Monoprice Audio Interface - Special Price July 5

[PapaRaptor]

I got an email today from Monoprice advertising a whole bunch of products, but what caught my attention their 2 channel audio interface. It's on sale for $39.99 for July 5 only. Normally is't priced at $59.99 (which is still an excellent price).
Here is the link: Stage Right by Monoprice STi12 USB Recording Interface

If you are considering making your first jump into recording on your PC or Mac, this might be the way to go. I don't have any experience with it, but with today's special sale price it was a no-brainer for me to pick one up for testing. It is supposed to arrive in about a week and when it does, I will install it and document the installation, along with a setup and test with a copy of Presonus Studio One Prime. Prime is the free software from Presonus, so this entire setup (not including microphones or other cables) is under $50 using this sale price. Even at its regular price it will still come in under a hundred bucks.

I will install it on a nearly 10 year old home built computer running an AMD Athlon 64 processor and 4 gigs of RAM, so it's not designed to be a state-of-the art installation. I may also put it on an old Dell PC running a 4th generation i5 (i5-4590 processor, also running 8 gigs of RAM. I'll post the results here and also probably make a video showing the initial setup and a couple of test recordings, in case you are interested.

 

[MikeS]

You almost got me to buy one, but sanity kicked in when I realized I already have at LEAST 4 Mixers and two 3 or 4 interfaces.

 

[PapaRaptor]

You almost got me to buy one, but sanity kicked in when I realized I already have at LEAST 4 Mixers and two 3 or 4 interfaces.

I don't need another one either. I was planning on doing a video for the Presonus Audiobox GO interface as an introduction for recording newbies, but this is inexpensive enough to warrant getting it and doing a video on it. I've had good luck with Monoprice products, so if this turns out to be a good piece of gear, I'll probably give it away after I do the installation video.

 

[MikeS]

I don't need another one either. I was planning on doing a video for the Presonus Audiobox GO interface as an introduction for recording newbies, but this is inexpensive enough to warrant getting it and doing a video on it. I've had good luck with Monoprice products, so if this turns out to be a good piece of gear, I'll probably give it away after I do the installation video.

Yeah, I've had no issues with the few Monoprice things I've bought either ( a guitar and an amp).

 

[Jay Dee]

I ordered one. I have never used an interface,
some videos would be awesome!

 

[PapaRaptor]

I ordered one. I have never used an interface,
some videos would be awesome!

I'll start on a video as soon as the interface arrives. According to Monoprice it will be some time around July 12.

 

[Simone]

@PapaRaptor, since you're going to do a video for newbies I assume you can probably answer a really really really newbie question on recording.....well I don't even know if it classify as a newbie question......Kid question

So, I recently acquired a Boss Katana 50 MkII and found that connecting the USB port on the Katana to my PC USB this is recognized by My DAW (reaper) as a valid input source, so I can basically record my guitar. I cannot really appreciate any latency, I'm sure there is but is not audible.

So my "Kid question" is: In what way using a Audio interface intead of this configuration would benefit/improve the quality of guitar recording? In other word is it worth getting a Recording interface......take into account that at present I'm not interested in recording voice, only instrument I record is Guitar.

Thanks

 

[PapaRaptor]

So my "Kid question" is: In what way using a Audio interface intead of this configuration would benefit/improve the quality of guitar recording? In other word is it worth getting a Recording interface......take into account that at present I'm not interested in recording voice, only instrument I record is Guitar.

Not a kid question at all. The short answer is no, you do not need an interface.
The Katana is acting as an interface and you will get an excellent recording of your guitar by using it.
As long as recording your guitar (or whatever you choose to plug into your Katana) is your only goal and as long as you don't need to exceed one recorded input at a time (i.e., your guitar) you're golden. No additional gear required.

Edit: I downloaded the manual for the Katana series. It appears that through the USB connector you will have access to both the "dry" signal (without any of the Katana effects) and also the "wet" signal (after the preamp stage). If the block diagram of the Katana is accurate they should be listed as Primary (1,2) for the wet signal and Secondary (3,4) for the dry signal on a PC.

 

[Simone]

Not a kid question at all. The short answer is no, you do not need an interface.
The Katana is acting as an interface and you will get an excellent recording of your guitar by using it.
As long as recording your guitar (or whatever you choose to plug into your Katana) is your only goal and as long as you don't need to exceed one recorded input at a time (i.e., your guitar) you're golden. No additional gear required.

Then I'm doing great, cool!!
My wife is going to start singing lessons this year, so in case she want to record her singing we will need to get an audio interface......and that would be the only case in which I can buy a new gear and "blame" my wife for it......UNBELIEVABLE

 

[PapaRaptor]

and that would be the only case in which I can buy a new gear and "blame" my wife for it......UNBELIEVABLE

Perfect!

