Delta 66 & SB Live! Value or Platinum?

N

nommad

New member
Hello. If I'm using a Delta 66 for my analog recording into Cakewalk, and I want to use the internal synth from a Soundblaster card for my MIDI tracks, what will I loose by going for a Live! Value instead of Platinum? The Platinum has SPDIF outs so I could go directly back in to the Delta's SPDIF ins to record my synth sounds, but is that really worth it? If I use a Value, I'd have to just record the synth sounds into the normal analog inputs of the Delta, right? Or is there some way to record the sounds (and soundfont samples) directly into Cakewalk without comming outside the Live card? Is there something I'm not getting or missing? Any advice is appreciated...
Thanks! ~ Michael
 
Hey Nomad

If all that you wan't is the internal synth, the VALUE card should be just fine, I don't know anything about the Delta 66 so I don't know the ins or outs on that. If you want to control the Sound Blaster with an external controller you may want the Live Drive, if you dont have midi in on the Delta. The 1/4" in is pretty much useless. Other than that you won't get the extra software that comes with the platnum.

Rich
 
Oh, 1 more thing, if all your using is the internal synth, the card will only be used as a playback device.

Rich
 
nommad,

I have the SB Live! MP3+, which cost me $75 from egghead.com, I believe it was. This is the same card as the Platinum without the LiveDrive i/o panel. I also have a Delta 66. I use the SB Live to play audio CDs (the Delta has no internal connector for this), and for the synth and Sound Font capabilities. I have a small Behringer mixer (the MX1604A, about $190), into which I run the output of the SB Live into one pair of channels, and two of the Delta's outputs into another pair of channels. Then I can hear each card's playback simultaneously while I work in Cakewalk or whatever without having to route the SB audio into the Delta.

When I want to mix down to stereo, I use Cakewalk's mixdown feature to route the MIDI output to audio tracks. Then I have all digital audio, and when I'm all happy, I can mix the whole file down to a stereo WAV file or MP3 or Real Audio file. From the WAV file I can make an audio CD, and the others I can put up on the web. No physical routing of the Sound Blaster's output into the Delta66 is needed at all.

-AlChuck
 
AlChuck, Thanks! That's just the info I was looking for. Since I've got digital I/O on the Delta 66, I don't really need it on the Live card as well, unless that was the only way to keep my MIDI sounds digital, but as you pointed out - if I can just record the soundblaster/soundfont sounds direct to audio tracks from within Cakewalk - I won't ever have to come "outside" of the Live card except for monitoring --
Thanks again ~ Michael
 
Good description and explanation AC!!!!Expect to be getting some E-mails from me when I'm up and running.
 
methinks i'm missing a step...

I'm running Cakewalk PA 9, a SB live platinum and a DMAN 2044. I've always just ran an external patch from the SB output to the 2044 input to convert MIDI to audio tracks.

what you're describing sounds perfect, but i can't figure out how you're doing it.

help a dummy plz :)
 
Guys,

Sorry for the lousy description there... Here's what I do:

Let's assume I have three MIDI parts and I want to get them to be three audio tracks.

I'll start with the first. I mute all other tracks but the MIDI track I want to record, and I enable another track for recording. I set its source to be one of the audio sources of the SB Live.

I then open the Windows mixer and open the Properties dialog from the Options menu. In the middle section labeled "Adjust volume for," I select Recording. In the bottom list labeled "Show the following volume controls," I select "What You Hear" if it's not already enabled.

I minimize the Mixer (might need to tweak the levels) and set Cakewalk recording.

When done, I have a new audio track. I listen to make sure the levels are OK, and assuming they are, go on to the next track of interest and repeat the procedure.

This method (track by track) gives me a 1-to-1 audio track for each MIDI track. . The advantage is I can still toy with the tracks individually, if I decide I really don't like their relative levels or pan positions after all, or if I want a little more slapback or reverb or something. But pretty tedious if there are a pile of MIDI tracks. Since I'm usually not doing this conversion until the end, I'll submix the MIDI parts until I'm happy and record them to a pair of tracks. (I always save the original MIDI tracks in the project file anyway, so I can always work from the original individual parts).

Note that this method is actually using the SB Live to record the audio. I guess this means I'm stuck with 48 kHz, 18-bit recording, but the MIDI tracks are in the digital realm and routed through the SB Live's internal mixer, so that's OK. I mean, they wouldn't sound any better if I routed them out the analog ioutputs and back intop the Delta. I guess if I wanted to record other tracks at 24 bit/96 kHz with the Delta I'd have to export my audiofied MIDI files, dither them into the higher bit rate and sampling rate format, and pull them back in. I haven't tried this yet so I don't know how well it'll work (I've only had this system up and running properly for a few days now -- I had lots of computer upgrade nightmares and IRQ shenanigans for a while there).

I hope that makes better sense. Somehow I had it in my head that the SB's MIDI sounds could be recorded into the Delta's audio channel within Cakewalk. Sorry for the confusion I might have caused.

-AlChuck

[This message has been edited by AlChuck (edited 06-28-2000).]
 
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