sound card recommendations for classical piano

sassysquatch

New member
so, Here is my question:
I want a reccommendation for a sound card which can simultaneously and easily handle:
1.Synthogy IvoryII at 192kh, 24bit, and max polyphony etc.
2. 2caudio aether, maximum offline settings (not the 'obessesive' mode though, perfectionist is enough)
3. some given high quality equalizer

I don't need a bumch of imputs, as I'm only interested in piano- I only have the Kawaii VPC1, and that is enough for me! So what do you think? What would the minimum amount of sound card power I would need to rum this flawlessly? I want to both use it for live performance and recording classical music.
I believe I have a fast set up: i7 cpu, 16GB ram BUT,
my sound card is not quite cutting I have an onboard itel mini itx, which does pretty well, but not as well as I would like.
Thanks for any suggestions!
 
Pretty much most any 2-channel sound card will be fine for just hooking up a keyboard.
You don't need "sound card power"...the power needs to be with the computer, the sound card is just converting and passing the audio to the computer....so get a card that is compatible with your computer setup...USB, Thunderbolt, Firewire, PCIe....etc.
 
so, Here is my question:
I want a reccommendation for a sound card which can simultaneously and easily handle:
1.Synthogy IvoryII at 192kh, 24bit, and max polyphony etc.
2. 2caudio aether, maximum offline settings (not the 'obessesive' mode though, perfectionist is enough)
3. some given high quality equalizer

I don't need a bumch of imputs, as I'm only interested in piano- I only have the Kawaii VPC1, and that is enough for me! So what do you think? What would the minimum amount of sound card power I would need to rum this flawlessly? I want to both use it for live performance and recording classical music.
I believe I have a fast set up: i7 cpu, 16GB ram BUT,
my sound card is not quite cutting I have an onboard itel mini itx, which does pretty well, but not as well as I would like.
Thanks for any suggestions!
So, like [MENTION=94267]miroslav[/MENTION] says, your main requirement is compatibility with the computer you have, and I'd guess that's a Windows PC with at least USB 2.0 connectivity. That should open up a wide selection of interfaces, so then you select 192kHz, 24-bit capability, which might thin the list slightly, but probably not much. After that is price.

The one thing I wonder about is that 2CAudio Aether plugin (had to google). It's listed system requirements are very light, and I'd say doubtful. Reverbs tend to be pretty heavy resource consumers, which is why many folks resort to putting them on a bus for multi-track recordings. I have no idea what you're actually doing, but moving 192kHz data through that plugin and hoping to get it back with imperceptible latency (as in during recording) might be a tall order for some lower end AIs. (If it's all post-processing, then any bottlenecks you hear are likely in your system, and not the AI.)

The newest Focusrite Clarett line with Thunderbolt connections seem to be living up to the very low latency hype. Don't know if there's a qualified Thunderbolt card for Windows PCs that would make that work, or if the USB 2.0 Clarett versions are just as fast. (Somehow I doubt it.)
 
Personally I'd NOT put money into an internal card - I've had some good ones in the past that were noise free, but transplanting them to new machines was often a problem. The good card suddenly became noisy on the new computer. My experience on external interfaces has been much better, and these have proven to be more versatile. I'm not sold myself on 192KHz recording, I've started recording at 96KHz, because I can, but all our classical piano recordings are still being created at 44.1KHz, because we still deliver lots of it on CD, so 44.1 makes things quite simple. We've experimented with 48 and 96, but we can't hear any improvement. 192, for us is pointless, and as our downloads are on the increase, going up to 4 times the size is really a negative. We tried quite a few piano VSTis - and we settled on the Pianoteq, which we've gradually upgraded, and we're on version 6 now and very happy.
 
I'd go with an audio interface instead of a sound card. Consumer sound cards are not the thing for running VSTs well.
 
With the GREATEST trepidation! I am going to slightly disagree with the comment that "any AI will be ok and it is the PC power that decides performance".

The "equation" is, for low latency with no clicks or dropouts you need a small buffer size and yes, the smaller the buffer sample size the harder the PC has to work but, most modern PCs are easily fast enough* (this not so new i3HP e.g.) The deciding factor CAN be the interface architecture but MOST of all the quality of its drivers. (there is an on going test list of AIs over at SoS forum contributed by a tireless chap called Vin)

The bottom line to all this is that THE best USB interface I know of (sub about £400) is the Native Instrument Komplete Audio 6 do check it out.
The KA6 is also completely 'bus' powered so no rats to worry about.

