I'm looking for a good Firewire interface to record electric guitar with. The idea is that I want to be able to mic my amp with an SM 57 and record it through the FW interface using Garageband. So far, I'm hearing a lot of positive feedback about the Apogee Duet. Anyone else care to share their opinions?
I've had a few devices for running my guitars to the computer.
First, I had the Belkin 1/4" female to Mini Jack connector. Worked well for what it was, but I was limited to what I could do with the guitar sound. (I hadn't gotten Guitar Rig software yet.) The Garageband's effects at the time weren't so swell.
Next, I got a Inspire 1394 firewire box. It WAS a great little unit. It featured two firewire ports to allow for piggy backing the units, 2 XLR inputs with 48V phantom power, two 1/4" instrument jacks, and on the back it had headphone outs, RCA outs and ins. It worked great, until it broke. One complete side of the unit stopped working after about a year, and I could no long record in stereo. I was using a LINE 6 Pod XT Pro at the time. (back when line 6 firmware didn't allow for USB recording, or i was too dumb to figure it out.)
After the firmware came out for the Pod XT (or I found it) I used the Pod XT as my sole source of guitar in to garageband and logic. The amp modeling suffices for me, and the software to control would run in real time and change the effects and amps as if I were doing it on the unit itself. Plus the unit was rackmount and it looked sleek and stayed out of the way.
Also by using the Pod XT Pro over the USB line, it became an external sound card. I had the two XLR outs of the Pod XT hooked up to two bookshelf powered monitors, iTunes never sounded so good! lol. The one thing that i was missing with the Pod XT was the XLR inputs were not there.
Solved that with the purchase of a Pod X3 Pro. Rack mount like the old one, but it does XLR ins as well as dual tone, bass, and vocal processing.
If I had to reccomend something for you: Pod XT Pro. If you aren't a singer/songwriter, the Pod XT Pro will work fine for you. If singing is your thing as well as playing, the Pod X3 Pro might not be a bad route to go. You get guitar signal processing, as well as XLR inputs and an interface for recording.
On paper, the Tascam FW-1884 looked like a great thing for Firewire recording. In reality, it has sucked...and they have the worst customer service I've ever encountered. In fact, the only positive thing I can say about Tascam is that they've got some big balls (to call that always busy line "customer service").
If anyone from Tascam should be reading this, I have a message for you: the idea behind email is for one party to RESPOND to the other. I will never buy another Tascam/TEAC product - and I suggest you avoid them like the crabs. Although at least with crabs, you have someone to talk to!
Firewire Interface for recording?
