thinking of recording ITB

I am looking for advice and thoughts on what to do. I have used Reaper now for a couple years for mixing my music. I record on a yamaha aw1600 multitrack recorder and then export the wav files to Reaper and finish off the songs. my computer is older and I my have to replace it. I am wondering if it would improve my workflow to start recording with Reaper. and getting rid of the yamaha multitrack recorder. I have done some searching and it all gets way complicated really fast. clocks and latency and converters and........... would anybody please help me to figure out what the heck is a good route for me to go? I am quite pleased with the way things are now. but if it would greatly improve my workflow, I would change to recording with Reaper. when I record now its pretty much just me singing and playing guitar or piano. I would like to be able to have 5 or 6 mics tracking at a time. I have excellent mics, a pacifica, and an art mpa gold pre-amps and an art vla 11 compressor. any help greatly appreciated, Chas

I've recorded in reaper since the record button has been on the app. As long as you got a decent soundcard with good asio drivers youll forget all about the separate pieces

I've been looking at this for a while, savin up the money though so I cant vouch for it.

If you want to buy a "keeper", I'd probably go with RME or Motu. I have experience with RME and can't fault the kit. The drivers are absolutely solid and the kit is well built and good quality. The Fireface 400 may be all you need. Attach your pres to the 4 line-in connectors at the back and you will be good to go. There are an additional two pres built into the unit also, should you need them. This will be your soundcard. You will select it in Reaper, using the RME drivers. To select an input to record, you will simply choose the input from the drop-down menu in Reaper. You can rename these to show (for example) "Pacifica 1" or whatever you want. I repeat.. the audio interface IS your sound card. I mention this because this wasn't at all clear to me when I started, and it confused the hell out of me :) The soundcard connects to your computer in one of 3 ways. Some connect by firewire (the RME above does, for example). Some connect via USB. Some are cards in your computer. The advantage of a separate box is the ease of making conenctions and access to actual knobs, etc (imo). It's pretty straightforward. The only extra thing you may want is an additional volume knob for your monitors if you don't have one (you can use the RME but it is a bit fiddly). A cheap and easy passive attenuator like the Nano Patch does the job very well. So you would have Pres (pacifica, etc) --> Audio interface <--> Reaper Monitors connect to the audio interface. Mics connect to your pres (and/or the pres on the interface, depending on what you need). In Reaper, all of your pres will appear ina drop-down menu to choose from on each track when you set up to record. EDIT: I forgot about your compressor. That can be connected up as well. You could compress on the way in, or you could use it as an effect after recording (by using ReaInsert).

As long as you get a digital input soundcard, like an RME HDSP series, or a mixed analog/digital system like the motu 8 pre or the RME ff800, you pick the converters of your choice (or use the onboard ones with a mixed system) and you can use the line outputs of your existing gear At this point in history, I wouldn't reccomend anything but MOTU or RME, I'd like to say differently, but I cannot at this time

Years ago 

I got a MOTU Traveler on the recommendations of the smart and kind folks here. There were initial firewire problems as my computers did not have TI chips but after that was sorted it was the best gear. I would love to have RME gear but I will wait to become rich for that. If you need to process signals by using the interface for keyboards, vocal processing etc on stage then firewire carries a more consistent stream but usb 2 is fine on a good interface for recording.

Firewire v USB2 

Very happy RME FF400 user here. Latency is nice and low (typically <3ms) and stability is great on my rig. But the firewire units can be sensitive to the type of FW interface you are running. In comparison to your Yamaha AW you will find a step up in sonic quality. The only advantage to the AW is if you want to do portable recording, and a decent laptop and external RME will take care of that for you too. RME costs a few more bucks but is well worth the outlay. The features and quality are outstanding, though build-quality wise I would say Motu is probably more bulletproof. Support is good too. And if you really want to splash out take a look at the FF UFX. From what I've read the ADDA side of this unit is really special. And I want one. z. :)

thanks zappa. thanks everybody elae who replied. this info will help me in selecting an interface when the time comes for me to make the big change.