M-Audio Firewire (Solo, Audiofile or 410) - Please help me..

Archived from groups: alt.guitar,alt.music.home-studio,rec.audio.pro,uk.music.guitar (More info?)

"Paul" <f1fteen@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news AZod.21$38.2@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> Hi all,
>
> I am a beginner looking to take my first steps into home recording.
>
> I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop (Intel Pentium Centrino 1.7GHz, 512 MB
> RAM, USB2.0, Firewire).
>
> I have done some research on Audio interfaces and have come up with the
> following that seem suitable.
>
> M-Audio Firewire Solo (£139.99)
> http://www.turnkey.co.uk/tkweb/stockdetail.jsp?sku=MMAN...
>
> M-Audio Firewire Audiofile (£165.99)
> http://www.turnkey.co.uk/tkweb/stockdetail.jsp?sku=MMAN...
>
> M-Audio Firewire 410 (£258.99)
> http://www.turnkey.co.uk/tkweb/stockdetail.jsp?sku=MMAN...
>
> Can anyone help me make my final choice?
>
> I don't want to spend more than I need to at this stage.
> I am happy to settle for 1 or 2 inputs.
> I would like to monitor the input before it reaches laptop.
>
> Should I be looking at an audio interface with midi keyboard built in? ie.
> is a midi keyboard something I will end up buying to feed into the audio
> interface at some point anyway (when I get going)?
>
> Thanks for any help offered.
>
> Paul.

Do you need the XLR inputs and phantom power for microphones? That's one
of the big differences in features and price. Also, the Solo does not have
MIDI ports.

I see that the Solo has one XLR with phantom, but for WIndows, *requires*
XP SP2.
"Pentium III - 500 MHz
128 MB RAM
Windows XP (SP2) with DirectX 9.0c
Onboard FireWire connection or installed IEEE1394 PCI card

"The FireWire Solo is not supported under Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows
Me or Windows 2000."


The 410 drivers (the ones I have, anyway) don't work properly under XP SP2.
After installing SP2, I had to roll back to SP1 and use a utility to block
the auto-install of SP2.
"Pentium III 500 MHz w/ 128MB RAM
Windows 2000 (SP4) / XP (SP1)
DirectX 8.1 or higher
6-pin FireWire port or adapter"

HTH
-pk