A number of Ember Members (including myself) use Metric Halo Mobile I/O audio interfaces as an integral part of our Mac-based recording system. In fact, Metric Halo is one of our hardware links on the right side of this blog.

Well, Metric Halo interfaces just got an amazing upgrade. For those without one, they are now selling the 2882 Expanded and ULN2 Expanded. Current Metric Halo Mobile I/O owners can add a 2d Card to their current interface for all the goodies. Better clock, better ADAT, lower latency, completely redesigned mixer, new +DSP effects, etc. Really, if you’re a Mac user, this is as good as it gets for the price, IMO.

http://www.mhlabs.com/metric_halo/

If you’re not a Logic Pro user, this little public service announcement won’t mean much to you. But Logic Pro 8.0.2 just appeared via the Software Update preference pane.  It is a really fantastic update, pages of bugfixes and some feature enhancements.  If you use Logic Pro to compose and create music like we do, you’ll be very happy with this.  If you don’t, now is a fantastic time to consider it.

Just pointing out another review I’ve written. In the May 2008 issue of Electronic Musician, I review the Novation DirectFX, a 2-in/4-out audio interface that offers a suite of latency free effects. What makes the DirectFX interesting is that its native effects are coded into the audio driver itself, so without adjusting audio buffers or anything else, you can record with no latency into your DAW, or record without effects and monitor with effects. Read the review for the full skinny.

This interface just reminds me how far we’ve come as far as cheap, good sounding gear. I can remember when if you wanted an interface to record high quality music, you’d have to spend over $1000. Certainly, you still can, but you can also buy an interface that costs under $300 that will sound better than even those $1000 interfaces of a decade ago! Of course, truly high end professional gear still is expensive, but even affordable gear these days is truly usable.