Soundcard

tempest · Post by **tempest** » Thu May 31, 2007 12:14 am

just wondering whats the minimum requirements i should be looking for when buying a soundcard for my new production pc...

A mate of my has reccommended the creative soundblaster X-Fi and im not too sure about it.

im working with a relatively stingy budget so i need value for money.. ill be recording vocals/guitar/bass...

so yeah, anyone whos got the know how, hit me up some knowledge, so i can make sure the soundcard i buy will have the stats i need.

Any help is appreciated,
Peace

subframe · Post by **subframe** » Thu May 31, 2007 12:25 am

what kind of budget?

Avoid creative at all costs

tempest · Post by **tempest** » Thu May 31, 2007 12:50 am

$1000 AU for the whole machine.. tho my mate gets parts at wholesale... I think it was between $100-200 for the soundcard he was reccomending (hes building the pc for me)

Steve AC23 · Post by **Steve AC23** » Thu May 31, 2007 1:14 am

I would buy a M-audio Audiophile 2496.

I bought mine from this store & can vouch for there speed delivery: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NEW-MIDIMAN-M-Au ... dZViewItem

It will work out to about $160 with postage from US to Aust.

Seriously, I cannont recommend this card enough.
I know loads of people with it and its tried and tested and will not fuck up

---

I just built a new PC, all the parts from MSY
(http://www.msy.com.au - cheapest in Australia)

duo2core concroe 2.4ghz
2gig ram
320gb sata seagate hdd
GeForce 8500GT ( It was about $150 - no need for owt flash)
16x dvdr
basic thermaltake case

Cost me au$985 & I doubt Ill upgrade for 4-5years, maybe throw another 2gb of ram in coz its so cheap.

Oh, and steer clear of Creative or anything you can buy at places like Dick Smiths Powerhouse / Harvey Norman / Computer shops etc

Research the Motherboard & bits he's buying, It's essential your shit
will work 100% perfect ors you'll be pulling your hair out tryna write beats.

tempest · Post by **tempest** » Thu May 31, 2007 1:35 am

ahh bloody champion... ill post the exact stuff he quoted me with when im at home..
he's real cluey with computer stuff so the pc should go great, its just the soundcard i was worried about because he isnt musical or have any audio knowledge that im aware of.

but yer thanks a lot mate

decklyn · Post by **decklyn** » Thu May 31, 2007 3:50 pm

Don't buy creative - no ASIO and overpriced.
THe soundcard you buy really depends on your other gear.

If you're recording vocals, as a minimum, you need a card that will handle 24/96, or you'll have to compress with hardware, otherwise, you'll end up with signal too close to the noisefloor, or distortion.

Now if you have a mixer with balanced outputs, or a dedicated preamp with balanced outputs, but a card with balanced inputs, cause you'll get cleaner recordings. A dedicated pre-amp mated with balanced inputs is way better than buying a mixer in terms of recording quality.

If you have, or plan on getting, a dedicated ad/da then you don't need to worry too much about the card quality. Just make sure it has SPD/IF and good, low latency asio drivers.

I'll go in to a bit more detail for you here.

There are a few things that make a good card.

1. Number of Inputs and Outputs: If you need them, then this is a consideration. Likely you'll need only 2 inputs and maybe 4 or 6 outputs (for headphones - so you can add some reverb for your performer)

2. Types of Inputs and Outputs: This one is important. if you're running cable all over, and across powercables and what not, you're going to pick up noise in the signal. Balanced signal introduces an inverted phase "cold" signal" which ends up being re-reversed at the end of travel to boost the original signal's strength, as well as remove noise via phase cancellation. XLR is an example of a balanced cable. You can also get 1/4" balanced cable. This requires extra electronics, so will introduce extra cost to your card. This also lengthens the signal chain, so it can actually introduce MORE noise. If you're only running very short cabling, you don't really need balanced inputs.

3. Internal vs External: THe problem with internal cards is case vibration and electical noise which invariably get into your signal path. (This only applies to analogue signal tho, so SPD/IF for instance is fine)External cards are more money, but offer better protection from the noise in your computer. External cards are also a touch easier to install.

4. Bitrate: We're starting to see a new standard emerging - 24bit 192khz. I personally like the 88.2 khz sampling rate due to dithering issues. That's another story. 24bit is the really important one here. You raise the headroom so you can record things a good big farther away from the noisefloor. This is really important if you've got no compressor and you're recording dynamic instruments such as vocals. Higher sampling rate just means more data over time. This translates into higher fidelity (ie 88.2khz recording is capable of reproducing 44.1khz sound). Time stretching effects will also come out much better as there is less of a need to (audibly) repeat samples.

5. Preamps: A really top end soundcard will also have good quality pre-amps. I would say it's better to buy a soundcard with just balanced inputs and then get a dedicated pre-amp later. You'll end up with way better quality recordings than using an integrated one.

