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I'm quite new to music production.

I'm buying a new PC for general use, but I also want to use it for a bit of music production. What I want to know is how important the internal soundcard is, whether there were any recommendations, and what I should be looking for?

The PC I was looking at on dell.co.uk comes with "Integrated HDA 7.1 Dolby Digital Audio" but you can upgrade to "Sound Blaster® X-Fi Xtreme Gamer PCI Soundcard". Either of these be okay, or should I get a soundcard from a different place completely?

I have had a good search around the forums, and all the posts I can find are about external soundcards for recording and I can't really find the info I'm looking for, but sorry if I'm doubling up on a topic here.

Thanks in advance!

of course you can use an internal soundcard like the two you mentionend, but if you are serious about making music, go get either a firewire one, or a PCI one do not go for a usb one if you are on a windows box.

As to which soundcard to buy I am no expert, I have a m-audio firewire 410 and that has worked fine for me. You should invest about 150€ for a PCI-soundcard or about 250€ for a firewire card.

if you are a complete newb, google asio4all
the reason for getting good soundcards is latency.

greetins,

Edwin

Edwin Katzer wrote:of course you can use an internal soundcard like the two you mentionend, but if you are serious about making music, go get either a firewire one, or a PCI one do not go for a usb one if you are on a windows box.

Why do you say that? I'm running an external soundcard via USB, no problems here.

well as long as you do not really max out your cpu usb is fine, but with the usb implementation in windows on OS side being as shitty as it is and the FW implementation being a lot better, fw interfaces simply use less cpu cycles for the same amout of audio transmission, so basically as soon as you start heavy processing on your stuff your f***ed,..

I actually had two usb soundcards before getting my FW interface and suddenly I had lower cpu usage and lower latency

Edwin Katzer wrote:well as long as you do not really max out your cpu usb is fine, but with the usb implementation in windows on OS side being as shitty as it is and the FW implementation being a lot better, fw interfaces simply use less cpu cycles for the same amout of audio transmission, so basically as soon as you start heavy processing on your stuff your f***ed,..

I actually had two usb soundcards before getting my FW interface and suddenly I had lower cpu usage and lower latency

Im running Vista with dual core 2.8 Gig processor and a (fairly shitty)Alesis USB Audio Interface. I've managed to run all sorts (and all number) of VST's without any latency or sound quality trouble. I think cancelling out USB audio interfaces is a little hasty. They're cheap and mine does the job for me.

I think it depends on whether you wish to track vocals, whether you want dsp effects (Pro Tools), and whether you want a guitar preamp built in.

If your just going to be using soft synths to make your music, then stick with what comes bundled. If you want to get deeper into music production, buy a dedicated soundcard with a break out box.

EMU make excellent soundcards.

I have a PCI card from them which cost a bomb and is sick (1616m)

Their 0404 card is really cheap and well worth a look.

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I think Firewire cables have a higher bandwidth than usb cables. Thus more data can fit through the cable at once. Ethernet kills both for data transfer rates however and some PCI cards have ethernet connections between the pci card and the break out box. (EMU 1616 for instance)

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Creative Audigy cards are good and will get the job done.

Avoid Realtek AC97 cards like the plague!

i used to have an m-audio fw410 and it was utter shit, kept resetting itself or losing power or making horrible noises - apparently they just don't like certain firewire chipsets (possibly texas instruments, i can't quite recall).

if it's a desktop i'd say PCI all the way for stability, i use an m-audio delta 1010 and it's great, plenty of I/O and solid, solid as a rock.

or for laptops the 1616m is very nice, great A/D convertors and excellent value for money.

Wensley wrote:Im running Vista with dual core 2.8 Gig processor and a (fairly shitty)Alesis USB Audio Interface. I've managed to run all sorts (and all number) of VST's without any latency or sound quality trouble. I think cancelling out USB audio interfaces is a little hasty. They're cheap and mine does the job for me.

Hmm dunno about vista, stayed away from it and intend to get a mac next
I also have a dual core 2,8 pentium system with an intel chipset, and I was refering to the usb driver implementation in WinXP..
For me latency was a huge issue, as I play the keys as well as basslines, and I could not get the groove right with either the behringer soundcard (yeah i know...) nor the m-audio that I had,
but switching to FW 410 was the best thing I did for my music, in that regard, ..

I think you should look into getting a soundcard with a preamp so you can eventually invest in a microphone and use it

just my 2´c

M-Audio Delta1010 LT all day.

all the inputs and outputs you could ask for in a home set up. reasonably priced and decent enough quality. i've had mine for almost 3 years now and i'm pretty happy with it.

My 2 pence...

Run away form E-Mu cards. I had the all singing all dancing 1620m n it was SHIT. Now w=hen I say shit I mean SHIT, brown runny shit!

I've been recommended RME I think it is, best converters around! Personally I'm just about to buy a Delta 10/10 like your man above (^^^) but not the LT version but thats cos I need the in's n out's

they're big!

DJ $hy wrote:My 2 pence...

Run away form E-Mu cards. I had the all singing all dancing 1620m n it was SHIT. Now w=hen I say shit I mean SHIT, brown runny shit!

I've been recommended RME I think it is, best converters around! Personally I'm just about to buy a Delta 10/10 like your man above (^^^) but not the LT version but thats cos I need the in's n out's

Yeah im running the delta 10/10 lt


It's alright, dont really need all the ins and outs but may come in handy. The only thing bout the delta 10/10 lt is you got to run phono to jack leads not jack to jack which done me right up when i first got it but it's all gravy now

id reccomend EMU0404 or Asus Xonar D2 7.1 PCI Sound Card