Should I buy an Audio Interface for Recording guitar?

Question

I like to record guitar and make backing tracks to jam to. I have a GT-100 made by Boss that uses a USB for guitar recording. I ran into a youtube video on recording guitar and this guy says the USB 2.0 is just not enough and you should be using somethng different. I also seen a nice video of patches for my pedal and the guy uses an audio interface. I think my guitar sounds good but does anyone have experience in recording and would you recommend an audio interface? What would you suggest? It looks to me like I d have to use a USB from the audio interface anyways, so is there some other type of magic that happens using a audio interface? Would it support a stereo sound? I ask this because I know guitar is mono but this pedal has a left and right out and in the video explaining the patches, he set his left and right into the the audio interface. I ve seen other people use them but now I m curious. Thanks!

Answer 1

In principle there are no technical problems or restrictions with USB2 for audio:



It has a maximum data rate of 400 Megabits or approaching 50 Megabytes per second.

A "CD Quality" stereo audio stream needs just 1.4 Megabits per second.



24 Bit audio at 96K Sample rate need 4.6Mbit



Those are still less than the 12Mbit rating of USB1.1





In other words, you can put multiple, extremely high quality, audio connections through a USB2 interface - as long as it is properly designed and the computer & driver are fast enough.





Looking up that Boss unit, it's 24 bit @ 44.1KHz so a bit better than CD quality in principle.





I actually use a non-usb unit, a Tascam FW-1884 interface / control surface that connects via Firewire.



That's still 400Mbit but firewire is designed for real-time transfer and is active at each point rather than relying on polling from the computer. It's also full duplex.



The FW-1884 supports (for audio) eight in + eight out @ up to 192KHz sample rate and 24 bit - plus four each MIDI in & out and digital audio in/out



And it's got a full "mixing console" style control surface with powered faders.





I use to allow multiple things to be permanently connected, plus for the control surface.



You would not hear any difference on a single instrument between that and your Roland.





A stand-alone unit, starting at a two channel "USB Audio MIDI Interface" such as the ones below, adds flexibility but again I doubt it would change or improve the audio in any way..



http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Focusrite-Scarlett-2i4-USB-Recording-Midi-Audio-Interface-Sound-Card-2in-4Out-/191194971519?hash=item2c841bbd7f:g:NtUAAOSwrklVXyf8



http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tascam-US-2x2-USB-Audio-And-MIDI-Interface-/161982732670?hash=item25b6ec597e:g:4DYAAOSwKtVWxyGu





Not knowing that Roland, the one advantage you may get with dedicated interface of some sort is lower latency - no audible delay in the signal path through the computer & whatever software you are using and back to the speakers.



That can make a drastic difference both to monitoring what you hear and especially when multi-tracking and playing some parts back to record a new track alongside it.



Firewire does also help there; the one I us has a through-loop delay of just 4mS, equivalent to being 4ft further from the speaker.



My setup:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/robertjenkins/25382042530/in/album-72157665146914610/

Answer 2

Wouldn't hurt, Although your GT100 has a pretty good MIDI built in an Interface will be better, Plus it has a few other benefits , The weak link in any home recording is normally your PC's sound card, They're really not designed to be fast enough to handle real time recording, Which is why you see a lot of complaints about latency. An interface takes this out of the equation as it is basically its own sound card in a sense, So now what the PC receives is real time data and doesn't have to process it itself, Thus virtually eliminating all latency, One benefit is that most have a line level out so that all audio will come from another source such as your amp, PA or home entertainment system if you wish, No more wimpy PC speakers for your playback or any other audio. I run mine through a little 500w powered mixer and monitors so that any backing tracks or even just listening to music comes through that. Meaning YouTube can get loud around here, I use a Roland GR-55 which is the GT's big brother and I don't use its built in MIDI in favor of the interface if that tells you anything.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/136615170@N07/25307262593/in/dateposted-friend/

Answer 3

Just use your GT if all you are doing is guitar. But if you need a clean mic preamp for micing things up THEN you SHOULD get an audio interface. I use ones by ProSonus for what it's worth. Also note that if you have a digital out on the GT that you can send that to the audio interface digital in so you don't degrade your signal.

Answer 4

Try an Alesis i02 interface.

You need to monitor the backing track while you play, and just using a guitar in will cause delay that makes it impossible to play.

If you really want to go cheap, do this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8NbPp2EGXA



I recorded this using that method:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5IVsZsOVSg

Answer 5

I use a simple Behringer Guitar Link;

http://media.musiciansfriend.com/is/image/MMGS7/Guitar-Link-UCG102-USB-Interface/241228000000000-00-500x500.jpg

and that is quite sufficient. Of course USB is enough!