Anybody in the know with USB audio interfaces?

Tephnos · 24 Apr 2012 at 16:24

Hey guys,

Wanted a nice little USB audio interface to do some light home recording type stuff with. A ton of research later brought me to two options: Roland Quad-Capture and the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6.

Problem is, I have no idea which one to go for. Both are rock solid and people who have owned either have loved the **** out of them. Both do slightly different things, too.

Problem is they're also both the exact same price, so I'm kinda stuck on which one is the 'best'. Can anyone give any input?

Brycheiniog · 24 Apr 2012 at 21:12

I have a QUAD-Capture at work and have no serious issues with it at all.. I would love it if the output level was controllable via the GUI rather than just with the knob on the unit, but this is probably not relevant for what you want to do

Jonathan

Tephnos · 25 Apr 2012 at 00:40

Brycheiniog said:
I have a QUAD-Capture at work and have no serious issues with it at all.. I would love it if the output level was controllable via the GUI rather than just with the knob on the unit, but this is probably not relevant for what you want to do

Jonathan

Thanks.

So far I've had a ton of people recommend the KA6, but they've never used the quad capture, so it's still a hard comparison.

I heard the preamps in the Roland are really really good, but don't know if they're as good or better than the KA6's.

m3csl2004 · 25 Apr 2012 at 14:27

Google the name of your OS along with the name of the product, see if you hit anybody with compatibility problems.

Do you need pre-amps? edit: <<< Ignore this

Tephnos · 25 Apr 2012 at 16:33

m3csl2004 said:
Google the name of your OS along with the name of the product, see if you hit anybody with compatibility problems.

Do you need pre-amps? edit: <<< Ignore this

Both seem to run great on Win 7 64bit, so that's a non issue too.

And haha yeah, preamps are a must.

Tephnos · 26 Apr 2012 at 00:43

Brycheiniog said:
I have a QUAD-Capture at work and have no serious issues with it at all.. I would love it if the output level was controllable via the GUI rather than just with the knob on the unit, but this is probably not relevant for what you want to do

Jonathan

Oh, can I ask you to check something? Seen this review on amazon:

Bought from Amazon with their usual good service and the recording quality at normal levels is excellent. However i conducted some tests with nothing plugged into the unit and found the following:- if you turn the gain up past 3 oclock the amps are very noisy. Also if you switch the Hi-Z switch to the "on" position and increase the gain past 1 oclock there is a low level buzz that quickly gets worse as you increase the gain. The unit also became microphonic at this setting. I have returned the unit to Amazon for a refund. I normally rate Roland products very highly and was very dissapointed with the Quad Capture.

Can you see if this happens with you too?