Brief Summary

It’s often a lack of a particular feature which compels us to move on from our current interface. If you buy with an eye to the future you might find you can get significantly longer service out of your interface.

Going Deeper

If you’re buying an interface, assuming it isn’t your first interface, why are you getting a new one? Is there something wrong with the old one which has forced a change? Unless its broken, your needs must have changed in a way which your old interface can’t accommodate. While rationalising your equipment and starting again can often be a sensible move, being forced into it because of a deal breaking shortcoming in your current interface wastes both time, money and resources.

In this article we look at the things which really matter when it comes to interface features. Things which, if they are right, make it more likely that your interface will give you years of good service.

Firstly I’ll reference my personal approach to buying gear: Buy well and buy once. I try to buy gear which will serve me for the foreseeable future. The few purchases I’ve made in haste, before having both a clear idea of what I want and the funds to buy something I can’t see myself outgrowing in a few years, I have regretted and lost money on. As we’re talking about interfaces, here’s a potted history of some of my significant interfaces:

Digidesign 001 - Loved this, my first ‘proper’ interface. I was a PC user in those days and I had to replace it when the PCI voltage changed on motherboards (it was a card system). I managed to trade it in for a 003R. Just as well as the monitor volume pot was terribly crackly by then.

Digidesign 003 Rack - I held on to this for years, similar crackly monitor pot issues. A lack of firewire on a computer upgrade finally encouraged me to retire it, though it had been superseded by an Apollo Twin which I used in parallel with it most of the time.

Universal Audio Apollo Twin Duo - I still have this but don’t use it anymore. UADx means I can access the plugins without needing the DSP, of which there wasn’t enough, and while I used to use to for content creation, loopback isn’t intuitive to set up in Console.

Focusrite Red4 Pre - my ‘daily driver’. Flexible and powerful. I don’t really ‘need’ it anymore as I have a Carbon and an MBOX Studio but it’s so useful I’m reluctant to part with it

Taking these examples as a very unscientific sample, a few things jump out at me. Firstly potentiometers are fragile! I’m so glad that premium interfaces have volume controllers rather than pots which pass audio.

Functionality is important, UA’s Console application is a very capable piece of software, but I’ve always found it less intuitive than others I’ve tried. However the thing which kills an interface off completely is a lack of support. The 001 was an interesting one because a hardware spec change made it unusable on newer computers. The decision by Apple to drop Firewire was similar, and affected my 003 but adapters exist, but there was no way around the PCI voltage change on the 001.

You might say that the data connection on your interface represents a built in obsolescence. Firewire was removed at a stroke by Apple. The same could happen to whatever connection your potential new interface carries. This is true but I don’t think that this is something which is likely to happen in the foreseeable future (which in the case of computers is admittedly not that long…). USB isn’t going anywhere. The connection will change with future iterations of USB but I can’t see USB losing its retrospective compatibility. Thunderbolt and PCI are inextricably linked and again, while new versions will arrive, I wouldn’t envisage anything which an adapter couldn’t fix. If you really want to future-proof your connection then buy a Pro Tools Carbon. It uses an Ethernet connection, which must be the most future-proofed of any data connection, and it uses AVB which is an IEEE standard, unlike Dante which is proprietary and belongs to Audinate.

There is the possibility that the change from Intel to Apple Silicon might have made it impossible for some Mac users to keep using their interfaces. If a USB interface is class compliant it should be fine but share your experience if this has affected you. However hardware changes like this are far less common than software changes which affect compatibility. This introduces the first of our things which really matter when it comes to interfaces:

Drivers

An audio interface is a computer peripheral. It doesn’t serve any purpose if it can’t connect to a computer. The quality of the driver which facilitates this is central to the performance of an audio interface and is something which absolutely affects the buying decisions of many people. RME enjoy an excellent reputation in this regard and are the only example of a manufacturer I can think of who are as well known for their drivers as they are for their hardware. Just as relevant is longevity of support. If a company continues to support products that made many years ago, it is reasonable to infer that they will support the current hardware for a comparably long time. Lots of companies have very commendable records in this regard but one which qualifies for a special mention has to be Metric Halo, who have an impeccable record on longevity of support and even offer hardware upgrades to bring legacy equipment up to current specs.

Expansion

There was a time when the deciding factor in many people’s interface purchasing decisions was the number of inputs and outputs. In the case of people wanting to record bands the number of inputs was particularly relevant. This is no longer as important as it once was. We’ve had the ability to expand the I/O of interfaces via ADAT for years. This is seen by some as something of a downmarket solution to expansion needs (personally I don’t think that’s fair) but the additional cost ADAT ports add to an interface is very little, something which can’t be said for more modern alternatives like Dante. ADAT is useful and works well, though adds only 8 inputs per connection at 44.1/48KHz and half that at 88.2/96KHz.

Expansion potential is an important factor in future-proofing your interface. Just because you might need more I/O at some point, it doesn’t follow that you have to get it all on day 1. Just consider how you might be able to add it later. ADAT can work but MADI offers a more professional way to add 64 channels and if you want truly flexible expansion then consider Dante or an alternative AoIP solution. There are manufacturer-specific ways to expand your system too. For example the aforementioned Metric Halo have MH Link, their proprietary expansion format which allows the linking of Metric Halo units using Ethernet cables.

