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My Alesis io4 works great, and more

Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 3:42 am
by wolftune
Just a note: the Alesis io4 works great, and it should work with just about any computer. I think it's doing USB1 basically. It allows either 2-channel in at 24-bit or 4-channel in at 16 bit. It's the only thing out there with 4 flexible instrument or mic inputs with full phantom power etc. And it has great controls and flexibility and sounds just fine.

Overall, I'm loving GNU/Linux with audio… I doubt on any other system I could so easily do such things as choose independent muting of headphone-out vs built-in speakers for my internal audio! Running both allows me to add a mini-subwoofer in the form of an X-Max mini-speaker along with the crispier internal speakers and get a darn good sound super portably.

Re: My Alesis io4 works great, and more

Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 10:08 am
by steevc
I don't think I'd seen that model, but it's on the wiki now. Let us know anything else that may be useful. e.g. When you switch to 24 bit what channels can you use?

http://wiki.linuxmusicians.com/doku.php?id=alesis_io4

Re: My Alesis io4 works great, and more

Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 12:54 pm
by wolftune
There's a hardware switch between all four as 16-bit vs channels 1-2 only as 24-bit. Phantom power is also engage-able independently for the 1-2 pair vs the 3-4 pair. The output is fully hardware mixable between hardware monitoring vs audio out, and headphones can independently monitor 1-2 or 3-4 or the total combination of outputs. Headphone and main out have separate volume controls too. And it includes MIDI.
Oh, and I got it new for under $120.

Re: My Alesis io4 works great, and more

Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 3:08 pm
by steevc
@wulftune It looks pretty versatile and a good budget option if you have to use USB. Slightly more expensive in the UK at £119 ($190), but that's the way with most music gear.

I was checking out your site and there's some interesting stuff there on music theory. I liked your resources/software list that pushes the open source options

http://blog.wolftune.com/p/links-for-students.html

Re: My Alesis io4 works great, and more

Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 5:39 pm
by wolftune
Thanks, Steve.

To be clear: the Alesis is $149 almost everywhere in the U.S. but I searched around and found the best price (which was not a special sale, just a discount dealer).

Also, side note, today I discovered the existence of the Prodipe series, which appears to be only available in Europe. Their Studio 44 Pro is really close in specs to the Alesis, maybe higher quality, and says it is USB1 and 2 compatible, but I couldn't find any verification about Linux and there's no clarification about bit-rate. They even have an 8-channel version too, so it would be valuable for USB-restricted Linux users if this could be checked by anyone. But I can't actually figure out where to even buy them.
http://www.prodipe.com/en/products/interfaces-audio

But aside from that, the Alesis is the only full 4-channel all-Hi-z all-phantom capable USB Linux compatible interface at any price, as far as I know…

Re: My Alesis io4 works great, and more

Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 2:23 pm
by wolftune
Update: I went and found a used Alesis io2 Express, and it works just as well, no problems, is much smaller than io4 and is bus powered. For under $100 for fully-featured 24-bit audio, it's remarkable.

I'm actually going so far as to think that nothing else at this price range has these features and compatibility, so I listed this specifically at my website
http://blog.wolftune.com/p/links-for-students.html

Here's a direct product link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003HR ... B003HR30FU