SeriesPreSonus Audiobox

Usual quality Imac running osX snow leopard 10.6.8 MIDI guitar and piano UTILIZATION Very stable drivers without updates. Latency OK. I use garageband primarily and only with looping. GETTING STARTED With Mac, I connected it, turned it on and that's it. I never had the need of a manual, it's very easy to use. OVERALL OPINION I've used it since 2010 and it's my first soundcard. I don't need much. I use it to record my guitar, listen to music and make some demos here and there. My only regret is that Presonus didn't make this audiobox mountain lion-compatible, so I'm stuck with snow leopard and I'm afraid it will not work correctly If I decide to upgrade. I would definitely buy it again.

The PreSonus AudioBox 44VSL connects to your computer through USB connection. It is a 4in and 4out interface that has 2 preamps built in and MIDI options as well. My band has been using this interface since March and the first thing that I noticed with it is how great the preamps are. I did not expect to get nice and quiet preamps that have a nice warm sound for such an affordable price. Though we do not use this interface for all of our recordings because sometimes we need more ins and outs but when we do use it, it never gives us any troubles. The audio connections are TRS, there are no digital inputs or outputs on the 44VSL. UTILIZATION We have not experienced any latency when recording this interface, it is not 0 latency though because the latency is so low that the naked ear can not hear it. The drivers are very stable, I am running this interface most of the time on a VISTA laptop and I have run it with Cubase and Reason. It has worked great on all interfaces. GETTING STARTED Getting started with the 44VSL is pretty simple, once you get the drivers squared away it is pretty much plug and play. You just need to make sure you fully understand setting up an interface within your DAW software. In Reason it was very quick, it only took a few minutes and we were able to start using it right away. In Cubase it took a little more tweaking to get it to work like it does in Reason. The manual does come with it, it will help you set it up and get it running. OVERALL OPINION This interface is solid, and it is very affordable. I would recommend this to someone who is not recording that many tracks simultaneously and has a small or home studio. The sound quality when recording is top notch!

The Abox Studio PreSonus recording kit is a very basic kit and needs a lot of work. The price of it would be reasonable if it came with a pair of monitors instead of cheap headphones. The interface is built tough and can stand a few drops, its made out of a very metal like material but the pre amps on it are not good at all. The microphone that comes with it is very cheap and will not give you a good sound quality. This kit comes with Studio One software. Now Studio One software has been around for a while and I really don’t have a problem with it , but I wouldn’t suggest you starting on it if you are a newbie. You can get a better package than this with Cubase or Pro Tools and have a great start to your career. This package does have everything you need to start recording right out of the box. It comes with an M7 Microphone that is a Large diaphragm that needs phantom power (from the interface). It comes with the audio cables too, the headphones are HD7 and they are suppose to be “good” but to me they are awful. Do not attempt to mix a song in these headphones. You will get a horrible mix and you wont know its bad until you listen on another source. Overall, this package is very cheap. If you are going to spend 250 dollars on this, you mine as well save another 250 and go a Pro tools package that will give you a great start. Do not waist your time and money with this package. The microphone is very bad and the headphones are too, the interface is half way decent and so is Studio One, but for the price there are way better options out on the market.

The 1818VSL is made by PreSonus Audio Box and is very similar to the 4x4 model that they make. This interface has 18 inputs and 18 outputs making it the ultimate interface to have if you are recording a lot of tracks simultaneously and needing to mic up a bunch of different instruments or drums so you don’t need to switch out cables as you would with a smaller interface that does not have as many ins and outs. The preamps on this model are very quiet and warm. It does come with Virtual StudioLive software for free, this software is not the best software but if you don’t already have a DAW then it will work great for you. UTILIZATION A cool feature about the 1818VSL is that you can control everything remotely from your iPad. There is an app that they make that you can download and it will work great with the 1818VSL. It will allow you to control all of your parameters like EQ and panning. GETTING STARTED I have used this interface multiple times since October of last year, each time we use it I know that we are going to get great sounding recordings easily. It is very easy to set up, much like all of the other PreSonus interfaces are. The 1818VSL has 10 digital inputs and 10 digital outputs. The audio outputs are all TRS and inputs are XLR and TRS. OVERALL OPINION This unit can be racked and being that it has so many inputs you will not have to get behind it to swap out cables. So once it is racked up then you are good to go from the first time you start hooking up your gear. It has MIDI in MIDI out and MIDI thru. The price of the 1818VSL is around 400 dollars now which is a great price for all of these inputs and solid preamps. It does not have any effects on it though, which would be a huge bonus if it did.