Considering the price of PT 10 with NO interface is $699, what's to think over?
At the time I bought the 11R, it was the new kid on the block. The naysayers compared it to the Axe FX, which I think was more than twice the price. There used to be a forum for THD amp enthusiasts, and quite a few of those posters had foot-pedal racks with composite retails of well over $1,000.
The Dimarzio site is loaded with audio samples showing off their pickups. A few of the demos are by a guitarist named Carl Culpepper, who has a web site of his own where he explains how he gets his tone. Stomp boxes like the Zen Drive, and assorted compressors, etc., cost several hundred bucks each, so the 11R, even without the software, gets you a huge bang for your buck. There are compressors, distortions, phasers, flangers, eqs, echos, reverbs, amp models, speaker models, a tuner, a mic pre, a fancy input mode, two amp outs, two XLR outs, SPDIF out, AES out...
Come on, this thing was absolutely killer! At the time I bought mine, it came with PT8, too...which finally included score viewing of MIDI data. Thank you very much.
So, let's see. The mic pre has about 60db of gain, enough for a dynamic mic, the converters go up to 96K, and when you load Pro Tools, you have a graphic interface that looks exactly like the physical counterparts of the emulated stomp boxes. You can modify the graphic interface and save your changes to the 11R, or modify the 11R running standalone, and upload your mods to the computer. What's to consider?
Well, there have been reports that one run had an issue with the clock. Mine has not, but it was one of the first off the line. However, there was an issue with some units that required replacing the amp output jack on the front, which Avid covered under warranty (they sent me the jack/cable assembly and I had to open up the unit and plug it into the motherboard).
Limitations? Well, the naysayers were a super finicky bunch, most had an assortment of valuable guitars and more than one boutique amp.
The solution: plug the 11R into a trick tube amp. I use it live going into a MESA Engineering Simul-Stereo 395. A what? It's got eight 6L6 Phillips NOS tubes and can run in either AB or a combination of AB and Class A mode, with 95 watts per side. So, even with the 11R set for super clean, I can get the tube compression and mild breakup that enthusiasts try to emulate with stomp boxes.
Oddly enough, the most serious attempt at recording guitars into Logic I did with my THD Univalve. It is Class A, and rated at 15 watts. But it drives a 4x12 enclosure and has the natural "break into octave" harmonics that are hard to get out of something totally digital. I recorded using mid-side with two tube mics, one set up in a cardioid pattern, the other in figure 8. I also ran a separate line out from the Univalve into a Fender Champ 50 feet away in a room with natural echo. So there were three tracks during the take, and I doubled the figure eight, flipped its phase 180 degrees to make a fourth, then I mixed the four tracks.
I did this three more times, so there were sixteen tracks for the four lead guitar takes. There were also two acoustical rhythm guitar takes (also mid-side), a direct electric guitar that I fattened with a Logic guitar setting, and an electric bass track, that I doubled and tried out some of Logic's bass guitar tweaks.
Needless to say, the point of the 11R is to eliminate some of this overkill, but I did not own it at the time. I have a Hafler MP100T preamp, an early MIDI controllable unit, that has a really nice clean sound. I also have the Digitech Valve FX and the Artist 2120. Lots of sounds in there, too.
The compatibility of the 11R with Pro Tools is a big deal if you are working on a project for several months and the producer wants you to add or change something using the same sound you put down a session ago. You can encode your preset into the track, and then re-load the setting if you want to add to a track using the same sound. For me to do that with the mid-side setup, I would need to set up two tube mics, route them first into the same stereo tube pre which was chained into a stereo tube compressor, and run the outputs into the converters for my front end to Logic. Not to mention try to remember how I had set the dials on all that stuff and have the same mics and speakers available.
So, yeah... $625 is like getting it for free. You could resell the ilok license for PT10 and get most of your clams back.
The 11R is a USB interface, and the preset encoding happens direct if you use it as the front end to Pro Tools. However, you can connect its AES output into a Pro Tools HD setup, and the HD tracks will also encode your presets, they are also carried on the AES outputs when used with PT HD. When using the 11R with Pro Tools, it can record direct at the same time as with presets, and there is a re-amp feature in case you want to use the direct signal later on to use either the built-in DSP FX or to send an output into a "real" amp (simultaneously using the mic input to capture the speaker's output) to get the specific color you are seeking.
The 11R is advertised as a six input/eight output interface, but here is what you need to know: there are three pairs of inputs: guitar and mic, two line inputs, and two digital inputs, either SPDIF or AES/EBU. Some may be unaware that the older Digidesign 888/24 units operate in stand-alone mode, and their converters are D/A -110dB SNR and 0.003% THD, 20 Hz to 20 kHz +- 1dB, similar to the MOTU PCI units. Their A/D is 113dB SNR, slightly better. If you want four line inputs (in addition to the mic and guitar inputs...), you will need to pick up some converters compatible with AES or SPDIF, and the 888/24 units are inexpensive. The limitation of the 888/24 is they will only do 44.1 or 48. But any converter with AES/EBU outputs can be used.
The eight outputs are two "amp" outputs, one of the front, one on the back, two XLR balanced outputs, two FX send outputs, and two digital outputs. There are also FX loop returns if you have a favorite stomp box or effect you want to add. The re-amp feature is part of the software, and is a short-cut for the patch (track output to amp/mic in to additional track...).
Sorry for the verbosity, but even if you hate it, you can always re-sell it.
Since I purchased it, Avid released an expansion pack for $99. It is a firmware upgrade that adds bass guitar models, a few new amp models and some processing for the mic input.
You can probably accomplish what you want without it. I have a Focusrite ISA One. It has the ability to record direct along side its mic input, as well as 192 kHz optional AES converters and some latency-free monitoring abilities. Plus, it has 80db of gain, a good idea if you use ribbon mics. But it costs about the same as the 11R, and is not a Logic interface.