Hmm.
- You mentioned quiet recordings. The Firewire solo provides +40dB maximum gain, which is a little on the quiet side for acoustic guitar. Most preamps these days are mid-50s and up for maximum gain. A 15 dB or greater difference is enough to make quiet recordings into something more audible, probably even loud.
Then again, you could be a mouse plucking a tiny Washburn SBF 24, I'm not completely sure. Your pic says you probably aren't.
- Two XLR ins
- MIDI I/O
- 1/4 instrument ins
Ah, two part tracking from the same performer. Extremely common problem in recording, especially with singer-songwriters. It's simply easier and more natural to capture both parts at once. I'm of the mindset that multi-tracking should be left mainly to overdubs and whatever additions or revisions are necessary. Like ideally you'd want a a band in the studio recording all together if possible - with proper isolation, but playing synergistically.
That's not to say great records haven't been pieced together through multitracking. Shawn Colvin's
A Few Small Repairs (1996) comes to mind, where producer John Leventhal was pulling double, triple, and sometimes quadruple performance duties on mandolin, guitar, percussion etc. The record and performances still sound fantastic, but it's not the most workable or ideal situation I imagine. He also let other people like Shawn Pelton (drums) and Michael Rhodes (bass) lay the foundation tracks and mostly added to those, so his input was more supportive rather than being the heart and soul of the production.
My suggestions are these:
- Steinberg Cl2+ - $200
Meets all of your requirements except MIDI I/O (which is negligible, as you can find good MIDI to USB devices for a decent price and with minimal added latency. Just make sure they're a relatively new product or chances are the drivers will suck.)
This is a newer line of interfaces, but word on the street about them has been fairly good. Preamps are clean and accurate (if sterile,) drivers work well. The integration with Cubase is nice but not terribly important, as you could make this work with any open DAW. It also has an integrated transport panel, a nice plus.
Up to +60dB gain on the preamps, so you're more than covered there.
- Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 - $225
Ah, Focusrite. The company who used to make the old Mbox preamps.
This has everything necessary including MIDI I/O. I've had more experience with Focusrite gear (use an old Saffire daily) and it's generally been positive. Preamps are clean, fast, transparent, can get a bit harsh and pinched at higher gains as you might expect. PC drivers generally work fine but can occasionally be a little buggy. I always hear about their Mac drivers leaving a lot to be desired, FWIW.
You also get a nice little plugin suite for free with the interface. Decent bonus.
Up to +60dB gain on the preamps.
