.


I have my eye on upgrading my old Fostex to an HMX-56 Maybe overkill for your needs, but Behringer make a cheap one with an aux too.

Personally, I'm sure the Duet sounds great, but I could see it's limitations really hindering me down the road.

Thanks for the reply Bazz.

I have a Mackie 1202VLZ mixer and a quadraverb.

I'm a little confused...Are you saying that you can assign different tracks to the headphone outs and the main outs? In other words, can you seperate a stereo mix and a track that is being recorded using the headphone and main outs?

I just thought of something, but I'm not sure if my computer can handle it...I have an M-audio Delta 44 PCI interface hooked up to my DAW. Maybe I can assign my playback tracks (main mix) through the Delta and use the Duet for vocal tracking/monitoring. Is simultaneously running two different audio interfaces a no-no? Man, I have a lot to learn...

quote:

I'm a little confused...Are you saying that you can assign different tracks to the headphone outs and the main outs? In other words, can you seperate a stereo mix and a track that is being recorded using the headphone and main outs?

Sorry, I was under the impression that you were just doing singer / songwriter stuff, and not layering and doing overdubs - especially if you were looking at the Duet.

Indeed, you'd have your whole mix coming thru with reverb, so that won't work either.

Can't see your computer using 2 separate interfaces at once.Never heard of that but maybe someone else would know.

The Duet is looking more and more ill-fated all the time

Forget the verb. I'm going with the best preamps and converters - The Apogee. If I want to write/record song ideas and need verb for some inspiration, I'll revert to the Delta 44 card. Once I'm ready for laying down the final vocal tracks, I'll fire up the Duet.

I figured it out! If you blend the live signal back through the main outs on the Duet via the Maestro software you have a dry signal.

To get a little reverb (or whatever) you just need to assign the outputs of the track you're recording to in Digital Performer to a bus that is going to a 100% reverb track (auxillary track). The out of that aux reverb track is assigned to the main mix. Just adjust the level to get more/less verb. The verb does have a slight pre-delay due to the latency, but that's a good thing.

I bought the Duet. It sounds amazing. The preamps alone are worth the price... getting pro-level A/D/A conversion is the icing on the cake!

Thanks for the suggestions!
Tom