hey all! this is a great forum with great info...im glad I found it.

what brought me here is a google search for the Soundcraft 200b series mixer, which i might be able to nab pretty soon from a seller in the area.

Im pretty much sick of my 002r and Digidesign in general. they have good service I will say, but their hardware leaves much to be desired. PT is great...but i want more bang for buck with some of the MOTU interfaces which I have used and IMO, are far superior in sound quality than the PT LE stuff...(and perhaps even the PT HD systems?)

So I am thinkin of using the SC 200b mixer along with some of my outboard pres (grace 101s, trident s20, gold channel) into a MOTU interface and into my G5. Going to ebay (devil) and the MOTU site I noticed the pleasant problem of not being able to choose which interface is best for what Im going. 192K recording is cool, perhaps overkill, but not a necessity. if i could record at that rate, i would...i know many plug ins wont work at that rate...so it's not terribly vital. 96k is norm for me when doing more important sessions.

should i look into the 896 HD, the 2403MKIII, HD192?

they are all great, the prices are not too far off from one another...

i like the 2403, but it seems more geared to a more digital setup. thoughts?

thanks in advance!

the HD192 sounds incredible, the XLR ins are not mic preamps so you'll need outboard pres or a mixer.

awesome!

yea...Ill be using my Grace's and so forth, but I am looking forward to that analog goodness of the oldef console pres as well. So I guess I could rock the 192...

...though the 2408 might be a good and cost effective starting point...
i can always grab a 192 HD later.

you've gotta remember with the 2408 that you're paying for a TON of digital i/o that apparently, you have no interest in. so while it would be cheaper, it'd be a bunch of ins and outs that you wouldn't use, bringing you down to 8x8.

its not that im NOT interested in the digital I/O....cos one thing i noticed is that the 192 doesnt have much at all except the word clock sync. i do use SPDIF to goto master recorders...
so...dont know. i am just excited to use a goodie analog console....ill miss the digital i/o's im sure...

i think a 2408 with a 192 would be killer.

as you can tell, im lost in decision and probably a dash confused.

I have an 896 and like it a lot.

The integrated preamps sound fine.

hey.

I have two of the 192s. They sound very good, but Ive found they sound much better with a good external clock. All of the motu audiowire stuff clocks from the same clock which is in the universal PCI424 card, and that clock isn't so hot. IF you get the 192 and clock them from a good dedicated clock such as an Apogee Big Ben (or in my case I am clocking from a Crane Song Spider), you should be very pleases with the sound of the A/d and d/a. The 2408 is a very useful piece to have because it's so flexible with digi i/o, but the a/d d/a is pretty mediocre. The 2408 and 192 all run off of the PCI424 card, whereas the 896 runs on a firewire port, so that is also somethign to considering if getting multiple units.

regards,
imke

thanks Mike!
would you say the FW is a better thing than the PCI clock? the PCI is expandable to 4 units...whereas the FW is not, correct?
which is a current limitation of the 002 expandablity...

what? no you can daisy chain LOTS of MOTU firewire interfaces. there's parallel firewire ports on each unit. plug one right into the other.