Soundcard advice

B

Busdriver

Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2009
Location
Paris
Hey guys,

haven't post in a very long time even tho i come to read from you quite often.
I need your advice right now about some hardware.

I've got an E-MU 1820 soundcard for years now and sadly there is no good drivers made for Win7. I've got a lot of issues with it since i upgraded to seven 64 even tho it's still in good shape.
So basically i'm looking for a new soundcard.

I need at least:

-1 Midi in
-1 XLR in
-Outs for monitors
-Good general quality, because i use a lot of plugins at once and need stability

In fact i mainly produce "in the box". So i need something which will guaranty some low latency & support my plugs strongly. That's the main request. Then i need an XLR in to record some stuff from time to time and midi in for my keyboard.

Every stuff i find are nomad interface with low latency quality and a few ins/outs. Basically that's what i'm looking for but i do not need it to be movable and i need a better sound quality.

Or

Some good stuff but with a shitload of ins and out which i will never use.

So do you know what ITB producers use?

Some advice would be welcome!

Thx!
 
good luck on your search m8.
i made a similar thread - windows 7 64 bit is a ball-ache for sound drivers.
I got http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005CV3PNQ/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00 this.
But another company was sending me the cable i need and the cunts havent delivered it yet - so the card is still in the box.
But this one said was proper win7 64bit and asio2 compatable.
Its only 4 in 4 out though m8 and its all 1/4 jack - so not sure if thats any good for you.
good luck fella
 
Hey,

thx for your time mates. Hope you the best with your cable delivery Jim.
It's not quite what i'm looking for tho.
Btw new soundcards are nearly all compatible with 7.

Djwhizzkidd, the focusrite is exactly what i'm looking for in term of ins/outs. i'm just looking for a kind of upper quality stuff. And that's the problem, the best stuff gets ins and outs and options that i will never use on the cards i like.
I just need this plus better /khz and reliability.

in fact i nearly found what i'm looking for but there is still too much stuff that i wont use:

http://www.thomann.de/fr/roland_octa_capture.htm

or maybe

http://www.thomann.de/fr/motu_audio_express.htm

Best fit for me but 92 khz.

I'm not quite sure what the Khz does exactly, but i know that my current soundcard is up to 192khz and that even with better hardware (proc-ram) than me, my friends cant run as much plugins as i can.

Isn't there a soundcard aimed at people who produce mainly in the box?

like:
-1midi in/1midi out
-1 or 2 Audio in/ 1 or 2 audio outs max
-24bits/192khz

The only one i found is out of my wallet range:

http://www.thomann.de/fr/rme_fireface_uc.htm

I mean 900€ for a fcking soundcard with nearly nothing on it. Cmon.

Any advice about Khz incidence or whatever on the subject are welcome.

Thx again
 
was gonna buy the focusrite usb - but on HTFR website it said they wont support it under windows 7 64 bit.
So that kinda suxs balls 4 me
 
Unless you have got some extremely high end monitors in a properly treated studio, I doubt you would be able to tell the difference between 92 khz or 192khz (If indeed there is a difference).

I think you are bit confused about what khz means. You say you wan't something that "supports your plugs strongly".

I assume you mean plugins? If so, a soundcard has got nothing to do with running plugins. A soundcard just outputs audio, and if you are using average monitors connected with an analogue jack cable, you don't need to worry about the khz level of a soundcard.

---------- Post added at 15:10 ---------- Previous post was at 15:09 ----------

jim

I have the focusrite usb and I use it with Windows 7 64 but, works fine.
 
That's weird, I wonder why it has a problem with a particular processor. Makes no sense.

Oh well, I've got an AMD Quad Core which is probably why it works fine for me.
 
DJWhizzkidd said:
Unless you have got some extremely high end monitors in a properly treated studio, I doubt you would be able to tell the difference between 92 khz or 192khz (If indeed there is a difference).

I think you are bit confused about what khz means. You say you wan't something that "supports your plugs strongly".

I assume you mean plugins? If so, a soundcard has got nothing to do with running plugins. A soundcard just outputs audio, and if you are using average monitors connected with an analogue jack cable, you don't need to worry about the khz level of a soundcard.

---------- Post added at 15:10 ---------- Previous post was at 15:09 ----------

jim

I have the focusrite usb and I use it with Windows 7 64 but, works fine.
Click to expand...

Thx for the informations! I read some on the subject and you are right Khz seems to be just the sample refresh rate which gives more accuracy to the sound heard.

Btw i have observed that on different soundcards, with the same setup, your asio driver (on cubase) seems to overload with different amounts of plugins used. Where could it come from?
Differents drivers? Differents interface (Pcie/usb/firewire)?....
 
DJWhizzkidd said:
Unless you have got some extremely high end monitors in a properly treated studio, I doubt you would be able to tell the difference between 92 khz or 192khz (If indeed there is a difference).

I think you are bit confused about what khz means. You say you wan't something that "supports your plugs strongly".

I assume you mean plugins? If so, a soundcard has got nothing to do with running plugins. A soundcard just outputs audio, and if you are using average monitors connected with an analogue jack cable, you don't need to worry about the khz level of a soundcard.

---------- Post added at 15:10 ---------- Previous post was at 15:09 ----------

jim

I have the focusrite usb and I use it with Windows 7 64 but, works fine.
Click to expand...

This statement is not entirely true. A better audio interface means lower latency, allowing those plugins to process data that is input without delay in the A/D D/A cycle. For example, a guitarist who is running their guitar through the audio interface and using Native Instruments Guitar Rig Plugins. Another example would be a DJ who is recording a live set. A bad audio interface would introduce latency making the audio they heard in their headphones slightly off beat from the monitors being output from the audio interface.

In terms of sampling, you won't be able to "hear" a difference when recording at a higher resolution (ex. 88.2, 96, 192, etc.). However, you gain additional headroom which provides a bit more audio data and "wiggle" room when applying audio processing to your tracks. To add, if you do insist on working at a higher sampling rate, shoot for 88.2. While I won't go into the specifics because it would take way to long, just know that 88.2 is double the wav/aiff standard of 44.1 which makes the processing more efficient than say going from 96 to 44.1–computers in general will always prefer whole numbers/values and equations that end in non decimal results.

Cheers.
 
Last edited:
I bought an internal one as my old audio file wouldn't fit in a pci express slot, then I thought I could do with a seperate one for quality vocal and instrument recording with phantom power and bought this
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MobilePre.html works perfectly on my windows 7 64 bit But not sure on midi out.. Other than that it ticks every other one of your boxes. Pretty cheap too
 
lostnthesound said:
This statement is not entirely true. A better audio interface means lower latency, allowing those plugins to process data that is input without delay in the A/D D/A cycle. For example, a guitarist who is running their guitar through the audio interface and using Native Instruments Guitar Rig Plugins. Another example would be a DJ who is recording a live set. A bad audio interface would introduce latency making the audio they heard in their headphones slightly off beat from the monitors being output from the audio interface.

In terms of sampling, you won't be able to "hear" a difference when recording at a higher resolution (ex. 88.2, 96, 192, etc.). However, you gain additional headroom which provides a bit more audio data and "wiggle" room when applying audio processing to your tracks. To add, if you do insist on working at a higher sampling rate, shoot for 88.2. While I won't go into the specifics because it would take way to long, just know that 88.2 is double the wav/aiff standard of 44.1 which makes the processing more efficient than say going from 96 to 44.1–computers in general will always prefer whole numbers/values and equations that end in non decimal results.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

That's some pretty cool stuff to know.

Many thanks to all of you.
 
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