Topic: HDSP 9632 and Babyface and amount of XLR inputs and phantom power
My question is about the RME HDSP 9632 PCI sound card. I have done some searches here in this forum and I have not found a definitive answer to my questions. I've have read through the overview of the 9632 here:
http://www.rme-audio.de/en/products/hdsp_9632.php
I also read through the manual. It seems you can plug in 2 XLR mics via a breakout cable; model number BO9632XLRMKH found here:
http://www.rme-audio.de/en/products/cables.php#4
My first question is about the phantom power for condenser microphones. Does the 9632 supply phantom power to these XLR input jacks?
My other question is about the maximum amount of XLR microphones that can be recorded at once. It seems that the limitation is physical and maxes out at 2 XLR inputs. The breakout cable only has 2 XLR input and 2 XLR output jacks. It also seems like the babyface mobile USB device uses the same type of cabling. Is there any way to increase this maximum amount of XLR inputs to 4 or greater? Is it the same maximum on both the Babyface and the 9632? Does the babyface supply phantom power as well? I wanted to find a way to connect 4 XLR inputs on the babyface as well.
The reason I ask is that I wanted to start a podcast and I will always have at least 2 people hosting and maybe 2 or more people as guests. I wanted to mic each individual, so that I can put each person on a separate track in a DAW and have the ability to edit each track individually. Usually the higher quality choices for this type of scenario are low end condenser mics with phantom power.
Is there a different breakout cable I can use? Or even a different breakout box with more XLR inputs? Is there a way in the software to change XLR output jacks into input jacks, to make a total of 4 inputs? Or am I going in the wrong direction and have to attempt to use a different RME card?