MBPro and the FB10

[egold]

Hi guys,
I'm looking into buying my son an audio interface for his mac. He's new into the digital world of creating music. He's been playing drums for a number of years and now is also learning guitar. I've looked at the apple forums and seems a lot use this interface and the M-audio products. He going to be using garage band mostly for now. can he use this piece with garage band and is the interface easy to use. Any other recommendations would be great

Thanks in advance

mac is 2.4 ghtz with 2 gigs of ram

[samuel1]

an fp10 is going to sound **** good to your son if he is entry level, it will work seemlessly with garageband just plug and play, and it will suit him for a while even if he moves on to more advanced recording tasks. It will work great with that mac book pro, especially with just garageband. That was my setup back in the day, it will do him well.

M audio stuff is alright, and some of their stuff has some nice sounding pre's, but really I think none of it compares to the fp10 in quality or value. 8 inputs is plenty for tons of tracking applications.

[egold]

Thanks for your reply,

I was wondering if I was right in how I was reading this. The firebox 6x8 says it has 2 mic/instrument preamps and this fp10 has 8. Does this mean you can only hook up as many instruments or mics as there are preamps or am not understanding all this stuff lol.

Looks like the fp10 is around twice as much but you get 4x the preamps?

Thanks fo your help

[samuel1]

These interfaces have threetypes of inputs really, "line", "mic", and "instrument". Line inputs cannot amplify signal, and therefor can only accept hot signal (like from a keyboard, or any device with a line out). Mic inputs have preamps, and can amplify mic signal. Instrument inputs can amplify cold signal @ high resistance such as direct input from an electric guitar.

The firbox has 4 inputs, two "line" on the back, and two, "mic/instrument" combo inputs which can work with mic or instrument.

For example, you could hook up the left and right channels of a synthesizer, on the line inputs on the back, a drum mic on the first front mic/instrument input, and a direct line from an electric guitar on the second mic/instrument input.

The firepod has two mic/instrument inputs on the front, and six mic/line inputs on the front as well. The input scenarios are virtually endless, but an example would be that your son could mic his kick drum, his snare, have two overhead mics, one mic for his friends guitar amp, an instrument line for his friends bass, and STILL have one left for, anything!

The firepod has higher gain XMAX preamps, and tons of input possibilities compared to the firepod. Later, if he got really into it, you son could even string two firepods together.

I suggest the firepod if your son might play in a band, or expand this hobby in the future.

[egold]

That makes more sense, thanks for explaining it. for dollar values it sounds like thats the way to go.

[samuel1]

enjoy it :)