You could say the market for USB audio interfaces is pretty saturated. Many of the most-popular models have been around for years, with fewer significant product introductions as of late. That makes it even more bold for Propellerhead?traditionally a software vendor?to step into the hardware ring. Fortunately, its new Balance interface ($449 direct) is worthy of the cause, as it looks like no other recording system out there. It turns out the Balance's execution stands up as well, although it's a bit pricey for what you get.
Design, Connections, and Front Panel
The chunky Balance measures 2.76 by 5.12 by 7.56 inches (HWD) and weighs 1.25 pounds. ?Its design is one of the Balance's best attributes, with its rubberized housing, cantered front panel, and extra-large, easy-to-read controls. The back panel contains two XLR microphone inputs, each with switchable 48-volt phantom power. You can also bypass those and use one of the three quarter-inch TRS input jacks corresponding to each channel, for Line 1, Line 2, Guitar, and a pad switch for taming hot signals. There are no stereo RCA or 3.5mm inputs or outputs; this is purely a professional-level interface.
For monitoring, a pair of quarter-inch output jacks let you hook up the Balance to an amplifier or a set of active studio monitor speakers. A quarter-inch headphone jack sits on the right side of the unit, right near the front?two headphone jacks would have been welcome at this price. And despite the Balance's good compliment of analog connectivity, there are no digital inputs, and no MIDI in or out, either.
The front panel is dominated by two massive volume knobs?one for the main outs, and one for the single headphone jack. Above that is a direct monitoring switch, which lets you monitor incoming recordings from a mic, guitar, or other instrument with zero latency. Two smaller knobs handle input levels for the left and right inputs; oddly, they click to specific settings, which shouldn't pose a problem in most cases, but doesn't afford as much granular control as I would have expected. There's also a clip safe light, and a useful, built-in meter and tuner button which pops up an appropriate window in Reason Essentials (more about that later). Two sets of three LEDs indicate signal, clipping status, recording status, and whether 48V phantom power is switched on. All controls and buttons engage and move with a precision feel.
Across the right side of the panel are two extra rows of four buttons, used to select the input mode for the jacks on the rear. This is strange, because typically you don't get this option, with all inputs being live as needed,?or software is used to make these adjustments. Propellerhead's design means you can hook up several pieces of gear to all of those rear-mounted inputs, such as two microphones, a guitar, a bass guitar, and a couple of synthesizers, and then switch between them using the front panel buttons. But even so, this is purely a two-channel recording interface, which is what makes it bizarre. There's no way to record signal from more than any two of those inputs simultaneously. This makes the Balance a rather expensive proposition, and puts it within just $150 of the incredible sounding (if Mac-only) two-channel Apogee Duet 2, as well as in the same ballpark as numerous interfaces that record four or even eight simultaneous channels?enough to record an entire band at once.
Reason Essentials Setup and Virtual Synths
With the Balance, Propellerhead bundles Reason Essentials, a cut-down version of the company's flagship Reason recording software that still provides most of the program's best features. The package works on either Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 (including 64-bit mode in Vista and 7), as well as on any multi-core Mac running OS X 10.6.3 or later. For this review, I tested the Balance and Reason Essentials on a 2.93GHz quad-core Mac Pro with 6GB RAM and OS X 10.7 (Lion).
Installation is fairly simple. I inserted the DVD, dragged the Reason Essentials folder onto the Mac, and then plugged the interface into a free USB port. When I fired up the Reason icon, it turns out it wasn't done yet, as it popped up a warning about installing Ignition Key software. It then began copying sound banks over from the DVD. While the full version of Reason now employs a USB dongle, Reason Essentials uses the Balance as the dongle?disconnect the interface, and you can no longer use the software.
If you're willing to get a little creative, Reason Essentials includes enough power to handle many recording needs. It still gives you unlimited audio and instrument tracks, the new ReGroove mixer, and 1.45GB (rather than 2.5GB) of sound bank content. You get Propellerhead's venerable Subtractor synth and NN-XT sampler, but not the Malstrom, Neptune, or Thor synthesizers. On top of those, you still get a live sampling editor and ID-8 songwriter's toolbox, the Matrix pattern sequencer, the Combinator, the MClass mastering suite and master bus compressor, and a variety of basic effects boxes, including a reverb, Line 6-powered guitar and bass amps, a chorus and flanger, a digital delay, and the Scream 4 distortion box.
The new arrange window is a little tough to work with. It's not as flexible as a digital audio workstation like Pro Tools, because it's still designed like a vertically scrolling equipment rack. In today's world of widescreen desktop monitors with fewer vertical pixels, the UI looks oddly stretched out, with little room to see the virtual gear once the arrange and mixer windows are in place.
Testing, Sound Quality, and Conclusions
In a series of recording and playback tests, I had problems with the Balance. The headphone jack sounded full, warm, and loud, and recordings came through reasonably clean using a Rode NT-1A large condenser microphone, with the Balance's 48-volt phantom power engaged. Using the default settings, I experienced 8ms latency on the way in, and 6ms on the way out, which was fine for playing drum tracks live using an M-Audio Keystation 49e keyboard. I was also able to flip on a reverb and record vocals while hearing it; in doing so, I heard some minor comb filtering, but it was easily usable?and this was without direct monitoring, which you can always engage for zero latency monitoring.
The default sound banks are versatile across the board, with plenty of synth pads, leads, multitimbral workstation-like sounds, and even dozens of sampled reverbs. If you keep in mind that many of these sound modules date back to the first version of Reason from more than 10 years ago, it's still a good sound set, and more than you'd ever get with, say, a workstation keyboard synthesizer from Korg or Roland 10 years ago.
Propellerhead is targeting a niche customer with the Balance: One who wants ultra-clean sound quality, plenty of connections, and tight integration with Reason, but that also doesn't need to record, say, more than one musician simultaneously most of the time. If that's you, it's tough to go wrong with the Balance. But if you want an interface with a lower price and a smaller footprint, the M-Audio Fast Track ($149.99, 4 stars) will get you most of the way there for less than half the cost, although you're giving up all of the extra connectivity and separate main and headphone volume knobs. Otherwise, a number of interfaces with eight microphone inputs, such as the 16-channel/4-out Tascam US-1800 ($399.99), give you more flexible recording power for the same or less money than the Balance.
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