Wordclock

Something I’m always happy to see on the back of gear is a proper BNC Word Clock connection. All digital connections have share a common clock reference. This can be done over ADAT but as systems grow this can become inconvenient and sometimes forces decisions you wouldn’t necessarily choose. An example from the days when I had a Digi 001 and Pro Tools LE comes to mind. I was tracking a band and the keyboard player had an Alesis keyboard which unusually had both an ADAT output and a word clock in on a BNC connector. I was recording 8 tracks which were from group outputs on an analogue mixer but It occurred to me that I could use the ADAT ports on my Digi 001 PCI card to capture the keys to their own track. This worked but because the 001 didn’t have word clock connections I had to use the keyboard as a master clock and clock Pro Tools to the keyboard. This didn’t affect my recording but if you have too many pieces of gear which have to be clocked via ADAT or s/pdif your clocking can get complicated. An interface with word clock in and out ensures flexibility as your system grows.

DSP

In spite of computers getting more and more powerful, DSP seems as relevant today as ever. Last year we published a round up of current interfaces which feature DSP including some brand new models. However it’s important to be clear about exactly what the DSP does as there are two distinctly different flavours.

All DSP is there to help with the frustrating latency which is an inevitable side effect of native processing. Interfaces like the Pro Tools Carbon, interfaces from the Antelope range, UAD Apollos and some interfaces from Apogee all feature DSP which performs real-time plugin processing. This can be indispensable for tracking, for example tracking guitars through an amp sim or vocals through EQ and compression.

The other variety of DSP processing involves the use of a DSP mixer to handle routing, and often some utility processing like EQ and reverb. For example RME, MOTU and Focusrite all make products which fall into this category. It’s important understand which variety you are looking at but both are extremely useful, particularly DSP mixers which are often the problem solvers you need when you are presented with a curveball.

Preamps With Adequate Gain

The precise figures for exactly how much gain the mic preamps on your interface provide are often hard to find but take the time to find them. The popularity of Cloud Lifters illustrate perfectly the fact that many interfaces offer maybe 55dB of gain, plenty for a close miked vocal with a sensitive condenser mic but try using an insensitive mic like a Shure SM7B and you’ll quickly find out why some interfaces offer 70+dB of gain.

It is frustrating and inconvenient to use a preamp with less gain than is necessary for the mic you’re using and while you might only use condensers and the occasional dynamic on drums or guitar amps, are you sure you won’t ever want to record an acoustic guitar with a ribbon mic?

Monitor Control Features

Your needs may change over time and one benefit which you might find more useful in the coming years than you do on day one of ownership is good monitor control facilities. You can expand the IO of a suitably equipped interface at a later date but additional outputs are likely to be fixed level outputs and not suitable for connecting additional monitors without adding a monitor controller. Being able to gang outputs to the monitor level knob for surround or immersive monitoring is very useful, as it the ability to switch between and control the level of multiple pairs of monitors. If your studio is large enough to track bands then talkback facilities become useful and being able to incorporate playback from a client’s phone is too frequent a request not to at least consider how you might provide it. One of my favourite features of the MBOX Studio is its provision of both Bluetooth in and out. I didn’t expect to find it as useful as I did!

Loopback

More and more people create content online these days and if you don’t have simple and effective loopback you can be making life hard for yourself. There are tools like Rogue Amoeba’s Loopback software which can do the job but for me hardware-based loopback is non-negotiable. If you’re unclear what loopback is, it’s the facility to route the output of a piece of software back into a DAW or other piece of software. Most typically this will be the system sound from Core Audio on a Mac or its equivalent on a PC so you you can route it into a DAW, or the reverse - routing the output from a DAW into Zoom, or screen capture software, or anything else you wish to route to. Loopback can get far more complicated that this but if your potential interface doesn’t provide it then think carefully about whether you’ll ever need it.

Things Which Make A Difference To Longevity

Some might worry about things like preamp character, conversion quality or clocking stability. I won’t go as far as to say these aren’t important but I will share my opinion that in 2023 if you are buying a quality product from a reputable manufacturer then good audio performance is a given. There are differences between devices but you’re not going to have a client stop a session because Brand X’s converters might be marginally better. If however you can’t mic up the congas because you’re out of inputs then the client will notice. Whether or not the recording will be improved by the inclusion of congas is a different debate but…

Thinking about these things, and any others which you think are missing which are essential for what you do in advance could be the difference between your next interface being a transitory purchase or a long term relationship. Buying good quality and keeping it for as long as technology allows makes more than just economic sense, it’s the responsible thing to do from an environmental point of view too. The recycling of e-waste isn’t a story which usually has a particularly happy ending.

Nothing lasts for ever and using a word like ‘futureproof’ in the title is admittedly optimistic of me. Your interface will eventually reach its expiry date but unlike our computers, whose longevity I recently likened to dairy goods, with luck a well chosen interface can stick around for a long time.

Do you have an interface which has met your needs for a long time? What is it and why has it worked out for you?