Sujet Fireface UC ou Roland octa capture ?

Hi friend

In first place, excuse me if I write in english, I cannot write in french very well.

I was in your exact same situation, between RME UC and the Octo-Pre.

3 days ago, I finally  get the Roland, to give it at least one chance  before spending almost 300€ more with the RME.

And I can say that I´m not dissapointed at all. The octo-pre is really a GREAT interface.

Roland has do it very well this time.

The octo-pre is designed for the musician (not the technician), you can work really fast with this interface. It has an extremely useful button (phones+main or phones only) that even the RME´s lacks. Otherwise, with many other interfaces, you have to turn your monitors off when you´re recording audio, or buy an passive monitor controller. Even with the RME´s, you still have to mute the 2 outs in their TotalMix software to do the same.

The unit has some very useful effects for monitorig, as reverb, echo, compressor, all handled by its Blackfin ADSP-BF525 processor, made by Analog Devices.

Auto-sens function works very well, and this way you don´t have to be the sound technician of your band. Just press the button, play a few seconds, and you´re on the go.

Latencies are very good also:

(as shown in Logic 9 64Bits, Snow Leopard 10.6.5, Intel Wolfdale C2D 3Ghz, 4GB RAM (Hackintosh))

Roland Octo-Capture (USB)
a 44,1 Khz:
Tamaño de Buffer de E/S: 32 | Latencia de salida: 1,8ms | Latencia Total: 6,6ms |
Tamaño de Buffer de E/S: 64 | Latencia de salida: 2,5ms | Latencia Total: 8,1ms |
Tamaño de Buffer de E/S: 128 | Latencia de salida: 4,0ms | Latencia Total: 11,0ms |



This is the RME UFX latencies, to compare:

(OSX Snow Leopard, Logic Audio 9, MacPro 2009 Quad Core)
(Firewire)
a 44,1 Khz:
Tamaño de Buffer de E/S: 32 | Latencia de salida: 3,0ms | Latencia Total: 4,8ms |
Tamaño de Buffer de E/S: 64 | Latencia de salida: 3,7ms | Latencia Total: 6,3ms |
Tamaño de Buffer de E/S: 128 | Latencia de salida: 5,2ms | Latencia Total: 9,2ms |


(USB)
a 44,1 Khz:
Tamaño de Buffer de E/S: 32 | Latencia de salida: 2,2ms | Latencia Total: 4,0ms |
Tamaño de Buffer de E/S: 64 | Latencia de salida: 2,9ms | Latencia Total: 5,4ms |
Tamaño de Buffer de E/S: 128 | Latencia de salida: 7,3ms | Latencia Total: 8,3ms |

So, make your choice, and do it wisely. You can´t be wrong, anyway.  Les deux prétendants sont mises gagnantes.

Thanks a lot for your answer...I was wondering about those effects and auto-sense function which seems to me more like a gadget than a really interesting stuff, but it looks nice...Did you try it with a PC ? (and even more interesting, on Cubase ?).

And, last question, can you feel a real  step in quality of sound compared to a first price audio-interface (refering to the preamps and convertors) ?

Sinon d'autres avis sur la question ?

Auto-sense is great to make quick adjustments in a easy way. If you´re playing with your band using several inputs (XLR or jack), you can specify wich channels to adjust, or even use Auto-sens at the same time over all eight. Play together for a while, and you can be sure you will recording withouts clips.

I´ve found that auto-sens VS. manual adjust values are pretty similar. By doing it manually you can scratch +2-3Db, but it´s OK anyway for some situations.

I´ve not tested the Octa with windows yet. Maybe I can make some tests, but it will be over Cakewalk Sonar. This DAW it´s well known for its precise RTL (Round Trip Latency) report.

About the preamps and converters...

I´m using a pair of Event Studio Precision 6 monitors, and recording my Selmer SAII saxophone, Yamaha YSS sax, and a Yamaha flute with a AKG 519 mic. Over the jacks, I have an Variax 700 guitar, Variax 705 bass, an Akai EWI4000, and a external Yamaha Sound module.

I´m a musician (teacher, actually ). I play acoustics instruments. And I like what I hear when recording.

Don´t know about  technical details about converters or preamps, sorry.

Great sound, no noise. It´s all what my ears tells me. Add easy setup, quick workflow, low latency, and correct price to the equation and maybe you have found your partner as I did.

Anyway, what you have now is a pretty but cheap entry level interface. I´m sure you will notice a huge step forward in quality in many ways with a better one.

I finally bought the Roland. And I'm not disappointed at all. Really easy to use, sounds neutral to me, that's what I was looking for. No problems with windows and cubase. So thanks again for your advice.

je souhaite avoir vos conseils entre la baby face rme et l'octa capture roland la quelle choisir en ce concerne qui la qualité du son

j'hesite entre les deux 

merci

Lemurien:

My pleasure! I hope you enjoy it as I am doing

Zulon:

If you are very concerned about the differences in sound, anyone will be able to help you objectively.
The best thing you could do is listen both units for yourself. If you notice any difference between the two, then you will know what you're looking for.

In any case, remember that in musical matters the secret is not to buy the best, but make the most of what you have. As in real life.

Personally, I find the babyface very interesting if you only need 2 inputs and two outputs. Otherwise, the Roland or the UC are always better options, unless you do not mind having to add an external ADAT converter for more inputs.

Thanks for answering

you're right but i want the best product for 600 €

go to sonicstate.com there's a review on octa capture he said that there is a little noise when they put on phantom power.

did u notice that ?

thank anyway

Yes, I knew that review before buying the Octa-capture.
What the guy from Sonicstate exactly says is "Slighty noisy at high levels using phantom power".
I find that comment downright absurd, because if you raise the microphone gain so much as to hear noise (over 3 / 4), then you'll be clipping, for sure.

I have tested very different sound sources, as said previously, and didn´t notice noise at all on the recordings relative to the preamps, nor any digital artifact or any other kind of distortion. I found the sound fresh and clean as a winter morning breeze.

Anyway, I think you should first think about how many preamps or line inputs you really need.

if >2 Then Octa-capture
if <= 2 Then babyface

In my opinion, these two would be the best product for under 600€ or even the best three under 800€ if we include the UC, but you have to know what you want.

And (IMHO), to know how many inputs you need is not a minor issue at all. That would have been your first consideration, man!

No noise at all on the octa-capture, so far i've tried it. But I didn't need to push the preamps at their highest level.