The Hardware Megathread

#6661

I have not.

#6662

PreSonus dropped new Quantum interfaces today, the ES and HD. The front inputs say they’re for passive instruments only, which is a bummer as a bass player with nothing but active basses and tbh I can’t believe they didn’t include a pad switch for actives, but I have a DI. So mostly just an annoyance and kinda big inconvenience.

https://www.presonus.com/en-US/quantum.html

But with the HDs you get a Studio One+ Hybrid pass which means at the end of 12 months you are given a perpetual Studio One Pro license even if you don’t renew for the $180

I’m tempted by the HD 4 as I can afford it (lol) and I don’t really use all my 18i20 is capable of very much.

if only the MOTU Ultralite mk3 Hybrid I have kicking around had ADAT. Obviously I can ADAT it to the 18i20, but I’m looking for another half-rack device with more inputs or even a small patchbay…

I dunno. I use Studio One and have been eyeing Plus Hybrid after my singer-friend finally moved away from Waveform (I found out by telling her I bought v13 :upside_down_face:). But that’d basically made it a $320 interface that’s in some ways better and some ways worse than the 18i20 (I’ve had the instrument inputs fart out with distortion while still orange on the meter…).

If there was an HD6 with just two more inputs and outputs I’d be in business. But I can also run my tape deck through the S2400 if I really want to…

I should just save the headache, buy the HD 8 version, then sell my 18i20 and Ultralite.

or just keep trucking along with my trusty 18i20, I guess. Still not overly fond of its instrument inputs, but at least it has XLR on the front for a DI.

#6663

If you don’t have a patchbay already, get one the next time you have money. It’s a fortune in time and cabling to set up (seriously, budget as much as you pay for the patchbay in patch cables, and get them all labeled if you haven’t already), but ever since I got one it’s so nice. I have the Samson one with switchable routings. I use that all the time as hard mutes if I want to do something like use one synth’s keyboard to control something else and I only want to hear the something else being controlled. Super nice to not have to mess with the levels on my interface, I just switch the routings to through on the PB and since I usually don’t have something plugged in the front side it just cuts the signal for any channel I want.

But then if you want to go to half-rack stuff, IDK. I have 5U of a 14U rack filled and I’m pretty happy. I could see myself using another 2-3U in the future, but that’s about it. Right now, I have 2U in my 18i20 and Octopre for my inputs, 1U in the patchbay, 1U in a midi interface I have never used, and 1U power strip just to keep it off my floor. I can only see adding a different interface with another ADAT input to get up to 24 input channels and another patchbay to accommodate the extra channels, and that would only be if I got into drum machines and needed a ton of inputs (which I don’t have the money, time, or space for right now - do still want a Tempest someday though).

#6664

I have a Samson S-patch and just no real place to put it. Unless I sold the 18i20 and got the HD 4 and put the S-Patch in the 18i20’s 1U slot.

My ADHD makes it INCREDIBLY hard to do something like wire up a whole ass patch bay and then have to remember how to patch things into. I’m sure I’d get it eventually. I just like having it all hooked up at once.

Which means the Arturia AudioFuse 16 is probably the interface I should be looking at. 16 line inputs would have me sorted forever. But it’s $1300 and I feel like it was $1000 when it came out. I could be wrong. Either way, too much damned money lol.

I will look into redoing/reorganizing my desk. Right now the S2400 and a tape deck take up two of my 3 3U rack bays. I could move the S2400 or the tape deck to a side furniture to free up space on the Platform desk and then I could have a patchbay.

The chore of trying to cram functionality but also not be cluttered :joy:

#6665

I’ve been eyeing the Audiofuse 16 too, then I can get 32 inputs out of 3U.

It’s expensive, but if I’m going to upgrade from the 18i20 then I figure I’m probably going to jump a price bracket anyways. Everything is more expensive these days, it bites. And yet, somehow, when I go to look at selling my OB6 I bought used a few years ago it’s now worth like $400 less than what I paid for it. How does that work?

#6666

oof. Yeah I went to sell a guitar and it was a few hundred less than the last time I checked. I’ve been told it’s due to parts shortages/delays/backlogs being done with or something along those lines.

#6667

I hadn’t thought of that, I can see that. Probably doesn’t help that the OB8 and the Behringer OB have both come along and pulled people who are interested in the OB sounds into a couple of other synths, so probably less demand now.

#6668

I sat down, I started to shift things around on my desk, and I went “no way in hell am I rewiring all this for a long, long time” :joy:

And really thinking about it, how the hell does PreSonus justify $1000 for the Quantum HD8? Unless they’re really pricing it as an $800 interface with the year of software. But even then it’s still more expensive than their previous top tier interface and the now-$600 18i20. Those preamps and converters better be a really good upgrade.

Meanwhile I can’t help but think of the GearSpace shootout where everyone picked the Behringer interface/converters as sounding the best in a blind vote :joy: