- Hi, I'm Jordan from Kettner Creative.
In this video, I wanna show you
what an audio interface is, what it does,
and what features are commonly included in audio interfaces
and what to look for
if you're looking to compare
two different audio interfaces to each other.
So, first of all, what is an audio interface?
An audio interface
is responsible for taking an analog audio signal,
something that comes from a microphone or an instrument,
and it will convert that to digital signal
so your computer can process it.
An example like this
would be importing a signal from a microphone,
taking it to your computer and using a piece of software
like Ableton, Logic, GarageBand, Cubase, Adobe Edition,
there's a whole bunch of different audio software,
also known as a digital workstation or a DAW
that can process that sound
by compressing it, changing the EQ,
adding noise gates, or other effects to that sound.
Then an audio interface can take that digital signal
back from the computer
and convert it back to an analog signal
so you can use something like studio monitors
or headphones to monitor the work that you're working on.
In front of me today, I have two audio interfaces,
I have the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB audio interface.
This is probably the best selling
audio interface in the world.
It's hard to talk about audio interfaces
without talking about this unit.
And beside it, I have the PreSonus 22VSL.
This is another extremely popular audio interface.
This is the first audio interface that I ever bought.
But we'll use these two to compare them to each other,
to talk about some common features
that either come or don't come with an audio interface.
So if we put these up beside each other,
then we can compare them to each other.
So first of all you can see here
that they both have two inputs,
that's quite common,
a USB audio interface like this will commonly have
somewhere between one and eight different inputs.
These two both have combi jacks.
That means that you can use both XLR or quarter-inch cables.
I have an XLR cable here,
you can just plug that in so you can see,
so it will fit in that spot.
This is used for things like microphones or DI boxes
or line inputs coming from an audio mixer
or something like that.
You can also use a quarter-inch cable.
Both of these audio interfaces
will take both balanced and unbalanced quarter-inch cable.
So right here, we have an unbalanced cable.
It just has the one black ring on the sleeve there
and this one has two.
So there's the tip, ring and sleeve.
So the one here, this one's called a balanced cable,
also known as a TRS cable.
This is just a quarter-inch cable,
also known as an instrument cable.
This is more common for things like
plugging into a guitar or something like that
where a balanced cable is more common
for plugging into a line output
or a balanced output on an audio mixer.
So speaking of inputs, we'll look at the Scarlett 2i2.
So it has two of those inputs,
but it also has an instrument level switch.
So these inputs will take line level inputs,
mic level inputs, or instrument level inputs.
On the PreSonus, it doesn't take instrument level inputs.
It'll just take mic level or line level inputs.
So that's one little difference between the two.
Also talking about inputs, you need to talk about preamps.
Preamps are the secret sauce
as to what makes that input sound great.
What you're trying to achieve with the preamp
is you want something that'll give you a lot of volume,
a lot of input volume or gain without a lot of noise.
So that's what separates a good preamp from a bad preamp
is the amount of associated noise that comes with it.
I will say that for the price,
the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
does have extremely low noise preamps.
There's still some noise when you crank it up all the way,
but as you'll see on other reviews around the internet,
they're consistently low and it's consistently known
as one of the better value preamps that you can buy.
While we're talking about inputs,
we can look at the back of the two.
We see that one of them has MIDI in and out.
So it is possible for a USB audio interface
to also handle MIDI inputs and outputs for you
when you're interacting with a MIDI device
and your computer.
So if you want a MIDI device,
or if you have a whole bunch of MIDI devices in your studio,
that is something to consider that you might wanna have
with the audio interface that you choose.
Another thing that you're gonna want
is you're gonna want that 48 volts of phantom power.
This is pretty common across all audio interfaces,
but this is what separates an audio interface
from something like an XLR to USB cable.
These can use that 48 volts of phantom power
to power a condenser microphone.
Without that phantom power,
you cannot power or you cannot switch on
or activate a condenser microphone.
There is a notable difference between the two units here.
On the PreSonus, it's a toggle,
which means that if you turn 48 volts of phantom power on,
it will stay on
no matter how many times you reset the device
or unplug and replug it in or turn it on or turn it off,
that phantom power will always come back.
