external sound cards for mac laptops

[Bill Schaffner]

Can anyone suggest an external sound card for me to use with my mac laptop playing qlab?

[Sam Kusnetz]

On October 24, 2016 at 9:45:22 AM, Bill Schaffner (wmsc...@gmail.com) wrote:

Can anyone suggest an external sound card for me to use with my mac laptop playing qlab?

Hello Bill

That’s quite a wide open question! Can you tell us anything about your situation? How much are you looking to (or willing to) spend? How many outputs do you need? What kind of connections do you need?

In general, we found that folks have the fewest complaints with devices made by Metric Halo and RME, but those are also very expensive. For smaller budgets, we’ve seen good results with the Roland Quad-capture and Octa-capture, the Focusrite Saffire Pro series, and the new-ish MOTU AVB interfaces.

We’ve seen the most problems with interfaces made by Behringer, Presonus, M-audio, Echo, and Avid.

Cheerio

Sam

—

Sam Kusnetz | Figure 53

s...@figure53.com

[Gunther J. Kibelkstis]

I have very good experience with Motu.

Check before you buy, if there is driver for the Motu model and also for your MAC OS.

[Mark Sutherland]

I've Have had 4 years of great success with an Apogee Quartet
Not rack mountable but works perfectly as a  4 in 6 out / Midi compatible
a bit pricey but well the plug and play aspects.
2 cents
Mark

[Tom Hafner]

I've been using a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 (https://focusrite.de/usb-audio-interfaces/scarlett-6i6) for the last years. It got recently updated. Mainly used to connect to existing PA system with two channels. Sometimes using 1 or 2 additional channels. During preproduction used the inputs for recording audio. As others said it depends on your needs. I'll just do small amateur theatre and sometimes attend festivals. So far all worked out and is very mobile for my needs.

cheers, Tom

[johng...@mac.com]

Metric Halo for me.

I've got 3 interfaces, 2 of which I think I bought about 10 years ago and are still being updated with a hardware update coming out soon.

The 2882's analog outputs are so good that my preference for small system installs is to not use a mixer at all and just go straight from the 2882's to powered speakers. 

Though I've seen smaller theatres bypass soundcards totally and use the usb into X32's for non-redundant systems. That works as a low end but flexible theatre system. Metric Halo would be my preference for mid sized or more modular install systems.

In the big houses I've been quite happy with Madi into Digico's for powerful and redundant systems. 

[talkingtobrian]

Not to debate what a Figure 32 rep says, but I've used my Digidesigns 003 (by Avid) for multiple outputs and it has served me well. I'd use it more if it didn't mean tearing up my recording studio.

I've also used a Mackie Onyx with good results.

Finally, for super low budget, my school has some USB headphone jacks. I learned about them when our Black Box imac's headphone jack died (I think it was handed to our department this way). But we had one of those dongles sitting around, and it worked fine. I think it is from Creative. I've since squirrled away a couple in my office, and tomorrow night open a show with one of those on a Pro tower. Primary audio goes out the headphone jack, and my one audio zone for a speaker under the stage for a prop is getting sound via a USB dongle.

If audio from a headphone jack works for you, $35 bucks gets you another stereo pair. Cheers!

-Brian