Best Audio/Interface Interface for Mainstage 2/Logic Pro 9

I am certainly not trying to sell anything. But here's a couple of reasons I ditched DUET in favour of Babyface.

1. Great Drivers... Really fast drivers

2. Totalmix FX... Amazing routing possibilities.

3. ADAT I/O (also optical SPDIF)

4. Great sounding pres

5. Midi (not a deal breaker really, but handy)

6. Digicheck metering suite.. This is essential in a broadcast/post environment.

Did I mention the great drivers? Running at 32 samples on a Macbook Pro... Way quicker than Firewire at 32 samples, as it doesn't have to deal with Core Audios I/O buffer. RME have nailed USB and it's really fast.

I'm sure DUET 2 is going to be really good.. I've no doubt about that, but there are a few other things I required out of a portable interface.

Regards,

Matt

Well I got to the music shop here in my local city (UK) still no signs of the Duet 2 or when they will get them in, but guess what, they just got a new order if RME Bayface's in, and one was staring me in the face behind the counter, it was calling to me, saying... "buy me"... "but me".... ....so I did LOL

I will let you know what I think of it once I take it out of the box and set it all up.

Back 🙂

Well, after setting up the New RME Babyface, updating its drivers and firmware, I can honestly say that I am blown away. Absolutely stunning.

In features and sound quality, playback and recording, it totally wastes my old Apogee Duet, don't know how it compares to the new Apogee Duet 2, but I really don't care now, this thing is stunning!!!

Only one issue I had, when I first installed the drivers that came with it, it Kernel Paniced my iMac 27" i7, and had to shut the iMac down, but seems fine after that, and no issues since updating its drivers and firmware.

Tried it in Ableton LIVE 8, Garageband, both playback and recording live guitar (which is awesome again), I can't try vocal recording as I don't have a condenser mic yet, but I'm sure it will be perfect also.

Thanks to all for pointing me in the direction of the RME Babyface. I'm now an RME fanboy.

EDIT: Oh, and it seems to drive my KRK RP6s better also. XLR to XLR balanced. Louder, clearer and more bass. Strange, but true.

Babyface:Duet2

I bought an RME Babyface in January. I used it for mobile recording and as DA for monitors. It's definitely a good piece of hardware, especially for the price.

However, there is a problem with most reviews: of course the RME Babyface sounds "good", but something like "good"/"bad" is highly subjective. I work in classical music, and there we need the "most realistic" sound as possible. That's the top priority, it must sound like the original instruments. When I read somewhere about "warm" or "musical" sounding equipment, that usually means "coloured" = bad equipment. BTW, not only "warm" sound means coloured; if an interface sounds "clear", well actually "clearer" than reality, it still means: coloured sound. The most expensive equipment sounds all the same = neutral. Now the Babyface sounds quite neutral – there is some punching/booming bass, but nothing one couldn't correct with the EQ (maybe this is why an EQ is included in the Babyface?). Babyface's ability to tinker around with tone control settings is great if you have midclass microphones/monitors, as you can try to make them sound "better" or try to compensate for some cheaper equipment in your rig. The drivers for Babyface are ok, the software is a bit ugly (looks like Windows 95), but it does its job and has lots of features (for me a bit clunky to use. Feels a bit "windowsian").

When I upgraded to OS X Lion, Babyface stopped working properly; no big deal, sometimes it took some time until it would start the software, etc. When I checked RME about this, they said they will of course provide an update but "IT'S NOT TOP PRIORITY ON OUR LIST" (and: it's summer vacation time now). In their forum they wrote some more, like no professional would ever update his working system OS on launch day, so the ones who did are just unprofessional (=it's your own fault you upgraded...). Of course they are right about professionals, and yes, I always had my older machine as backup, still: frustrating. Especially as the Babyface is marketed as a consumer/prosumer product. Some sound engineer friends told me it was the same back when Snow Leopard came, it took RME ages to come up with an update and then they were just blaming evil Apple for all errors.

Two weeks ago, just out of interest, I bought an Apogee Duet 2. Now I have both, Babyface and Duet 2, and done some AB testing. To make it short: Duet 2 has a bit better stereo imaging than the RME, definition seems to be about the same with both machines. No huge differences sound wise for recording; mic placement, mic quality or just input gain still have a much higher influence over the sound you get than the use of one or the other interface. However, the Duet2 sounds a bit more realistic/neutral. Of course, that means with cheap monitors/mics it will sound less impressive than Babyface, but if you use the Duet2 with some high-class equipment, it's really nice, as it's like "not there". Build quality is about the same for both machines; however the Babyface's knob doesn't work so round anymore and the break-out cable is much inferior to the one of the Duet 2. That said, my first Duet 2 I had to send back, because I had some low hiss – no problems with the replacement unit though.

Overall, Duet 2 is easier and more comfortable (and more fun...) to use than the RME, the whole design (design: not how it looks but how it works) is more practical and done with care and love and: inspiration – it's like comparing an iPhone with an Android phone, there might be some Androids with great specs, but in the end, and iPhone is an iPhone (but I don't have to tell that anybody in an Apple forum).

