HD|Native I/O Suggestions?

[1rons]

I like the idea of the Omni interface, but I need more mic pres. Any suggestions about what to buy to get (at least) 8 mic pres, monitoring control, etc. in/out of the Native PCI card?

[nst7]

If you want to use the HD Native card with non Avid interfaces, your choices will be very limited, and those choices will mainly be converters only. A few that come to mind are Apogee Symphony IO, AD16x, and Rosetta series, or the Lynx Aurora, or the Mytek 8 x 192. Basically these are some of the few converters that have adapters to hook up to any kind of HD card. You would then need to get your preamps separately.

You might do better to get the HD I/O, and then something like the Focusrite ISA 828 (for 8 preamps) and the Dangerous Dbox for monitoring.

Keep in mind that you could also add some stuff to the Omni. You have the 2 built in preamps, and you could get 2 more for the other 2 analog ins. Then you could get a 4 channel preamp with a/d conversion to go into the adat in. A couple of examples would be the Focusrite 428 with a/d card option, or the Universal Audio 4-710d (with built in a/d conversion).

It might be cheaper to do that, and use the monitoring control of the Omni, then to do the first suggestion with the HD IO and buying everything separately.

[ronstephens]

Thanks. That's just the kind of info I need.

With my 002r I can connect 8 mic pres via analog, and 8 more via ADAT LightPipe (plus 2 more via SPDF). I don't know if the step up in quality re. HD|Native is worth the step backwards to 12 input max with an 8x8x8. If Digi (excuse me - Avid)had just put 8 analog ins, instead of 4, on the OMNI, I'd be all set.