inexpensive interfaces for my laptop

[smallsynth]

i am looking into buying my first "interface" to work with my laptop. it is a cheap laptop, and plugging in audio stuff directly (with adapters when necessary) has previous sufficed. but i thought i might want a little more control options for recording and live playback, and so am looking for an inexpensive interface.

does anyone have experience with any of these devices? recommendations or input? other suggestion under $150 are cool. looking for midi in/out, and as many audio ins/outs as possible. maybe some cheap software (LE?) would be helpful? who knows.

let me know what you think.

http://www.zzounds.com/item--TASUS144MKII
http://www.zzounds.com/item--LEXLAMBDA
http://www.zzounds.com/item--PRSAUDIOBOX

thanks much,

geoffrey smallsynth

[meatballfulton]

I bought a Lambda and could not get it to work with my XP laptop at all. I noticed quite a few users have reported similar issues. I returned it and got my money bank. So I'd avoid that one

I've also read many reports of unusually high latency on the Tascam, your mileage may vary

PreSonus seems to get high marks overall for their various interfaces, so of the three that is the one I'd buy. It ships with PreSonus' own DAW, Studio One.

For $150 you won't find anything more than 2 in/2 out.

[Stab Frenzy]

Echo Audiofires have a good rep, the 2 in 2 out one is about $200. Haven't used anything in that price bracket so I can't really give any first hand advice though sorry.

[sequentialsoftshock]

You should also check out the M Audio fast track pro, it has 2 xlr/line ins and a midi in. The preamps aren't that bad either.

[wiss]

An original Motu 828, firewire, high quality, and drivers are available to run on the latest computer OS's

[th0mas]

Using a tascam us144mkII here, works great.

Two things I found - ASIO4ALL driver still beats the vendor driver, and USB interfaces are more subject to other component's latency in the system. In this case, on my laptop, my wireless driver can cause delay spikes of 100s of ms. I figured this out using the DPC latency checker, and now when I have my interface in use I have to turn off my wireless or suffer from random very quiet clicks. Overall though it's great, I get around 4ms latency playing VSTs.

[Ashe37]

Have an original 144US here and use it occasionally, it gets nice low latency on desktop machines.

[electro funker]

Echo Audiofires have a good rep, the 2 in 2 out one is about $200. Haven't used anything in that price bracket so I can't really give any first hand advice though sorry.

I would suggest the same, it got 4 in's and 6 outs with the spdif and headphone. Echo's drivers work without any problems (i use mac).It sounds good for a budget sound card, the only thing there is wrong with this unit is the lack of phantom power, no mic/xlr in and it dosen't have the option to turn direct monitoring off (maybe you can do this, but I can't figure out how).

The Lambda is for me a no go, mostly because you pay for a phantom power function there is so weak that it allmost can't suply the +48v. It's in a cheap plastic case and big for a cheap soundcard, and the drivers aren't that great.

-my penny

[sequentialsoftshock]

Echo Audiofires have a good rep, the 2 in 2 out one is about $200. Haven't used anything in that price bracket so I can't really give any first hand advice though sorry.

I would suggest the same, it got 4 in's and 6 outs with the spdif and headphone. Echo's drivers work without any problems (i use mac).It sounds good for a budget sound card, the only thing there is wrong with this unit is the lack of phantom power, no mic/xlr in and it dosen't have the option to turn direct monitoring off (maybe you can do this, but I can't figure out how).

The Lambda is for me a no go, mostly because you pay for a phantom power function there is so weak that it allmost can't suply the +48v. It's in a cheap plastic case and big for a cheap soundcard, and the drivers aren't that great.

-my penny

Aside from lack of phantom power, I've been thinking this might be a nice interface to pick up for myself for a dedicated drum machine interface.

[redchapterjubilee]

The Lambda is for me a no go, mostly because you pay for a phantom power function there is so weak that it allmost can't suply the +48v. It's in a cheap plastic case and big for a cheap soundcard, and the drivers aren't that great.

And that's the one I was going to recommend! I've never used it with XP, only Vista and now 7. No issues. Of course, I don't use the phantom power on it so I can't speak to that.