I make instrumental music that incorporates a lot of stringed instruments (acoustic guitars, viola, morin khuur, tagelharpa) which are recorded with decent mics, and then other songs that are electric guitar mixed with various tape effects and loops which are more low-fi sounding. I will post an album from last year as an example —

https://

I don't use synths, MIDI, sequencing, or even drums. I record in a tiny room in my apartment and do all the performance, mixing, and sometimes even mastering myself. I'm not on a label and I don't play shows. I'm also not even particuarly technical. One the one hand, there is a "primitive" nature to how I approach music deliberately. And yet, I am increasingly serious about making the music sound as best as it can and see what I can do with it.

I use Logic as my DAW and just upgraded to a new Mac Mini which is great and fast. I'm now contemplating an interface upgrade. Up until now, I've gotten away with the really basic PreSonus Audiobox. I don't think I have any real complaints per se. But I have a little Christmas money to spend and would love an interface that had 3-4 inputs, high-quality AD converters that sound good enough even a novice would notice, and perhaps its own native plugins to solve for latency issues I experience sometimes in Logic.

I've read about Antelope products and seems like folks don't love their software or support. Have also been pointed toward the Apollo and the Symphony. Given my low-stakes situation, a Scarlett 2i2 might even be fine. I do want to reiterate, I'm into optimizing my humble setup, but I'm not actually very technical and certain interfaces just seem optimized toward the kind of music I don't make (or seem overwhelming). But if the converters were audibly much better than the PreSonus, I would pay upward of $700-800 if it seemed worth it.

Thanks for any suggestions or advice!

Hey, really cool and unusual music! Your Bandcamp stuff sounds wonderful. You've managed to do great things with your Audiobox, no doubt.

I'm also a multi-instrumentalist who usually single-tracks layers of my instruments in productions, and I think I've found the "perfect" audio interface for my purposes, which is the RME Babyface Pro FS. Very happy with it after several years, it's utterly reliable. As an acoustic instrumentalist, I think you'd appreciate the level of clarity and detail it reveals compared to cheaper interfaces... I'm a skeptical guy and pride myself on getting good results out of modest gear, but I was surprised how much difference the RME unit made in clarity after the other gear I'd been using (various cheaper boxes by Presonus, M-Audio, and Steinberg, mostly – of those, the Steinberg was my favorite).

If the budget isn't there for an RME, then a Focusrite Clarett is probably what I'd recommend. Good, solid, reliable quality that's widely available used. I've heard good things about the Audient interfaces too but I haven't used them. The MOTU Ultralite would be an appealing option to me, too, and is what I would have gotten if not for the RME.

Regardless, I hope you get something you enjoy using that helps you keep making more interesting music! Best of luck.

@ Progger among the ones you mentioned I’d be choosing between the Ultralite MK5 or the RME. The converters and headphone out of the MOTU are arguably better than the Babyface, but the Babyface has very low latency and awesome drivers - which probably won’t matter for OP since they don’t use soft synths.

So I’d be leaning towards the Ultralite for the stellar converters and many inputs in this case.

Interface? Most will do what you want and sound fine.

The music though was very different and I enjoyed it. Reminded me of travelling the world back in the day and I like the surprise elements. Keep it up!

Adding both to the list now. And thanks for listening! I checked out your link too, really nice, I love the album cover too. Is that "Soundtracks..." album recorded with the Babyface? Sounds very pro quality to me.

I assume the big volume wheel can be toggled to control all the obvious stuff (headphones, monitors, etc)?

Here's the weird part. From 2017-2023, I recorded with a 2017 iMac and the PreSonus. I pretty much never experienced latency issues. But when I upgraded to the Mac Mini this fall and also upgraded Logic... now I get latency issues whenever I have more than 4-5 tracks running with effects. I'm not even using third party plugins for stuff like reverb and delay, just native. And I'm bussing them as efficiently as I can. I have lowered the buffer and done the obvious things. But I would love it if an upgraded interface could help solve for latency, if that's possible.

I really appreciate that. Especially since the music is absolutely inspired by travel and picking up different instruments and techniques from other places and people.

A less expensive FS alternative could be a RME Digiface USB and Clarett+ Octopre, for about $1300-$1350 from Thomann, shipped. Best of both worlds - low latency and stable drivers plus really good mic pres.

Could record at 96khz if you don't add another Octopre (ADAT limitations).