6. Ad/da. This is the part of the card that converts the analogue signal coming in into digital signal and the digital signal going out into analogue signal. This component is often overlooked but is very important!!! For best results, get a dedicated ad/da later, and run everything into your card in spd/if signals. However, most cards have decent ad/das, do some research tho - you'll hear people talking about them.

tempest · Post by **tempest** » Thu May 31, 2007 9:39 pm

cheers decklyn.. im armed with some knowledge now, cant thank you enough... ill let yall know what setup i end up going with.

peace

unempty · Post by **unempty** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 12:19 am

FWIW, Echo Audio and E-mu make perfectly good, low-cost, but quality interfaces.

decklyn · Post by **decklyn** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 1:57 am

Yeah I quite like the Echo cards. They're quality

I forgot to mention - drivers are a big one too.
Low latency ASIO or STFU!
That's why creative are garbage.
If you're using standard MME/DX then you're passing signal through the kernal which introduces a huge delay and unnecessarily taxes you CPU. Not all drivers are created equally. Some are more stable/less problematic, and some are much much faster.

The other thing is interface as well:
Interfaces like USB 1.1 are not necessarily FASTER OR SLOWER!! This is a common misconception. Signals still travel just as fast as they do down firewire, but there is more bandwidth. IE) USB1.1 is capable of less than 10ms of latency with 44khz 16bit sound, but is capable of transferring 4 channels of data at a time in and out, or only 2 in or 2 out at 24/96 (even if you have a 4 channel card) [if I remember correctly]... Something like PCI, Firewire, or USB2 is capable of tranferring more channels at higher resolution.

The new standard is 24bit 192khz as mentioned. Might as well hop on board and do your recording at the highest bit and sample rates possible so processing ends up with better results. Do your recording at 24bit 176.4khz recording tho - this way when you mix down you're using every fourth sample, rather than having to dither your tunes (which is unnecessarily complex when you can just use 88.2khz or 176.4khz imo)

Just a point that you might be interested in: I'm using a soundblaster live with ASIO4ALL (free program - google it) for the drivers and am working in 16bit 44.1khz. I had some other soundcards (M-audio quattro, DJ Console), but I sold them to get a new controller (Axiom 25), and I'm actually pretty happy with the ASIO4ALL drivers. I'm planning on buying an echo product more likely than not. I'm just waiting for more 192khz solutions to come out.

Sub Shifter · Post by **Sub Shifter** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 5:03 pm

its all about the M-audio Audiophile 2496 ive used one for a while now and there solid.

http://www.virb.com/syanide

blacbeard · Post by **blacbeard** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 2:58 am

http://www.soundblaster.com/resources/r ... 3937&cat=2

No ASIO on Creative labs cards? What nonsense.

decklyn talks very loudly and would have you believe he is an expert due to authoratative tone he uses.

Read Sound on Sound or Electronic Musician if you want advice.

gobbledy-guck, I think thats how you spell that word.

rastba · Post by **rastba** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 8:49 am

I myself have a Tascam Us-122 and totally happy with it. It has 2 xlr inputs for condenser microphones and a 48 V amp for them. 2 quitar/line and a 2 input insert. midi in/out, direct monitoring. It's via usb so you don't need firewire or anuthing else.

tempest · Post by **tempest** » Tue Jun 05, 2007 12:35 am

how much you pay for that blacbeard?

decklyn · Post by **decklyn** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:32 am

My sincere appologies - those are both new cards as of the last couple years. I havn't read CM in a while, nor have I been keeping up to date on new hardware.

I guess technically EMU is creative as well, so you could also say that there are ASIO drivers there as well.

Again, my appologies.

glacial · Post by **glacial** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:12 am

decklyn wrote:
I guess technically EMU is creative as well, so you could also say that there are ASIO drivers there as well.

Creative is just a commercial "prefix" to Emu

technically they are separate as far as I know.

forensix (mcr) · Post by **forensix (mcr)** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:20 am

Ive always been very happy with my E-Mu 0404 fairly budget 1in 1out but does everything i need it to do

glacial · Post by **glacial** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:24 am

forensix (mcr) wrote:Ive always been very happy with my E-Mu 0404 fairly budget 1in 1out but does everything i need it to do

pci or usb?

glacial · Post by **glacial** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:25 am

duplicate post

forensix (mcr) · Post by **forensix (mcr)** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:26 am

glacial wrote:
forensix (mcr) wrote:Ive always been very happy with my E-Mu 0404 fairly budget 1in 1out but does everything i need it to do
pci or usb?

PCI

glacial · Post by **glacial** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:53 am

actually I am thinking about the purchase of Emu 1212m (low budget solution)

heard many good feedbacks about this model.

Soundcard

Soundcard

get your facts right.

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