About to buy my first interface for my laptops (OS X and WIN) long overdue

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freestylesanch

New member
Hey guys whats up?? Just chillin. As the thread post says I'm finally going to do this. I'm long overdue but it has to be done. My budget is about $175-$200 so with that in Mind I already had three choices I was leaning towards. That stein berg UR 22, scarlet 2i2 and the mackie blackjack onyx one. Other then the Steinberg having midi ports I dont know if theres any difference between the three in sound quality, etc etc. i know the stein berg is now $149.99 and it looks like they have those Scarletts for around the Same Price too. Just wondering what really is the "One" to get now days. I've heard alot about that Scarlett and it seems to still be a good choice, although that steinberg does have the midi ports that I can def make use of. Other than that I'm wondering if the sound quality is pretty much the same between the two. I also might start doing some guitar recordings as I got a behringer gmx 2X12 amp which has all the outs on it that I need so I should be able to run it into one of these interfaces I can grab. So with that also in mind whichever one can handle guitar playing decent is a plus, but it will be used mainly for like rap/pop/house/rnb vocals and the typical midi sequencing stuff. So with that in mind I'm not sure where to go. The Sternberg does have the Midi port/s but if the scarlett is that much "Better" I'll prob opt for that one. Also I will be using it with OS X 10.10 yosemite so its def gotta work with that. As it comes down to it and with out doing a whole lo of research I'm looking into one of these two are a third option which is that Mackie one. I think its called the Mackie Onyx Blackjack or something to that effect. So between those three anybody have any good advice on which one to get?? I'm thinking its going to be one of those three and more importantly I want to get whichever one does sound the best for vocals least,latency etc etc. Whichever the best pretty much all around. Like the stinberg has the extra midi ports so I think thats about it for extra that it has compared to the others. The mackie I think is pretty basic and the scarlett as well. Also I like to hear what I'm recording or monitoring through my monitors in real time so which ever one can support that, as Im sure they all 3 should be able to. Like in Ableon where they have the monitoring options in,auto, and off and if its on auto I can hear i through the monitors in real time. Like I said i think these 3 interfaces should offer that. Any suggestions or direction on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks
 
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There will be no discernible sound quality differences between these three units - they're all ok. However, on the driver software front things are a bit different...Focusrite is usually the quickest to react to this stuff, and they've already fixed their stuff, so it works with El Capitan as well (so 10.10 ain't a thang). Steinberg have issued a statement that El Cap is still problematic. And Mackie...oh well, they just dick around. I'm not really sure if they have drivers for their current stuff, as they seem to have "upgraded" to a shiny new support platform, which is a complete mess. So if you want to buy something right now, I'd probably go with the Focusrite or Steinberg (which should work in Yosemite just fine).
 
Cool Man. Thats about what I was thinking. I could have sworn I seen the scarlet for $99. I think Ebay.
I do like the 2 midi ports the Sternberg comes with, but I'm sure if I needed midi I could always get one of those midi patch bays or whatever they call it. I'm thinking scarlet if I can get it for that $99, but if I get it for around the $149.99 they both go for on musicians
friend I might end up doing the Sternberg just cause for the price they seem the same but the extra post is nice, although scarlet seems really good from what i hear. I'm on Yosemite so I'm good. I cant upgrade to El Capitan because Im triple booting and the only
way to do that is merge all my partitions as one, which in the past I've did, but it usually messes up the windows partition,
but the linux partition of some reason always stays fine. So Yosemite for now. Thanks for letting me know whats up on this.
 
krushing said:
The $99 one might be the Scarlett Solo. They look very similar at first glance...
Click to expand...

I think your right. I might go for that Steinberg. Something with having those midi ports, and they say it seems to feel a little better then the scarlett. Like its got an all metal chassis and the scarlett feels more plastic. It still seems
like the scarlett is more popular but it wouldn't hurt to tto do my homework and see what up,but since there the same price pretty much and seem to have the same features, but you do get midi port with the stein berg, I may opt for that one just for that reason. lol!!
 
krushing said:
The $99 one might be the Scarlett Solo. They look very similar at first glance...
Click to expand...


Hey bro I know this thread is over a week old, but I have one more choice to round it off with. What about the
Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6? It has the midi port and I think it has 2 extra in/outs for like $50 more. If the sound on this is pretty comparable to the scarlet and the steinberg ur22 I might get this. At the moment its the Steinberg, but if this
was similar then maybe I'd get this one. Just wondering how good they are with there driver updates?
 
I've no experience it, people seem to like it from what I've heard BUT...there seem to be no drivers beyond OSX 10.8 & a quick googling reveals a bunch of problems (as in "it's not working") with Yosemite & El Cap.
 
krushing said:
I've no experience it, people seem to like it from what I've heard BUT...there seem to be no drivers beyond OSX 10.8 & a quick googling reveals a bunch of problems (as in "it's not working") with Yosemite & El Cap.
Click to expand...

Hey thanks for the quick reply. I'm on Yosemite, and prob for awhile since I triple boot and dont feel like doing all that
over again to get El-Cap so I can re triple boot, so I'm thinking since the Sternberg UR22 works in Yosemite I'll prob give that one a go. Thanks for letting me know whats up.
 
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