The Saffire actually improves and expands my capabilities in a number of ways. First off, it's loaded with 8 preamps instead of 4, including 2 of the now infamous "Liquid" preamps. The 6 "stock" preamps seem to be a step up from the Digi002. Despite the fact that the Liquid preamps offer a lot less bells and whistles than the original Liquid Channel (no eq or compression, and only 10 mic models instead of 40+), the sound quality is definitely still on par with the original.
The Saffire also adds word clock for better digital connectivity, on board meters, an array of monitoring improvements, and additional inputs and outputs. The monitoring improvements in particular are a huge step up from the Digi 002. With 2 headphones out, and dim & mute buttons for the monitors, it's already an improvement, but throw in the monitoring software and you really have some nice improvements. Setting up latency free headphone mixes, multiple headphone mixes, and routing any of the inputs to any of the outputs between the hardware and the Pro Tools software is a breeze and makes it a much more enjoyable experience to track. I'm really just scratching the surface so far on what it will do, but it's clear that this is a great step forward from my previous setup. My only gripe - if you are going to include great monitoring and routing options, I don't know why you wouldn't include some DSP powered effects for use in the headphone mixes. Oh well, perhaps in a future upgrade.
I have also recently added some new microphones to my studio, and now have the capability to mic up a full drum kit using modern methods, as opposed to being limited to the classic 3 & 4 mic methods. I hope to be putting my new mics and preamps to work very soon, tracking some drums for my album project.
0 comments:
Post a Comment