After being a computerless musician for several years, I was recently lucky enough to be gifted a ThinkPad laptop (T440s, i5 processor, 8GB RAM, small SSD). Obviously, I was quite excited and I quickly fell in love with the idea of using this computer for some home recording / music production. As it came without OS, I quickly decided to go the Linux route and I am now running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. I have also purchased Ardour 4, downloaded the calf plugin suite and I almost could not be happier.
Now the logical next step would be, of course, to acquire a USB audio/MIDI interface to be able to connect the analog world of my music to Ardour. For a brief moment I believed my Roland SP-555 would be able to take this role, but I quickly realized that this scenario was unrealistic due to proprietary driver issues. Fine.
So, I am now looking to buy a used USB audiointerface, preferably with MIDI capabilities. I have done some research on the internet and the most promising candidates right now are:
Focusrite Scarlett 2i4
Edirol UA-25 (cheaper market price and thus preferred)
On to the (possibly horrific) catch:
I read that, on Linux, USB audiointerfaces plugged into USB 3.0 ports will cause problems or will not work at all.
This appears to be a huge problem in my situation as it seems the Lenovo T440s is equipped with three USB 3.0 ports and nothing else
I decided to seek help in this forum. If you have not guessed yet, my questions are:
- Am I overlooking something and a UA-25 (or Scarlett 2i4) could work fine plugged into the T440s?
- Is there another hardware option I have not considered that would solve my scenario?
- If not, is there a complicated software path to possibly make it work?
Thank you for reading & please let me know if you are interested in any additional details!
Felix
Edit: I realized Lenovo offers Docking stations for my computer that feature both USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports. Would this possibly solve anything? If there is no other way (though I hope there is) I might save up for a dock then.
Edit2: Another thought popped up: the T440s has an express card slot - would that open up possibilities?