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What soundcard should I buy?


zircon
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I can vouch for the quality of M-Audio Delta cards. I have a 24/96 and a Delta 1010 (with the rackmount)

You could look into the M-Audio Delta 1010LT, which has a lot more connectivity options for less. However, you can pick up a full Delta 1010 unit, preowned for not too much.

Another option is to go for a solid card with less connectivity like the Audiophile 24/96 and then plump for a nice outboard mixer. But of course this means you'd have to get all your levels right in the mixer, and you will only be able to treat your entire mixer output as one audio stream within you DAW :|

I have no opnion on other cards as I simply haven't used them, but from other forums, I have heard promising things about the quality of Focusrite's pre-amps on their interfaces and dedicated pre-amp units.

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Would a soundcard help me be able to run 10 instruments of EWQLSO, 5 instances of amp sim, and any other effects I need? Cause that's something I can't do now and I've heard people say "ram", "processor", etc... but nobody ever said it was due to not having a powerful enough soundcard.

I have an SB Live! 24-bit soundcard and Alesis io|26 firewire recording interface. The recording works perfectly and I have up to 8 phantom-powered inputs. :-P

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Well, that's not really accurate. Crappy soundcards have crappy, non-ASIO drivers that are incredibly inefficient. I remember back when I had an EMU0404 on a Pentium 3ghz, I was able to run at lower buffer settings with fewer pops and crackles simply by upgrading to a Presonus Firebox. Now, the EMU0404 isn't even a bad card, and an SB Live! is. While ultimately the best way to run more plugins at lower buffers is a faster computer, upgrading to a better interface will definitely help.

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Computer hardware eh? I just bought a new 1TB hard drive to replace my 160gb one which was full. Apart from that, my hardware is pretty good :P

Pentium 4 dual 2.80GHz and 2.75gb RAM on a stripped-down XP

a pentium dual-core is five generations behind current cpu technology. not to mention that the motherboard's chipsets are likely trash from being so old.

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  • 3 months later...
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  • 1 month later...

If I'm going to use a sound card strictly for recording midi from a keyboard, is basically anything with midi ins/outs and ASIO support for Windows 7 64 acceptable? Or will I get better latency buying a higher end sound card? I don't care about live audio.

The sample libraries I have are very large and high quality (i.e. Tonehammer Emotional Piano), and I want to play live with as very little latency as possible (under 10 ms would be nice).

Compatibility with FL Studio would be a plus, but if I have to switch to a better DAW with support for Kontakt 4 and better driver support I will.

I'm currently using a cheap laptop, but plan on eventually building something really nice, probably an Intel I7, 24 gigs of Ram, SSD hard drives, the works. I need a good sound card to pair up with it that can handle all the audio processing I need for hundreds of gigs worth of sample libraries and massive orchestral/fusion arrangements. I assume that a cheap sound card can potentially create a bottleneck on an otherwise good system.

I probably won't get the low latency midi I need until I get a new computer, even with a godly USB soundcard. I already maxed out the RAM on my laptop to 4 gigs, but have a lousy CPU.

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not all of them support high impencence signal (wow i think i spellt that wrong)

Sound it out. :P

If I'm going to use a sound card strictly for recording midi from a keyboard, is basically anything with midi ins/outs and ASIO support for Windows 7 64 acceptable? Or will I get better latency buying a higher end sound card? I don't care about live audio.

The sample libraries I have are very large and high quality (i.e. Tonehammer Emotional Piano), and I want to play live with as very little latency as possible (under 10 ms would be nice).

Compatibility with FL Studio would be a plus, but if I have to switch to a better DAW with support for Kontakt 4 and better driver support I will.

I'm currently using a cheap laptop, but plan on eventually building something really nice, probably an Intel I7, 24 gigs of Ram, SSD hard drives, the works. I need a good sound card to pair up with it that can handle all the audio processing I need for hundreds of gigs worth of sample libraries and massive orchestral/fusion arrangements. I assume that a cheap sound card can potentially create a bottleneck on an otherwise good system.

I probably won't get the low latency midi I need until I get a new computer, even with a godly USB soundcard. I already maxed out the RAM on my laptop to 4 gigs, but have a lousy CPU.

Sound cards are never bottlenecks until you want to record. I think buying an expensive sound card is an extremely haphazard choice just for MIDI. If you're running an i7, then using your keyboard's USB connector (if it doesn't have one, you can get a converter) with ASIO4ALL at a lower buffer rate should get you the latency you need. If you REALLY want dedicated I/O for recording, I suggest the USB (firewire is "faster" but USB is fast enough for the # of I/O's on this one) Audio Kontrol 1. Has MIDI I/O, one XLR OR 1/4" and one 1/4" inputs, 2 pairs of stereo 1/4" outputs, a headphone jack, and phantom power for mic. Also has a few buttons and a big knob. You can asign these to do whatever the hell (including combinations of different buttons pressed or turning the knob while pressing a specific one).

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  • 2 weeks later...
If I'm going to use a sound card strictly for recording midi from a keyboard, is basically anything with midi ins/outs and ASIO support for Windows 7 64 acceptable? Or will I get better latency buying a higher end sound card? I don't care about live audio.

