# Steinberg's UR28M, or Avid's Mbox?



## Saywah (Nov 16, 2011)

Hullo again good people of SS, my question to you is the one that has already been posed in the thread title: In your honest opinions, what seems to be the better deal? 

Steinberg's UR28M,

or 

Avid's latest Mbox?

As you all may or may not already know, I am an absolute beginner when it comes to recording of any kind, although I've been doing my homework on it for about 2 years now. At the moment I'm interested mainly in recording one or two instrument at a time (I sing and I play the guitar, and I play most styles of music). I have no idea what difference in "feel" Cubase and Pro Tools have from each other, again since I am a complete newbie at this and have never had the chance to try them out. I simply want to start with a great piece of kit that I can learn on and eventually get good quality recordings out of. If you have an alternative that you'd like to suggest, then by all means do, but if you could also give a substantiated opinion on these two, then I would be very grateful.


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## KingAenarion (Nov 17, 2011)

Pro Tools and Cubase are both quite complex DAWs. They're both really good at what they do, but they're meant for professional use mainly, and hence come with a lot of features you won't use or don't need.

Pro Tools is very powerful and is a great industry standard program, but at the consumer level it lacks some basic things like VST support, 64bit functionality, cheap upgrades in the future (usually $300+ for an upgrade) and a few other really frustrating things that exist in almost every other DAW.

Cubase is immensely powerful, but I think can be a bit unwieldy, and quite confusing to a beginner (even more so than Pro Tools). It comes with better basic plugins and instruments, as well as far better MIDI capabilities than Pro Tools

To start out I'd suggest something like one of the Line 6 products, or an M-Audio interface... and Reaper.

Cheap way to get started, and as you learn more you can upgrade your interface, DAW (if you don't love Reaper), headphones, monitors etc etc

Another option I would suggest is to get a Presonus interface that comes with Presonus Studio One 2. I've been using it almost exclusively for my own recordings for 6 months and love it. I also own Cubase 5, Pro Tools 10 and Reaper and I can't speak highly enough of Studio One. It's easy to get your head around (you can try the full version demo from their website)


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## Blazerok (Nov 17, 2011)

I'll add another option for you: The tc electronic Desktop Konnekt 6. Feature wise it is very similar to the steinberg product. The tc electronic is firewire though. it works really well, and all the components sounds good. I've been using it for over 2 years now and i can tell you i wouldn't change it for anything else unless i needed more I/O.
Oh and i'm also running reaper as a DAW, it's much cheaper than its competitors, and totally gets the job done when starting out. 

With those products (some other vst) you can get a really cost effective and overall efficient workstation.


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## Saywah (Nov 19, 2011)

KingAenarion said:


> Pro Tools and Cubase are both quite complex DAWs. They're both really good at what they do, but they're meant for professional use mainly, and hence come with a lot of features you won't use or don't need.
> 
> Pro Tools is very powerful and is a great industry standard program, but at the consumer level it lacks some basic things like VST support, 64bit functionality, cheap upgrades in the future (usually $300+ for an upgrade) and a few other really frustrating things that exist in almost every other DAW.
> 
> ...



I'm not sure about the M-Audio interfaces, but apparently the earlier Avid Mboxes had really muffled mic preamps. I will, however, give them a look, a friend of mine actually got one given to him recently, so I'll ask him what his experiences of using one thus far have been. 

As for Cubase being unwieldly - is that not why the UR28M comes with the streamlined AI version of Cubase 6? I actually have Reaper installed on my laptop as it is, so surely having a version of Cubase already there to move on to and try at some point isn't a bad thing? 

I guess you have to consider the specifications of the interfaces themselves too - again, I'll have a look at the M-Audio interfaces, but there's all this DSP, low-latency recording business that, for a laptop user such as myself, seems very tempting. And whilst I understand that I'd be getting my first interface, I want it to be something that I would still find useful some way down the line, rather than just a beginner's piece of kit that I would quickly grow out of, so to speak. 

I was also looking at the TC Electronic Konnekt Desktop 6 some time ago - maybe I should give it another look!


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## KingAenarion (Nov 20, 2011)

Saywah said:


> I'm not sure about the M-Audio interfaces, but apparently the earlier Avid Mboxes had really muffled mic preamps. I will, however, give them a look, a friend of mine actually got one given to him recently, so I'll ask him what his experiences of using one thus far have been.
> 
> As for Cubase being unwieldly - is that not why the UR28M comes with the streamlined AI version of Cubase 6? I actually have Reaper installed on my laptop as it is, so surely having a version of Cubase already there to move on to and try at some point isn't a bad thing?
> 
> ...



The only remotely cheap interfaces that I personally think have half decent Pre's are the Focusrite Saffire range, the Apogee smaller interfaces and a couple of Presonus, RME and MOTU products... even those, other than the Apogee Duet they're pretty average... because you pay through the nose for "Good" Pres and good converters.


As someone who spent far too much on his first interface, my thoughts are thus.

Get a cheap Interface and DAW to start with. Then get everything else you'll need (Monitors, a Microphone possibly, headphones etc etc). Once you've started to get a good handle on mixing and recording and such, THEN you can start upgrading. This is going to take a while. There's a LOT to learn


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## diirtysoul (Dec 11, 2011)

I can tell you now and without hesitation to buy the Steinberg UR... Here is why... THE PRES ARE SIMPLY STUNNING!!! The previous poster who said that the only decent pres are on the focusrites and presonus is misleading and I suspect has not tried any others. I owned the TC Desktop Konnekt 6 for 2 years in my home based project studio before I bought the steinberg and the TC is fantastic but not close to the Steinberg.... These are yamahas finest D Class pres and are crystal clear with huge headroom, onboard DSP (reverb, Channel strip) 2 independent headphone controls, 3 separate mix/monitor controls. This simply blows away anything I have used in this price range and I have used MBOX 1,2, Maudio 8R, Focusrite Saffire,TC Desktop Konnekt 6, Apogee Duet. Coupled with a decent mic and you will not need anything else for a long time..I am using this with logic, but I have tested it with Cubase and Studio One.

Buy it and you will not regret it.....


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## nicroto (Apr 2, 2012)

Since this is one of the few forum threads discussing Steinberg UR28M, I am posting here a link to a small research I made about audio interfaces: tsenkov.net - Audio Interface for Home Recording

I was choosing the right AI for me and UR28M was one of the final 4.

I hope my post will help all of you, who are searching for the best price-quality ration for home recording equipment.


Regards,
Nikolay Tsenkov
tsenkov.net


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