Re: comparison Fireface400 vs. Fireface800

[Luca Formentini <luca@unguitar.com>]

Hi Rainer,
yes, I decided to go with the Rme solution for my playing rig ( FF400) 
while I am using the FF800 for the recording studio.

Everything in your summary seems perfect.
I have been one of those who have been pushing Rme to develop the 
standalone thing.
Once they did it I have been insisting in favour of a usable Midi 
control of Totalmix, in fact at the beginning they came out with a very 
un-usable midi mixer because it was using the mapping of the Mackie Hui 
so that it was impossible to think to use it live for the lack of direct 
controls: Mackie Hui protocol was requiring to scroll through many 
"pages" to have all the controls at hand, it was not possible to 
"assign" the parameters you were needing to the physical controller you 
wanted.
I remember Matthias Carsten saying that this would have been a thing 
that just a few users had enjoyed... I told them that if they developed 
it in the right way they could see in the Fireface another use: first 
rackmountable mixer/splitter/router with both analog and digital 
capabilities.

Rme are not cheap but I think that if you have to play live in serious 
situations you have to reduce sw problems at the minimum level ( and you 
know that this minimum level is still potentially risky).

I think that choosing which one of the two is a matter of making a clear 
draw about how many ins/outs you need.
Both the Firefaces use the same driver and these are updated quite 
frequently.
Latest drivers are not released to fix problems ( because there are not 
since a few releases), they just add new possibilities.

If I had the room I would probably go for a FF800 in my playing rig, the 
ins/outs are slightly more and are more accessible ( in the FF400 the 
input 1 and 2 are just on the front as well as outputs 7/8 ( on 
minijack) and I find it inconvienent.
FF800 has 8 ins and outs in the back panel, inputs 1,7 and 8 are 
replicated on the front panel with preamps and ins/outs 9 and 10 are 
just on the fron panel.
Plus the FF800 has two couples of adat ins/outs and these are useful as 
I am trying to keep all I can in digital domain.
Plus, it would be nice to go 5.1 or at least quad when possible...

my best,
luca
www.unguitar.com


Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill wrote:

>A lot of people here seem to be using the Fireface400 or Fireface800, and 
>some of them are using even both (Hi Luca), so I'd like to do a 
>comparison of both and ask whether I missed anything here:
>
>Since some people need more than the 2 micpres supplied by the 
>Fireface400, I also considered a variant with a Quadmic.
>
>So here we go:
>
>                       Fireface 800            Fireface 400            
>FF400+Quadmic
>Price(Street)  €1219                         €879                     
>     €1254
>Form factor            fullrack                        halfrack           
>             fullrack
>
>I/O
>In: Micpre             4                               2                  
>             6
>In: total              10                              8                  
>             8
>Out: total             10                              8                  
>             8
>digi I/O               16                              8                  
>             8
>
>MIDI I/O               1                               2                  
>             2
>
>Standalone mixer                                       *                  
>             *
>LineIn limiter *
>
>
>Summarizing: both interfaces seem to be lacking for applications which 
>require lots of microphones - for a singing drummer e.g., both the FF400 
>and the FF800 don't offer enough micpres. There is the option of 
>extending the interfaces with similar-quality micpres using the quadmic 
>or octamic pres by RME, at a price - the combo of FF400 and Quadmic 
>(which gives you 6 pres, prolly enough for most solo applications) is 
>even more expensive than the FF800.
>
>There are a few small details which might be of interest to some users. 
>The FF400's standalone mixer functionality is great if your computer 
>crashes mid-performance. On the other hand, the FF800's limiter saves you 
>yet another device (and thus rack real estate), especially when going 
>into the interface with transient-prone instruments (e.g. bass guitar). 
>Sadly, it's not available for the mic ins. And again, the additional pair 
>of MIDI I/O of the FF400 might also save you another device in the setup. 
>Worth mentioning (but I guess not for our typical applications) is the 
>additional pair of ADAT I/O on the FF800.
>
>
>
>Did I miss something here?
>
>       Rainer
>
>
>
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