 

[Mr.Scary]

Not a kid question at all. The short answer is no, you do not need an interface.
The Katana is acting as an interface and you will get an excellent recording of your guitar by using it.
As long as recording your guitar (or whatever you choose to plug into your Katana) is your only goal and as long as you don't need to exceed one recorded input at a time (i.e., your guitar) you're golden. No additional gear required.

Edit: I downloaded the manual for the Katana series. It appears that through the USB connector you will have access to both the "dry" signal (without any of the Katana effects) and also the "wet" signal (after the preamp stage). If the block diagram of the Katana is accurate they should be listed as Primary (1,2) for the wet signal and Secondary (3,4) for the dry signal on a PC.

Would this apply to the Fender Mustang lll v.2 as well. USB from amp to pc, I can see it on my pc as well as change settings

 

[PapaRaptor]

Would this apply to the Fender Mustang lll v.2 as well. USB from amp to pc, I can see it on my pc as well as change settings

It should be. Even though Fender has abandoned the original Mustang series, I did find an article on Fender's website about setting up a USB equipped Fender amp for recording. Their link uses Audacity as the DAW, but it should be similar for any other DAW software. I had a Mustang I amp that I bought specifically to test recording and as I recall, it worked. Wish I could find the documentation, but it has been probably 10 years since I did that. I have since given away the Mustang I.
Check This Out:

How do I record to my computer using my USB-equipped Fender® amp? ​

 

[Silicon Valley Tom]

It should be. Even though Fender has abandoned the original Mustang series, I did find an article on Fender's website about setting up a USB equipped Fender amp for recording. Their link uses Audacity as the DAW, but it should be similar for any other DAW software. I had a Mustang I amp that I bought specifically to test recording and as I recall, it worked. Wish I could find the documentation, but it has been probably 10 years since I did that. I have since given away the Mustang I.
Check This Out:

How do I record to my computer using my USB-equipped Fender® amp? ​

Lloyd, you know what bothers me? You mentioned 10 years. Man, it scares me to think that ten years to me, is like blinking my eyes! I am trying to make the blinks last longer!

Tom

 

[artyman]

I do all of my recordings for the VJR with a Fender Mustang III amp

 

[PapaRaptor]

As a follow up, the Monoprice interface showed up yesterday. First impression is, Monoprice needs to do a better job at initial customer experience on this one. I am still planning to do a video on this. However, I would not want to be a complete newbie and for this to be my first experience with audio hardware.

Opening the shipping carton, the actual device appears very sturdy. It has some heft to it. I expected something that felt like a cheap pedal. This has the heft of machined aluminum. It definitely doesn't feel cheap.

Plugged it directly in to see if the Win10/Win11 drivers would magically make it work. Not surprisingly, they did not. I was first alarmed by the USB connect/disconnect audio prompts playing pretty much non-stop. I pretty quickly figured out that the USB cable was defective. I could wiggle it on the A connector (the end that connects to the computer) and the USB issue became obvious. A quick swap out with another USB cable and all was well.

At this point, I was off to Monoprice's website to find and download the latest drivers for the box. That went without a hitch and upon installing the drivers, it magically came to life.

The Monoprice website and the very small manual that come with the interface claim that the box will work at 44.1kHz/48kHz/88.2kHz(?)/96kHz. However the small utitllity with it only showed 48kHz and 96kHz. There are a couple complaints on Monoprice's website that say the same thing. I have seen no responses from Monoprice that either refute or explain it.

With that in mind, I loaded an application configured for 44.1kHz playback and loaded a WAV file I know to have been recorded at 44.1kHz. Even though the Monoprice interface was set for 48kHz (according to their interface), it played back the 44.1kHz recordings without a hitch.

There are several other quirks, which in my mind would take it out of contention as a first interface against competitors like Focusrite Solo or 2i2, or Presonus Audiobox GO, Audiobox USB 96 or Studio 24c interfaces.

However, once connected, the audio out of the Monoprice interface is excellent. I haven't yet hooked it to the computer I will use for the video, but a quick check on my main computer gave me clean headphone volume all the way to maximum settings. I would expect similar results when connected to monitors or a decent audio system.

My personal favorite of the group is still the Presonus Audiobox USB 96. Eariler this year, Sweetwater had listed it as discontinued, but they now have it back in the product catalog at $99.95, which includes a license for Presonus Studio One Artist version (the mid level upgrade of the Studio One DAW).


I'll update again once I've had the opportunity to get the video put together.

 

[dan5150]

I have a focusrite solo which seems to be bulletproof. Visually, this looked very similar. Thanks for the quick rundown. Looking forward to you video.