Sound cards ?

[phase]

I hear that the soundcard makes a hell of a difference when it comes to recording/audio production and what not, and I was just wondering if anybody knew of any particular good ones, and how sound cards compare to each other in general. Specifically, I'm looking for a decent USB sound card, so if anybody could suggest one, that'd be cool.

[Dustwave]

M-Audio makes amazing cards

[PhineasFreak]

Originally Posted by phase

Specifically, I'm looking for a decent USB sound card, so if anybody could suggest one, that'd be cool.

when you say "a USB soundcard" dou you mean an external USB audio interface for a laptop?

in which case go for Edirol or M-audio unless your rich enough to be able to affor top end gear like MOTU and you have a real need for high spec stuff...

[phase]

yea sure, something that i can use to get audio input to my laptop.

in general when looking around for products of the sort, what would i be looking for in terms of specs/features? or is there also a kind of quality that wouldn't be reflected in those specs?

[90degrees]

Originally Posted by phase

yea sure, something that i can use to get audio input to my laptop.

In general when looking around for products of the sort, what would i be looking for in terms of specs/features? or is there also a kind of quality that wouldn't be reflected in those specs?

In general you get what you pay for but you need to be a little more specific with what sort of audio you mean, cd player, turntables, instruments?
Are you using music software already or is it in planning?
The main differences are in the quality of the Digital-Analog and Analog-Digital converters, the sample rate, the quality of used components (resistors, chips, capacitors etc), and obviously functionality and size, not to mention R&D.
So in general I agree with Dusty and Phin, just some examples.
Edirol UA-1EX
Emu 0404 USB 2.0
M-Audio Ozone
Novation X-STATION 25

most USB DJ consoles a la Hercules are "soundcards" as well

check for drivers for your OS.
And pre-amped inputs if you want to connect turntables (or buy some amps separately)

[Trance88]

I looked inside my computer the other day and noticed all audio jacks and such are wired straight to the mother board through a little metal box instead of on a separate card. Is it possible to have a computer where the soundcard is acctually a built-in part of the mother board?

[PhineasFreak]

Originally Posted by Trance88

I looked inside my computer the other day and noticed all audio jacks and such are wired straight to the mother board instead of on a separate card. Is it possible to have a computer where the soundcard is acctually a built-in part of the mother board?

yes - it's called onboard sound. it usually sucks.

it takes processor capacity away from the CPU to do the audio processing so reducing performance.

[djGT]

Originally Posted by Dustwave

M-Audio makes amazing cards

hell yeah, we just picked up a FireWire 410 at guitar center last night!

[gotwf]

The Chaintech AV710 is great bang for the buck at under $30 US and uses VIA chipset, albeit not same one as M-Audio high end units.

[PhineasFreak]

Originally Posted by gotwf

...M-Audio high end units.

"M-audio" and "high end" never seem to sit together in my head for some reason...

[hiddendrunk1]

how about a desent sound card for a pc to record my mixes.ive been looking and dont know what to buy. and also a program to do the recording

[Jeff Andvik]

ok first of all, never get an usb soundcard, usb looses sound quality on the usb cable. Though it may be minimal, why not just get firewire and avoid the problem all together? As for brands, there are several things you could look into. If you want an affordable soundcard m-audio is a good posibility, but its not particularly "good" .. it gets most stuff done for what most ppl want. A few other cards to look at, E-Mu, Echo, Motu, etc. Just some brands to get you searching for what you want

[phase]

poooh, that means i shouldn't be recording on my laptop? o.O Anyhow, how does USB lose quality through the cable compared to firewire? They both transfer at similar rates... and both of them i believe are greater than the amount of data that's passing through.

[Jeff Andvik]

Originally Posted by phase

poooh, that means i shouldn't be recording on my laptop? o.O Anyhow, how does USB lose quality through the cable compared to firewire? They both transfer at similar rates... and both of them i believe are greater than the amount of data that's passing through.

its not so much in the rate they transfer, the audio loss comes into the picture when you look at the protocol structure of how the information is sent. From what I understand, Firewire sends using a protocol that doesnt loose any of the information over the cable ... (interfeerence etc) ... I couldnt give you the details on all of this, but my friends who deal with this on a daily basis gave me that heads up when I was looking for a soundcard my self.... as for recording on a laptop, not a problem there at all, just use your firewire port also, if your just using it to record your dj sets, dont worry too much about getting the fanciest and flashiest... if you are producing on the other hand, I would definitely get something a little higher end

just my 2 cents

for my studio I have a computer (2.2ghz amd athlon, 1 gig ram etc), Echo Gina 24, M-Audio Radium 61, Numark DXM-09, Behringer Truth B2031A .... thats pretty much all you need to know about my audio setup .... not the best, but it is working well for me

[Trance88]

Originally Posted by PhineasFreak

yes - it's called onboard sound. it usually sucks.

it takes processor capacity away from the CPU to do the audio processing so reducing performance.

Uhhhgggg that does sound like it sucks but I guess it sounds ok.

[90degrees]

Originally Posted by Jeff Andvik

its not so much in the rate they transfer, the audio loss comes into the picture when you look at the protocol structure of how the information is sent. From what I understand, Firewire sends using a protocol that doesnt loose any of the information over the cable ... (interfeerence etc) ... I couldnt give you the details on all of this, but my friends who deal with this on a daily basis gave me that heads up when I was looking for a soundcard my self.... as for recording on a laptop, not a problem there at all, just use your firewire port also, if your just using it to record your dj sets, dont worry too much about getting the fanciest and flashiest... if you are producing on the other hand, I would definitely get something a little higher end

just my 2 cents

for my studio I have a computer (2.2ghz amd athlon, 1 gig ram etc), Echo Gina 24, M-Audio Radium 61, Numark DXM-09, Behringer Truth B2031A .... thats pretty much all you need to know about my audio setup .... not the best, but it is working well for me

from what I've seen on the boards you also know how to use it

Regarding USB some motherboard chips are extremly picky, like on some ASUS A8N (sorted a few revisions later) or one of Nvidias newer 500 series chipsets (560 I think).

[hafree]

Just to clarify some misconceptions here, you shouldn't have any problems with sound quality just because your sound interface is connected via USB. All of the analog to digital conversion takes place in the sound card, so only digital data is transferred via the USB cable. As long as you don't have a cheap or broken cable incapable of USB 2.0 speeds, you won't experience any data loss. CD quality audio (44.1kHz, 16-bit, stereo) results in approximately 1.4Mbps of throughput, which is well below the capabilities of USB 2.0 - "fast speed" is 12Mbps and "hi speed" is 480Mbps. In practice, most USB 2.0 devices only see about 3Mbps of throughput, but that's still twice what you need. Unless you are recording at much higher qualities (96kHz, 24-bit) or doing multichannel recording, I wouldn't worry about the limitations of USB.

[THE TRUTH]

MBox series. Blows all away. And they are USB.

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...0&itemid=23596

[hafree]

I don't know if you're looking for single or multiple channel recording, or if this is for a desktop or laptop, but I've been really happy with my Echo Indigo IO card for my laptop. Studio quality analog recording with amazing signal-to-noise ratios.

[Trance88]

Originally Posted by djGT

hell yeah, we just picked up a FireWire 410 at guitar center last night!

Thats an external "sound card" unit?