So it really depends on what you need and want. If you are a Mac only user and don't need the expandability of the RME Babyface, I'd certainly get the Duet 2 – because of the Mac-feel and the perfect integration into OS X. On the other hand, if you also use Windows and you like to tinker with sound (so maybe "realistic" sound isn’t all that important for you = you use colouring mics/equipment on purpose to get a particular, special sound; maybe you make electronic music, or need basic FX for monitoring), the Babyface is a great choice.

Both are very good machines, unbelievable for that price anyway.

IMHO, I would do the recording on a separate rig. I think you're going to be disk I/O bound. Just going out, you have playback tracks, are driving lighting rigs in real time, have three synths going, although you didn't say if these were hw or soft synths, plus guitar amp emulations running... If those synths are soft synths or anything streaming-based, like Omnisphere or EXS/Kontakt... You're gonna be killing an internal HD. consider one of those SSD kits that replace the DVD/optical drive bay, or some kind of external SSD or other 7200 rpm drive...

Michael

Thanks for taking the time to write such a comprehensive, knowledgable, and persuasive piece! The sort of response you received from RME is just not on. Thanks again.

I curous as to why the response was "not on". FYI Babyface is working great with Lion under the current drivers here.

Sorry, it wasn't a comment about the Babyface at all, I would love one, it was what I read as unresponsive customer service, so yeah, probably being a bit anal about it. 😊

Well, overall the Babyface worked under Lion, there were just some annoying issues: when multiple users were logged in, Babyface had a bug to provide phantom power (ok, that one was already there in Snow Leopard; restart solves the problem). Then when plugging the Babyface into the Mac, the symbols of the two RME-Apps jumped for like two minutes and then nothing happened (solution: force quit for both and then start TotalMix manually). Also, I had about two drops (1 second) in four hours of test recording. Don't know what that was, maybe from other software (but no drops with Duet 2 so far). I have tried a new install of the RME software (always latest drivers), and even a new "clean" install of SnowLeopard (and then Lion) on my MacBookPro (2010), and the problems are still there. I read in forums from users with the very same experience, so I am not the only one. That said, the Apogee Duet 2 isn't free of bugs, there are problems, like: if you plug in Duet2, Maestro2 can't detect it (there's just the Apogee-Logo on the OLED); solution: unplug and plug again. Of course, Maestro 2 is still beta (very stable beta IMO).

Regarding RME not having Lion support as a top priority; well, they are probably right to point out that most of the important DAWs aren't ready for Lion neither. And of course, they have to maintain support for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 as well. I think, RME does a good job of maintaining the OS X platform overall; but then again, Apogee is Mac only, and by nature more "mac-like". And yes, being a long time Mac user who lived through the dark ages of the mid '90, I generally prefer to use Mac-only stuff; cross-platform software is often much less polished and doesn't take advantage of the strengths of OS X. Maybe I've heard the "we keep our Software with OS9, you can run still run it in Classic mode in OS X"-line too often, so I am somewhat paranoid when it comes to support for new Mac OS releases...

This all is not to say the Babyface isn't a good product, it's actually very good, I could recommend it whole-heartedly to my best friend, however if he wouldn't need the extra channels/mixing/FX-options, I'd still go with the Duet 2, because of comfortability, design/ease-of-use and sound.

well, its too late for this, but i will put my 2 cents to this discussion.....

i have an apogee duet2, and i also worked on a babyface rme, i have to say, there are both very good, minor diffrences thu........

sound wise, i liked the duet2 sound better....why? well.....its more close to natural.....and it has that apogee soul to it

the baby face have midi inputs, while duet2 dont, on the other hand, the duet 2 have more 10db volume

the baby face can work on a pc and on a mac, the duet2 only mac, but its not less good, in fact its great, cuz apogee and mac worked together on this, so the compatibility is more stable.......

the babyface's software has more functions in it, which makes it a little bit hard to maneuver with it, the duet2 maestro software is much more easy to handle, gives u more time on creativity, and less with just routing and pluging, duet have more easy handleing as the touch screen is great and fast and easy, by the way, the babyface's break out cable is wayyyyy to tangley than the new duet2,,,,wayyyyy more....i like the duet2 breakout cable more....

display wise....man...there is no compresence....duet2 has an "oled" amazing display, colored, interasting, looks amazing, while the babyface has 2 led boring metters that just go up and down, the cover of the duet2 is amazing too...when u shut it off, u can just see the main knob, nothing else, as for the babyface, too much bottons, duet2...elegant hard black glass with aluminum caseing, looks amazing, babyface.....looks like some cheap toy that u buy in wallmart ( under the belt diss 😉 )

the babyface is a tad more expencive ( i think its not worth the 100$ more ), now....as for the ad/da converters, they are both great, we are talking high end sound in 2 channel mixing, both are kings of the 500-700$ realm interfaces, even beyond, so now its just a matter of who u like more, design wise, look wise, easy handeling wise, and compatibility wise, i did my reaserch couple of months ago, and ended up with the duet2, and loving every minute of it....on the other hand, i have a friend with a babyface....and he is loving it too, we are always fighting on which interface is better lol, well u know its like bmw and mercades, both are great and both have faithfull fans that defend them cuz they love the product.....so.....go for the brand u like, they are both great, u cant go wrong with any one of them......as u see....i tend to push a little more with apogee, cuz the ad/da converters of the duet2, came stright from their flag machine, the symphony, gotta love that.