*I once ran an Evolution EKeys49 into an M-A Fast track pro into an HP laptop with an 850 MEGA Hz processor! The latency was easily usable (but NOT with Win Synth Table!) and that was USB 1.1!

I will agree that a Sound Blaster style 'domestic' card is a poor choice. If you can find an M-Audio 2496, better the A 192 those will work admirably but then you really need to build a breakout box to get signals in and out. They are also PCI and those are rare now. There are very few PCIe 'pro' soundcards now and I don't know their latency performance anyway. If you could find a cheap S/H RME card? Job would be a good'un.

Dave.
 
I have a Soundblaster RX here, internal sound card, can't recommend it for VST use. I have to reset the buffer everytime I start my DAW. Other DAWs it was even worse with. Used a Focusrite audio interface once, but either I got a bad copy or the audio quality isn't what it's reputed to be. Since lots of folks like the Focusrites, perhaps more likely the former.

I'm saving up for an RME at this time. If I had a MAC I might go MOTU instead. Both of these are expensive. For a less expensive interface, there are other options like NI, M-AUDIO, Presonus, etc. Haven't used these so can't comment. I wouldn't go Behringer though.
 
I have a Soundblaster RX here, internal sound card, can't recommend it for VST use. I have to reset the buffer everytime I start my DAW. Other DAWs it was even worse with. Used a Focusrite audio interface once, but either I got a bad copy or the audio quality isn't what it's reputed to be. Since lots of folks like the Focusrites, perhaps more likely the former.

I'm saving up for an RME at this time. If I had a MAC I might go MOTU instead. Both of these are expensive. For a less expensive interface, there are other options like NI, M-AUDIO, Presonus, etc. Haven't used these so can't comment. I wouldn't go Behringer though.

Further to the above, my experience with the KA6 on any of about 6 PCs and laptops is that it always just bloody works! That is to say, I have installed the drivers just once and no matter what the time interval or what buggerings Ms updates have done, I plug in the interface and it is "THERE". if I have been using a different 'soundcard' with say this laptop (internal Reatak say) I need to tell Samplitude to use the KA6 but that applies no matter what soundcard you use. Only takes a mo'.

Dave.
 
USB is the standard in add on sound these days. Any of the Behringer Uporia units will provide excellent sounds and nice options. I have a 202 and it's as good or better than my Audio Labs card of 10 years ago. But there is a PCI card that is astonishingly good for under $60 called the Musiland M-Sword. It uses the Envy 24 chip which is/was a professional chip.
 
First of all, thanks for all the information- it gave me a lot to chew on!
I think I need to clarify a bit- I am definitely looking for an external sound card. I have one already, the steinburg Ur12. While it is pretty good, and can handle 192khz and 24 bit, but it can't process the aether at anything but the lowest settings at all.
I don't mind spending a bit on it, but what I'm really trying to determine is if there is something that can handle the load with low latency and with no noise. I think the Aether is really resource intensive as Keith.rogers hinted at, so I don't actually need any more than one, perhaps a usb3 input, but something with fairly good audio memory and a good processor/chip, whatever you call it.. What I can't seem to find though is reliable specs on such things!
 
I would really, really, consider the 192kHz usage. It's doubling (or quadrupling, if you consider 48kHz an option) the amount of data that has to be pushed back and forth and processed. This is likely contributing more to the problem than you realize. If you want to use that kind of setting, you might be looking at a new motherboard with support for m.2 SSDs and DDR3 RAM, if you don't have that already. Then get that a USB 3.0 interface or perhaps a Thunderbolt one if the MBs or add-in cards work. Otherwise look at Apple.

Trying to not go off the tracks but nobody can hear 192kHz. That's a fact.

P.S. You should probably double your existing RAM.
 
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Have a look at this: SOS Forum • Recording at anything above 48kHz makes zero sense

To give you a summing up, there is SOME merit in 96kHz for very special cases (lot of high level HF content) and it is often used 'behind the scenes' in processing but generally 44.1/48 kHz is all you need. Above 96k you are hissing resource to the wind and the results will likely be WORSE than 44.1kHz (24 bit)

But "Aether"? Not seen that in an audio context before. Anyhoos, you want the "best all round"? RME, end of.

