multi-soundcards for recording on same computer

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DeathWarrior

New member
I have a bunch old legacy ISA sound cards and I was thinking of using them to record on 8 tracks simultaneous in cakewalk. Does anybody has tried this before, and wich are the cons of doing this? I have 3 ISA slots on my mainboard and a PCI-sound card...
Thx!!
 
It should work, but if they are old cards the sound will probably not be great. Good idea though! Only problem you might have is that lots of the older software drivers try to emulate a single soundblaster card, so if two or more of them are in the same system you may have conflicts.
 
Thx dragon, but if think that there are going to be no problems ´cos all of them ARE sound blaster cards :)
Do you still think that there will be a loss of quality in the recorded audio?
 
Dear Death,
I really don't think that many cards will work for you. The most you might be able to use is 3. The reason is because your system even with one sound card starts becoming low on resources,(IRQ,DMA,ETC) if you have all your other peripherals connected as well(printer,etc.) Best of luck to you. :)
 
Soundblasters are not the best. But I don't want to discourage you, because if you can get this running, you might come up with a new concept...use decent but inexpensive sound cards in batches instead of buying a Layla!
 
IF you can get this working with even 3 soundcards, i will be more than amazed, i will send the original designers of the ISA bus to your house to witness the miracle. this is not to discourage you, but most likely all will be vieing for the same irq, and dma address (since they are all soundcrappers :) If you are big into blood sweat and tear sessions with your computer, i might just see 3 working, though i have never accomplished more than 2, and indeed never heard of someone accomplishing more than that...
 
Well, I hope I can get this to work... it´ll save me 800 bucks hehehe
by the way, does anyone know about a good pci soundcard that is not that expensive?
 
I've tried this. What happens is that resources do run low, things get very sticky, and, unless the two cards are exactly the same, or, tied together by word clock, there will be drifting. Translation... Timing gets whacked. Also, the software your using has to be written to accommodate more than one soundcard. For instance, VST utilizes ASIO, and, only allows one device to run under that protocol, but, two can run with each soundcard's respective media driver.
 
i would check out the midiman 2044 its got 4 ins 4 outs 20 bit converters and built in dsp processor for around 300 bucks. more than 2 isa cards will prolly not work because of the resource problem, and the old converters dont sound so good anyway
 
YES... I HAVE RUN 4 SOUNDCARDS FROM CREATIVE LABS 1 AWE 64 (ISA) 2 ENSONIC AUDIO PCI AND 1 SB LIVE VALUE CARD. THE SYSTEM MUST BE DECATED TO SOUND NOT OTHER PROGRAMS OR FUNCTIONS (PRINTING ETC.) THE ENSONIC CARDS ALLOW YOU TO DISABLE THE LEGACY DRIVERS AND THEY ALSO ALLOW YOU TO CONTROL ADDRESSES. THE ONLY PROBLEM IS THAT THERE ARE NO ON BOARD CONNECTIONS FOR OUTPUT SO TO LINK THE CARDS YOU MUST CONNECT THEM FROM THE EXTERNAL CONNECTORS THIS GIVES YOU A SLIGHT LOSS OF SOUND QUALITY......BUT IT WORKS , IT'S ALSO A LOT EASYER TO PURCHACE A MULTI TRACK SOUNDCARD @300+ GOOD LUCK IT TOOK ME ABOUT 6 MOS TO STABLIZE THE SYSTEM WITHE THE 4 CARDS
KAOS
 
what about some of the more expensive cards , like the layla , or even gina ... has anyone linked a couple of these together ...?? being able to link even just two laylas would be great i think ... three even better .. i wonder what the repocusions would be on the stability of the system with 16 track operative ..mmmmm , would be good though.... i use my pc solely for recording , so does anyone know if this is at all possible??
cheers all
spider
 
Wait guys!!!

I think that Shane covered the REAL issue about trying mulitple soundcards in his thread above.

All the cards need to be sync'ed together with some kind of digital sync, like word clock for this to work.

Sure, you can install whatever you want on your computer, and multiples of it (of course, the IRQ and memory issues could be staggering for 4 soundcards all of the same make, especially older drivers which tend to want to use the same ones) but that doesn't mean that they are all going to jive together. It really could be like 4 musicians trying to play just watching one conductor keeping time, but them not hearing each other. The slight tempo interpretations can have an impact.

A really good 8 I/O card can be got for under $1k, and the fidelity of it will blow away older soundcrapper cards, and will usually offer many other benefits that soundcrappers cannot.

Don't be cheap, you only live once. And, my famous line, "Buy cheap, buy twice"!!! :)

Ed
 
well mr Q , im using the isis and it seems to do the job fine ... has all the things you'ld expect.. midi in , out , thru , that sort of stuff ..Only thing is i wish it had eight outs... If i had the money at the time i would have prefered the layla ... anyone using this ?? anygood ? but isis is good bang for ya buck ....
 
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