[Electronics-Talk] looking for a mixer or audio interface that has multiple USB inputs and outputs and is blind friendly in Windows

[Valiant8086]

Hi.

I just joined to ask around for help. I've been trying to get an answer 
for about 4 days now. I called companies, asked Amazon product pages 
using the question form, asked people on twitter and so on. I'm still 
stabbing in the dark hoping I at least find somebody who knows the 
perfect place to ask.


So I'm on the market for an audio interface or USB mixer. I need to be 
able to use at least two stereo pairs of channels e.g. 4 in and 4 out. 
Other than
that, 1 rode nt1a, and at least one line input. I need low noise because 
I'm deaf and I have to rely on it just being quiet to start with no 
adjustments
needed since I can't hear the floor noise anyway.

  need to be able to do mix minus for one USB pair so that team talk or 
Skype etc can send to that pair and record from that pair which will not 
have itself
in the mix. If I can get more than 4 tracks (2 channels) then I'd like 
to, because it might be possible to have Team Talk and Skype/zoom/teams 
listening
to each other without having echo on either one.

I've got 3 choices currently but interested in more. I'm trying not to 
spend more than $300 or if so, close to it. The most important thing is 
not having
the floor noise with pretty much any configuration. I'm trying to find 
blind people who use these or have tried to use these. If anyone knows 
of the best
place to post this let me know? My second biggest concern is how much 
I'll be able to do with the computer. The audio interfaces have control 
software,
if I'm able to tweak that then I'll be good. Hoping to find out how 
accessible this stuff is without having to buy things first.

first choice, Audient Evo8. I have not been able to figure out if the 4 
in 4 out USB interface can be routed about to do what I need, and I 
don't know
how accessible Audient Control software is. I like the idea of having 
the auto sens gain buttons I could press to automatically set gain 
levels on specific
channels, because my ears don't hear distortion until well after people 
with good hearing can pick it up. Apart from Accessibility, it's not 
immediately
obvious that this device's USB channels can be configured in such a way 
to allow for a mix minus. It has just enough physical connections, I 
would have
liked to have a second set of line level inputs.

Second choice, Focusrite Scarlott 18i8. This one has a lot you can do 
with the USB channels until I'm pretty sure I can do anything I want in 
terms of
mix minus with it. Again though, it just barely has enough physical 
connections, an extra line level pair would be nice. It seems I can also 
expose the
tracks as wdm drivers so Gold Wave, Foobar2000 and any non daw audio 
supporting applications, including Windows itself, can interact with 
various aspects
of it. If the control software and app are not fully accessible though, 
I'll probably not be able to set it up the way I need. Can anyone let me 
know?


Third choice, Allen and Heath ZeDi10fx. I'm used to analogue mixers. It 
seems like the 4 in 4 out USB interface can do multi mono (4) track or 
stereo (2)
tracks. It sounds like I can direct channel 1/2 to recording software 
and I don't need an actual daw for this, which Is good for me. It then 
sounds like
3/4 USB channels can be configured in a few ways one of which includes 
to have it listen to aux send or fx send. I could then use the fx send 
or aux send
level knobs on each channel to choose whether they are to be heard on 
aux send or on fx send. This way I can set up mix minus. However. I 
believe that
even on the USB interface, aux send and fx send are mono, so I can't 
figure out how team talk could end up getting a stereo representation of 
the whole
mix not including itself. I'm told that physical fx send jacks are 
always mono and I'm not sure about aux send ones. But the USB mode 
switch on the ZeDi10fx
has one choice that says main mix 1/2 and aux send/fx send 3/4. I think 
that means aux send will go on the left side of the second pair and fx 
send will
go on the right side of it.

So to recap, I don't know if audient evo8 is capable of what I need with 
the USB interface, or if it is accessible to configure it. I'm sure the 
Focusrite
18i8 is capable of it, but I don't know if it is accessible on Windows 
with screen readers and I like the physical design of it a little less 
than the
evo8, plus it doesn't have auto sens gain. I'm less worried about 
accessibility for ZeDi10 since it's mostly just an analogue mixer with 
all the juicy
knobs but I can't quite figure out if it is technologically able to do 
what I'm after.

New choices to check out are welcome. I might wind up having to buy a 
bunch of mixers and interfaces on my credit card and return what doesn't 
satisfy.
I know that I can also pair a mixer with a separate interface if it 
comes to that, but that immediately jumps the price way over my budget 
if my interface
must be able to satisfy the mix minus requirements. If I'm going to pay 
for a good interface plus a mixer I might as well go for broke literally 
and buy
the Zoom Live trak L8 or something along that line.


-- 
cheers:
Aaron Spears AKA Valiant8086 - General Partner Valiant Galaxy Associates. "We make *very good audiogames* for the blind comunity" http://valiantGalaxy.com