Dave.
 
Yes that about sums it up.

48Khz is the max you should be setting your audio at, save -perhaps- in the rarest circumstances for some plugins that need headroom to do processing in, which most shouldn't as they can adjust without it just fine.
 
Yes that about sums it up.

48Khz is the max you should be setting your audio at, save -perhaps- in the rarest circumstances for some plugins that need headroom to do processing in, which most shouldn't as they can adjust without it just fine.
Sample rate doesn't affect headroom.
 
Ok, thanks again!
But to be clear, I'm looking for reccomendations on a good external sound card to handle my needs- of course I can just turn down the settings, but that's hardly good advice. I do already have an ssd, and my RAM busage never gets over 50% when playing as it is, and my CPU hovers around 4%. The problem is my sound card, I'm sure about that.
What I'm working on is to both, recording a completely digital classical piano album, and build a system that can be taken anywhere in the world and have the highest quality sound in any concert environment.
I'm using aether because it was recommended for classical music, and when I use it, it sounds, to me exactly like sitting on stage in a great concert hall. I don't like playing around with settings and such, I just want a near as perfect (or better) approximation to a world class Steinway D concert grand piano. It has to sound acoustic, and live, that's why I don't use 48kHz!
 
Aha! "aether" is a rather superior reverb and EQ plugin.

I have skimmed the manual and P20 says the upper audio limit is 32.768kHz but you CAN use 44.1/48kHz. Page 50 does suggest better results with a higher sample rate but even then just 88.2/96kHz.

There are some very, very high quality monitors about now that us digital processing. None AFAIK use higher than 96kHz.

Dave.
 
Ok, thanks again!
But to be clear, I'm looking for reccomendations on a good external sound card to handle my needs- of course I can just turn down the settings, but that's hardly good advice. I do already have an ssd, and my RAM busage never gets over 50% when playing as it is, and my CPU hovers around 4%. The problem is my sound card, I'm sure about that.
What I'm working on is to both, recording a completely digital classical piano album, and build a system that can be taken anywhere in the world and have the highest quality sound in any concert environment.
I'm using aether because it was recommended for classical music, and when I use it, it sounds, to me exactly like sitting on stage in a great concert hall. I don't like playing around with settings and such, I just want a near as perfect (or better) approximation to a world class Steinway D concert grand piano. It has to sound acoustic, and live, that's why I don't use 48kHz!
I don't use 192 and promise you I never will. My mistake wasting your time!

Now, if you don't think you're getting good advice here, it's probably because very, very few folks, so far, are trying to run 192kHz in a home recording environment.

Maybe go check with some pro studios currently doing 192kHz and ask what they are using? (Or, maybe one of the pros here is using 192 and hasn't made that clear?)
 
I just want a near as perfect (or better) approximation to a world class Steinway D concert grand piano. It has to sound acoustic, and live, that's why I don't use 48kHz!

I know there's an oxymoron somewhere in that sentence...."near perfect (or better) approximation" ... :p

Going to 192kHz will not make it do that...unless you happen to be recording a real world class Steinway D concert grand piano in a stunning acoustic space with top-shelf microphones going into pristine preamps feeding that converter at 192 KHz....and if you have the piano, the room, the mics and the preamps, then TBH, you could record at 48KHz and it will sound like a world class Steinway D concert grand piano.

But hey...find your own way there. ;)
 
+1 to all.
The benefits of using something that doesn't live inside a super noisy box are going to far out-weight any benefits (if they exist) of going 192k.
Get a decent AI that lives on your bench and gets its power from somewhere else. :)
 
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It's funny that everyone keeps telling me to play with a lower resolution, but 48k sounds so flat- not good at all for my taste. I don't want to sound like a CD, I want to have at least the quality of first cut vinal- can't anyone else hear the difference? There is a whole emerging market for high resolution recordings that is going to replace 48k recording entirely in time. Additionally, I can't afford a prefect Steinway grand, but when I use Ivory with my reverb engine, the sound is so perfect and 'alive', I don't actually miss a real piano and that's why I'd like to record on it. My presuption is that the results will be better than if I were in a studio, because it already sounds better than every album I have.
In any case, based on a reccommendation, I tracked down this: RME Babyface Pro
I think it may be exactly what I need-any thoughs?
 
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