Need Sound Card Recommendation

[HRose]

Need your pro audio recommendation for an external sound card. I’m running ProTools Studio on a new MacBook Pro with M1 chip. Sound out is not as good as old MacBook Pro. Using for live performance backing track into Yamaha mixer via USB and QSC powered speakers. All good quality stuff. Musical style is American Songbook, so orchestration matters.

[Darryl Ramm]

What exact Yamaha mixer? Confirm exactly how it is connected to the Mac.

If you are connecting to the mixer via USB as you seem to state then it is your audio interface (aka "sound card"), and swapping to a different Mac will not by itself affect sound quality, so you must be doing something else wrong.

And if that is a digital mixer and you added a separate interface or DAC you would then have to run the analog output back into the mixer which is just going to digitize it again.

[originalscottyg]

If the Yamaha has a Dante option, then Dante Virtual Soundcard on the Mac into the Dante card on the Yamaha would be a good solution that would keep everything digital.

[albee1952]

And, how many IO do you need? How many headphone mixes? What do the QSC speakers have to do with this setup for recording(or are you using them as your studio speakers)?

[HRose]

Thank you so much for the replies. This is a live sound issue. Not recording. Using USB out to a Scarlet 2i2. Then audio cables out to a Yamaha MG10XU. Then cables out to my QSC speakers. So far, this gives the best results. Also tried USB out directly to Yamaha MG10XU and cables to speakers. Sound is not as lively. A little compression seems to help. Any advice to improve quality of live sound is much appreciated. Running ProTools Studio on new MacBook Pro with M1 chip. Thank You!

[HRose]

I posted a quick reply earlier, but don’t see it showing up. I’m new to this forum, so maybe I didn't hit the right link.

This is for live sound, not recording. Your comments were very helpful. Thank you. I’m now using ProTools Studio on MacBook Pro USB out to Focusrite 2i2. Then audio cables to Yamaha MG10XU. Then audio cables to QSC powered speakers set to Live Sound. Using full AIFF source files. The sound is good now. Sounds like my arrangements do in the studio. I think the issue was the digital to audio conversion.

Again, thank you so much for your help!