But on the Focusrite Scarlett, it's a software toggle,
so every time that you turn off the device
or unplug it and replug it back in,
it won't come back by default.
And the reason that they do that is that's to protect you
against damaging certain microphones.
Microphones like ribbon microphones are extremely sensitive
to external energy or electricity like that,
and you can actually damage the microphones.
So to protect you from damaging a microphone
without thinking about it,
the Focusrite will turn off the phantom power for you
every time that you use it.
Another thing to look for with the audio interface like this
is the monitoring options.
On the Focusrite,
you can choose between having both inputs on both ears,
or you can separate them left and right.
On the PreSonus here,
we have an option that we can fade
between real time monitoring of the inputs
or letting it go to the software
and come back with a slight delay,
a little bit of latency there.
So that's two different ways
that these two devices have handled the direct monitoring.
Speaking of monitoring,
the Focusrite has this large monitor knob here.
Now, this might seem like overkill
for somebody that's never used a USB audio interface,
but this is pretty important.
Oftentimes you're turning the monitor
up and down, up and down,
many times actually when you're playing back a song,
sometimes you wanna turn it down a little bit
just so you can sit back
and hear like the broad strokes
of the mix that you've created.
And sometimes you really wanna crank it up
so you can hear a little nuance
or a little effect that you added
and you wanna make sure that that detail is in your track.
So you actually end up
working the monitor knob quite a bit.
And on a mixer like the PreSonus that has tiny little knobs,
that can be kind of annoying,
especially me I have big hands,
the little knobs
to constantly be turning them up and down is annoying.
I much prefer a nice big monitor volume dial
like what's on the Focusrite here.
Also on the Focusrite,
you can see that you have independent volume
of the headphone jack.
You have the same on the PreSonus,
but the headphone jack on the Focusrite is on the front.
That's a lot more convenient.
If you're working in a studio,
you can be unplugging your headphones
and plugging them into different devices all the time.
So it's nice to not have to pull the box out from your desk
then replug it in.
The only thing that I like
on the back of an audio interface like this
is the monitor outputs.
So there'll be balanced quarter-inch outputs
for your desk monitors or studio monitors
and your USB cable.
In the case of the PreSonus,
it does make sense to me to have the MIDI on the back.
Although arguably you do end up patching in
new MIDI devices from time to time.
But it's not too big of a deal to pull it out of the back.
But the big thing that I really like
is having the headphone jack on the front.
Another thing to look for with an audio interface
is how it's powered.
Both of these units are powered by the USB cable
that they connect to the computer with.
But sometimes it can be helpful
to have an external power input
on the back of an audio interface.
This would be useful if you're doing things like
remote recording with an audio interface
while connected to an iPad.
It's not an issue if you're connected to a laptop
because the laptop can power an audio interface over USB,
but an iPad cannot,
so you need to provide an external power supply.
There are a bunch of different workarounds to this,
but on some higher end audio interfaces
and some lower end ones,
you do have the option of an external power supply
that doesn't come from the USB cable
that's connecting it to a computer.
That's one thing to consider
when you're looking at differences between audio interfaces.
Another thing is to talk about quality.
You want something that's 24 bit and 192K.
In 2020, that's about the standard
of any audio interface now,
but it's surprising that the Focusrite can turn that out
with the price that it's at.
So that's one thing to consider.
You really don't want
a lower bit depth than 24 at this point.
And you don't really want a device
that can give you less than 192K.
Both of those are way above CD quality,
but it's still something that you want to look for
and make sure that your device has
just to make sure that your future-proofed
and you're recording at the highest rate possible
that your budget can afford.
So there's a quick overview
of what a USB audio interface is,
some couple of different features to look for,
but broadly, this thing will sit on your desk all the time
and you use it to connect
all kinds of audio devices to your computer.
It really is the key to making your home studio
or pro studio work for you.
If you have any questions
about what you've seen in this video,
please leave a comment in the comment section below.
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And if you wanna see any details or pricing
or specs of what you've seen in the video,
we have some links in the description below.
Thank you for watching.
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