Upgrade to New Rig

[caruso7r]

Trying to decide how to upgrade for tracking purposes. I heard about the Mackie onyx 1640i and it sounds pretty nice with 16 preamps and eq before hitting PT. Can anyone confirm this. Any other suggestions as far as a simple setup like good preamps, eq's, then going into PT. I'm comin from the old school of recording where I always used eq to record onto tape so I would have a better signal to noise ratio. Even today though I still like to do that as much as I can so I'm looking for a solution short of going HD and without spending more than 3k if possible. Thank you in advance!!!

[The Dougfather]

If you purchased an 003 then you could add any type of preamp/converter you want as long as it has ADAT connectivity. Theres loads to choose from depending on your budget, focusrite, presonus, rme, avalon....the list goes on.

As far as the mackie goes your going to be wasting money for pro tools, Pro Tools requires digi hardware so the firewire element of the mackie cannot be used. It's designed to be a standalone interface for use with something like logic, cubase etc. The unit also doesn't have ADAT.

You'd be better off just using an analogue mixer and sending the outputs to the pre's/converters of the 003 or an ADAT set of pre's converters.

[caruso7r]

Originally Posted by The Dougfather

If you purchased an 003 then you could add any type of preamp/converter you want as long as it has ADAT connectivity. Theres loads to choose from depending on your budget, focusrite, presonus, rme, avalon....the list goes on.

As far as the mackie goes your going to be wasting money for pro tools, Pro Tools requires digi hardware so the firewire element of the mackie cannot be used. It's designed to be a standalone interface for use with something like logic, cubase etc. The unit also doesn't have ADAT.

You'd be better off just using an analogue mixer and sending the outputs to the pre's/converters of the 003 or an ADAT set of pre's converters.

First of all thanks for answering. The reason for mentioning the mackie was that I have read it can be used as a M-audio firewire 2626 which is digi approved and/or you get a universal driver for it which will work for M-powered. Thats what I've been reading about but I wanted someone who actually has one to confirm this so this would replace any digi hardware.