/mu/ - Music (Temp full images)

>>55409943
Plug your instruments into your mixer first then into your multi track

>>53910383
I used to pirate everything when I first started out as was unsure about what to spend money on and things can get pretty expensive, it really easy to spend £500-£1000s on a few plugins a wave editor and a DAW. And then find out you like something else more so don't use them anymore, so that can be a massive waste of money.
Saying that I've been making music on and off for nearly 20 years now and the same can be said for hardware I had a full studio setup at one point and ended up selling it all off just keeping my sampler. Now I'm slowly building it up again.
In the last 10 years I've got rid of all my pirated software including pretty much every Waves plugin that was going and bought everything I use now. I don't have much but what I do have I use and have learnt how to use it well, buying stuff is great for creativity I think as once you pay £150 for a plugin instead of downloading it I feel like I need to use it to get my money's worth and stick with it making it work for me in the tracks I'm making rather than thinking I need another compressor for the snare and loading up one of literally hundreds I've downloaded I make the only compressor I've got work. This really works for me on 2 levels really it makes me use what I've got and be creative with the limitations of my gear and it also gets me excited about new gear and using it which I never had when I pirated everything.
Just my thoughts on it really.

Can any one advise me on a decent audio interface, mixer and awnser a few noob question. I had a M-audio Quattro device before but since a Mac upgrade its stopped working with my Mac.

How many outputs/inputs do I need? Why would you need more than 2 or 4 inputs if you have a mixer? I'm currently looking at the focusright scarlet and sapphire range and ideally would like a rack mountable option as not keen on it being on my desk. All the rack mountable interfaces seem to be the big number of inputs outputs do any company's do a lower amount of inputs in a rack maybe combined with something else like an effects unit?
I'm not going to be recording any vocals or drums so it's mainly for a small studio with a couple of synths, a drum machine, a guitar and a sampler, but of course the amount of gear is going to increase over time.