The sample libraries I have are very large and high quality (i.e. Tonehammer Emotional Piano), and I want to play live with as very little latency as possible (under 10 ms would be nice).

Compatibility with FL Studio would be a plus, but if I have to switch to a better DAW with support for Kontakt 4 and better driver support I will.

I'm currently using a cheap laptop, but plan on eventually building something really nice, probably an Intel I7, 24 gigs of Ram, SSD hard drives, the works. I need a good sound card to pair up with it that can handle all the audio processing I need for hundreds of gigs worth of sample libraries and massive orchestral/fusion arrangements. I assume that a cheap sound card can potentially create a bottleneck on an otherwise good system.

I probably won't get the low latency midi I need until I get a new computer, even with a godly USB soundcard. I already maxed out the RAM on my laptop to 4 gigs, but have a lousy CPU.

If your on your laptop i agree a maudio fastrack , a kore audio 1 as said already or a E-MU 0404 usb would be a good for your needs, but im not sure to ither get a E-MU 0404 or a M-Audio fast track pro.

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I get almost unworkable latency with my firewire audio device PHANTOM POWER (regular is fine) that almost turns me off making music altogether (probably around 20ms or around there), but USB is so much worse. Yeah, I used some USB devices in a pinch. I wouldn't recommend that at all. Even with ASIO drivers, it's not ideal in the least. I would say it's far past workable, if I still just had the USB devices I probably would have quit music by now. :-(

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I get almost unworkable latency with my firewire audio device PHANTOM POWER (regular is fine) that almost turns me off making music altogether (probably around 20ms or around there), but USB is so much worse. Yeah, I used some USB devices in a pinch. I wouldn't recommend that at all. Even with ASIO drivers, it's not ideal in the least. I would say it's far past workable, if I still just had the USB devices I probably would have quit music by now. :-(

You have extremely bad luck, because I have a USB powered interface and the latency is nothing but workable all the way up to the last overhead setting (multimedia/games).

I guess that could say a lot about Audio Kontrol 1. :P

Sure, he's gonna have to lower his buffer rate a little, but with an i7 powered computer buffer rate vs. latency should be the least of his issues.

I'll rather not sound it out :sleepzzz:

Takes more work to tell me you don't want to than to correct your spelling.

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I get almost unworkable latency with my firewire audio device PHANTOM POWER (regular is fine) that almost turns me off making music altogether (probably around 20ms or around there), but USB is so much worse. Yeah, I used some USB devices in a pinch. I wouldn't recommend that at all. Even with ASIO drivers, it's not ideal in the least. I would say it's far past workable, if I still just had the USB devices I probably would have quit music by now. :-(

Oh wow, glad that didn't stop making music then =).

I chose to get the E-MU 1212m and later bought the breakout box which upgrades it to 1616m? Either way, been using the soundcard for about 2 years now (Microdock came about a whole 'nother year later) and I love everything about it. Hopefully soon I can get a decent mic so I can use the preamps on the breakout box which I heard were good, like stuff from Protools hardware.

The built in dsp effects are pretty good, although I haven't really incorporated them into my song yet, I will eventually =D just been doin a lot of experimenting with em

I don't really have any latency issues. I can go as far down as 7 ms.

My only real issue with lag or anything like that is the nature of the usage of my computer. While this is my serious music rig. It's also the only computer in the house so I let everyone else use it as well which in turn slows down the comp quite a bit and sometimes I see that.

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My interface actually works really well, with a non-noticeable latency if I use the direct monitoring instead of listening to its playback through the program. The main thing is the phantom power, for some reason the latency is so bad that I have to actually zoom in and drag all of my phantom power recorded, like, acoustic guitar tracks forward. <_< I don't know if that's an issue with my computer (probably), the drivers, or some kind of power source not being strong enuffs. I recorded some tambourine yesterday and even had to drag those forward to match the beat. Kinda lame. And it's the same across each program, cause I used Audition 3 yesterday for that.

And I only figured this out like... mid-february, so my mixes before that have this in them and they might be noticeable. I was trying to play sooner to compensate. :/

Incase anyone's wondering and to get back on topic, I'm using the Alesis io|26 firewire.. 8 simultaneous inputs of goodness but I've only ever used 4 at once. :-)

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My interface actually works really well, with a non-noticeable latency if I use the direct monitoring instead of listening to its playback through the program. The main thing is the phantom power, for some reason the latency is so bad that I have to actually zoom in and drag all of my phantom power recorded, like, acoustic guitar tracks forward. <_< I don't know if that's an issue with my computer (probably), the drivers, or some kind of power source not being strong enuffs. I recorded some tambourine yesterday and even had to drag those forward to match the beat. Kinda lame. And it's the same across each program, cause I used Audition 3 yesterday for that.

I have no experience with the Phantom Power input on my interface (no microphone, I don't sing or have acoustic guitar T_T) but recording electric guitar is doable for me, listening through FL Studio through Guitar Rig 4 Pro.

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