For Xone users

[botstein]

I'm looking at some of Allen&Heath's offerings, and am wondering about the integral sound card / processing in the DB4 and other models that include one. Do those of you who own these mixers use any other audio interface?

I think I will probably pick up another interface from Apogee or PreSonus for recording purposes, but for performance, I would love to use a mixer/interface/preamp all-in-one.

[Xonetacular]

DB4 soundcard is pretty solid , using an apogee or similar for recording DJ mixes seems pretty excessive as does using any other sound card. If you use another sound card from routing audio in to the db4 it is more unnecessary analog to digital conversions.

You would probably be better off recording straight through the DB4 anyway instead of going through a fancier sound card which seems pointless. The sound is probably not going to get any better than recording it through the DB4- I mean maybe if you went from the digital record out into a digital soundcard input but I still doubt there would be any difference.

edit: Unless I misread your post and picking up another interface for recording was unrelated to the mixer and you meant for your studio

[botstein]

Thanks for the info! That was exactly what I was hoping for.

I'm sorry if I was vague. I'll be using the Apogee card for unrelated studio purposes like you wrote in your edit - using a DB4 to record a vocalist into Pro Tools or whatever just seems wrong. It's good to know that the DB4's card is solid for performance.

[Xonetacular]

Yeah I wouldn't try using a DB4 as my main studio soundcard but as far as anything goes for DJing or performance you won't beat it.

[mix architekt]

tracking the DB4 through an apogee ensemble sounds much better than off the DB4 directly. i prefer tracking via db4 main xlr output through a radial JDI duplex into the apogee's pre's rather than doing the spdif output. or from the record output of the DB4 rammed through the xone V6 preamp into the JDI then the apogee again. noise floor isn't an issue for me. i like some hiss rather than the infinite digital black.

that said, running the DB4 as an effects processor for production purposes via an apogee ensemble is wonderful, especially when using spdif as the send/return... great reverb processing that absolutely destroys any plugin for that matter. the DB4 is an incredible tool to play for effects when producing... matrix a send across 4 channels and have a emt250 as a main reverb on 1, then use a plate that you bring up on the 2 & 4 of each measure... hands on is the way to handle it.