896HD Newbie question

[martin7]

I'm considering upgrading to the 896HD from my onyx firewire. I'm running a amd 4400 x2 win pro 2gig ram. I've also got a mac book pro 2.6ghz - 4 gig ram. So I need an interface for both and am hoping to find something that can take some of the load off my cpu - especially during mixing where I currently hit the plug in wall all too quickly. Is the 896HD a good choice or are there any others?
thanks,

Martin7

[billruys]

If you're hitting the wall during mixing due to plug-in load, how do you think a new audio interface is going to help? It probably won't. That is not what CueMix DSP does. CueMix is great for monitoring inputs when you're recording, but it won't help you during mix down. Also, it routes before the signal hits your computer, so if you're thinking you can somehow monitor your DirectX/VST effets with CueMix during the recording phase and off-load some CPU cycles, you'd be wrong.

If you need a new audio interface that will work on PC and Mac, it's probably a good choice, but don't buy it thinking it will fix your CPU overhead problems.

Maybe you should spend your hard earned cash on a new PC with a quad core CPU first, or pick up something like a UAD-1 card that will offload some CPU if you use the bundled effects instead of native DirectX/VST.

[martin7]

Thanks. I had a lurking feeling of unease considering these issues. I probably will upgrade my pc cpu. Regarding the 896, I think I would miss the lack of MIDI in/out - Any recommendations?

[hswin]

You might look at the MOTU Ultralite if you didn't any more than 2 microphone inputs. Now if you are using external preamps, that part would not be an issue. The Ultralite has MIDI and SPDIF I/O.

[martin7]

I'll check that out. Thanks!

[Vim]

buy one of the RME FW interfaces instead.

[martin7]

What, in particular, makes them stand out?
m7

[1nput0utput]

What, in particular, makes them stand out?
m7

MOTU is obviously better because they have more letters than RME.

[martin7]

sold...