The new MOTU 828 may also be of interest when it ships, which should be around $1000 give or take, but that'll come with stuff the OP doesn't need.

painting in overly-broad brush strokes, there are basically three tiers of interfaces:

budget
mid-price
expensive

your best bet is to get out of budget land and get yourself into the middle class. $700 definitely gets you there for two-channel (apogee duet is solidly middle class).

four+ channels, the answer is more vague. the lines between low-class, mid-class, and upper-class interfaces are not perfectly drawn. there is a spectrum of quality. a motu interface might not be as good as an apogee duet on a per channel basis, but it should elevate you out of the lower class:
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...udio-interface

your list of needs indicates you require four microphone-preamp-equipped analog inputs. the interface listed above has that as well as an attractive, practical structure. it also has hardware monitoring (which allows you to hear the incoming analog signals in real time with no latency) and a mix knob (allowing you to conveniently adjust the listening balance between the DAW content and the analog inputs being recorded).

Nah.

OP, what you have is fine and IMO you'd be wasting money getting something else and expecting a noticeable upgrade. Now if you want to buy something new because you have money burning a hole in your pocket, have fun. Many (most?) of us have been there. But don't hold your breath waiting to hear a noticeable difference.

for me the difference in converter quality is obvious as you move up the quality chain. and when there are large jumps in quality, the differences are very obvious. if you can't hear the differences, that's on you.

Thank you! Yes, most of that record was tracked through the Babyface, and definitely mixed/mastered through that... the only record I've done entirely myself, aside from my friends who played on it. I usually hire out for mixing and mastering, but this was my COVID record and I wanted to take the challenge to do it myself. The Babyface made it much more enjoyable, I have to say.

Yes, the big wheel can be configured for many applications but I pretty much only use it for monitor/headphone volume. TotalMix is a phenomenal routing program for all the other parameters of your system, and it really doesn't take long to learn.

I'm sure the MOTU Ultralite is a good alternative, and that's what I would have gotten otherwise. RME ended up winning for the support longevity and software drivers, but you'd make great music with either unit, I'm sure!

FTFY

If you've convinced yourself there's an obvious difference when there isn't just because something cost more, that's on you. Have fun wasting money.

For what it's worth, a big reason I made this post was after asking similar questions of a lot of people across a lot of forums, the majority definitely thought an interface with higher-quality AD/DA converters led to a noticeably cleaner, better, and more professional sound.

I don't know yet if I would hear the difference, but if it's an interface that's only a few hundred dollars more than the one I own and it sounds better and has ways to help with latency issues, I don't mind making that investment.

Well of course; in fact, that states the obvious. The folly is in thinking spending a lot more money means a big jump (if any) in better converters or much of anything else quality-wise.

I use an audient iD22, not been unhappy with quality at all, it's excellent, particularly good AD/DA conversion for the price, can't say I've tried the RME but you can't go wrong with them, I enjoyed listening to your music as well by the way.

Some cheap interfaces have weak headphone amps, and relatively weak mic preamps.

But I agree that past something like the Ultralite MK5 in price, most people won’t be able to hear differences.

So for me that interface has that special spot regarding features, I/O, audio quality (including a strong headphone output) vs price.

After that it’s the law of diminishing returns hitting you hard.

And RME has that special spot due to their stellar drivers on both windows and Mac. Not all vendors do this - most have either higher latency on both platforms, or have better support for a Mac (MOTU and UAD are good examples of relatively more Mac-centric driver development).

As a fellow AudioBox user I also feel there's something that could be better about it and my gut feeling is it's the input/preamp part of it. Interested to hear what you decide to replace it with and how it worked out.

4 tracks into your album so far, it's really great, I love it. Careful you don't disappear down the engineering rabbit hole.

There are no large quality jumps in conversion - there were 20+ years ago - but not these days. You can make a big thing out of tiny differences - that's your choice. But nobody outside your imagination will hear them. Certainly not the casually listening public.

The differences will be largely heard for dynamic mics and headphones. Generalising a bit here of course.

Apogee Duet 3 would do you very nicely for acoustic recording….

Very few interfaces at any level have weak mic pres (the only one I'm aware of offhand is the Presonus Audiobox)...almost all are in the 55-60db range.

I'm curious, which have weak headphone amps that you're aware of?

The most popular ones: Focusrite Scarlett pre-gen4. Also weak for dynamic mics.

I like many also got one and ended up getting a FEThead.

The headphone amp, I assume you mean. The 4th gen mic pres have 69db gain, making them as good or better than many interfaces that cost considerably more.

Yes but it took them until Gen4 to fix the mic preamps, and the headphone amp is still iffy unless you get a 4i4 (way too much impedance unless you have also very high impedance cans).

Julian Krause has many good reviews, going to his latest is a good way to see the charts for stuff like headphone outs for multiple interfaces.

Lots still aren’t good.

https://youtu.be/buuGUKxzcYw?si=dTliIkqYgiGXl-gD

I did not use, but know people with 3d and even 2d gen who had no complaints. The 3d gen mic pres have 56db; respectable.

Well I used and it was definitely anaemic for my Shure dynamics. Had to get a FEThead.