Affordable Musical Endeavors Multicord USB Interface Reviews 
4 / 5 based on 1 reviewsThis is a multi-track sound interface for a computer. It has 7 separate microphone inputs and 7 stereo audio outputs. It fits in the palm of your hand and works pretty good.
I'm a drummer, I've been in a few bands over the years, nothing too serious. I'm also somewhat of a studio producer, I've only made a few free demos for some local bands, but I definitely love my gadgets.
I found out about this product and the company that makes it from a friend who read about it in a forum. He gave me the URL to the website, and, upon checking it out, I e-mailed them to find out more about the unit. The guy I talked to, who apparently runs the business, seemed pretty knowledgeable and after a conversation with him, I bought the unit for 100 bucks.
First and foremost, the best thing about the Multicord has to be the price. As Adam (the guy from Affordable Musical Endeavors) told me, the only thing out there like this that exists retails for over 400 dollars.
This gives me a way to record each component of the drum kit separately, all at the same time, so that even after I've recorded, I can change the mix if I decide later that anything in particular is too loud or too soft.
There are volume level controls for the inputs, so even though my mics were coming in too hot for the unit, I was able to trim them back and eliminate any distortion.
The outputs for dumping are a nice touch, I was able to transfer a multitrack recording off of my PC onto mr MR-8, leaving the track separation intact.
The quality of the recording is good: the sample rate goes up to 48khz.
Some XLR's would be nice for the mic inputs. A few of my mics are XLR, and in order to use them, I had to buy a few adapters from AME. They sell them for only 10 bucks a pop, which is half as much as I've been able to find them for anywhere else, but it's still an added expense that I had to incur.
Adam explained that with the small size, the XLR's wouldn't have fit. (I have to agree, for its size, there is a LOT crammed into a very small space, between 7 pots and 14 quarter-inch jacks) Still, I wouldn't mind the unit being a little bit larger to accomodate XLR connectors in addition to the 1/4 inchers.
Appearance-wise, I wouldn't say it's the most professional looking thing in the world. The labels are just transparencies run through a printer.
Function-wise though, it works perfectly and sounds great, especially for the price tag. I'd definitely recommend this to someone with a tight budget that wants something halfway decent.
The company that makes this seems to take a pretty strong stand on not charging people an arm and a leg for music equipment.
It seemed to me that before I found this, the options were to spring 400+ bucks on an Alesis io26, or go without. This was a great compromise. It works good and is cheaply priced, I really can't think of anything bad to say about it besides the lack of the XLR inputs.
JimBobJo rated this unit
on
2009-04-12.
