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#1
05-03-2005
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Choosing a sound card for newbies!
HELP!!! I want to buy a soundcard!
OK, more and more these forums topics come up with people stating something like this: “OK, I want to start recording with my computer. I have x computer, x microphones, and want to record x. Some guy told me I need a soundcard. Is this true? Doesn’t my computer already have one? Any help?” Anyway I don’t know why buy I feel like being helpful, which is why I’m writing this. I’m not recommending ANY card/interface here. There are so many companies around making gear, there’s no way I could recommend anything specific. Instead I am trying to explain the reasons and technology behind these sound cards so that people (newbies) can research cards that might suit them, and then ask for specific help. I’ve also tried to write this so anyone can understand it, not just uber 1337 haXXorZ. Well, the best that an IT student can do anyway  . I’ve included links to wikipedia for some of the computer terms.Doesn’t my computer already have a sound card? YES! Well, probably. Pretty much every computer made in the last ten years has had one. If you have speakers plugged in to your computer and can hear sound, listen to music etc, your computer certainly does have a soundcard. Great, so can’t I just use that? Well, yes you can. Most built in sound cards have three holes, speaker out, line in and microphone in. If you have a mixer or any other line level source, you can plug it into the line in hole and use your computer’s built in sound card to record. So what was that guy talking about? You just said I don’t need a new one! Well, I said you CAN record with the built in card, but there are a lot of reasons you might not want to. These cards are built for the average consumer who doesn’t really do much more than listen to mp3s in Winamp. They aren’t suited to recording, and here’s why: Low sample rate/bit depth These cards work at 16 bit, 44.1 KHz. This just happens to be the standard for CDs, so it’s not that bad. This may be fine for you, but most real recording work is done at 24bit, and often at higher sample rate. Latency These cards usually have very high latency. Latency is like golf, you want a low score! Think of it as the time between you pressing the play button on screen, and the sound actually coming through the speakers. This becomes an issue when you are recording overdubs, and even worse when you are playing an instrument and monitoring through the computer. Noise, and general crappyness! There’s a lot going on inside modern computers, often the CPU, motherboard, graphics card, power supply each have a fan attached, not to mention case fans. These can introduce noise into the recording system. That’s why you see a lot of these ‘recording cards’ with boxes that sit outside the computer. Also (general crappyness part), these consumer cards lack quality AD/DA converters, which can make your recordings sound, well, less nice. The converters change analogue sound to a digital representation, and vice versa. The consumer cards like the one in your computer aren’t designed for recording, so the quality of these circuits can and does affect the quality of the sound. Read any of the digital vs. analogue arguments and you’ll see what I mean. OK, you’ve convinced me, now which one should I buy? Ah, that question. Well, which car should you buy? The answer: what one best serves your needs and budget. It’s the same with soundcards. There are a number of factors you will need to consider when buying a recording sound card. Number of inputs How many discreet signals you can send to the computer at once. A regular sound card has two, the left and right channels of the line in. There are recording cards that do just this, and there are cards that have a huge number of inputs. Basically what it comes down to is how many things do you want to record at once? A solo guitarist might only want to record his guitar by mic’ing up his guitar amp, and do an overdub for vocals. In this case a 2 channel card would do fine. I play drums. With my kit, with a mic on each drum, 2 for overheads, and another for the hihat, I use 8 microphones. Now I could either mix these first and send a stereo signal into the guitarist’s above 2 channel card, or I could get more channels, and send each mic signal into its own channel, and mix later. This would give me much more freedom at mixdown, which is why I have an 8 input sound card. Number of outputs This mostly depends on how you mix. When recording on the computer, you can mix completely in the box, or send the recorded audio out to a ‘real’ mixer for mixing. If you are comfortable with mixing in the box, then you only need a stereo card, to send the mixed output to monitors and/or a recorder. If you want to send each instrument’s track outboard for mixing, you’ll need enough outputs for each instrument. Interface The big one. What we’re talking about here is how you connect your sound card to the computer. There are three options here: PCI card, firewire, or USB. Each have their own advantages and disadvantages, but here’s the basic rundown. PCI Card This is a card that plugs straight into your computer’s motherboard via the PCI bus. To install one of these you need to open up your box, which may sound daunting but it’s not really. Because of this you CAN NOT use a PCI card with a laptop or any other computer that doesn’t support PCI (eg Mac Mini). PCI is the fastest interface, so you may get lower latency with it. It’s also older technology that has had most of the bugs ironed out. Once a PCI card is installed and working, generally it will work. It’s worth mentioning though that PCI has been superseded by PCI-Express. The two are not directly compatible with each other. Most new motherboards are coming out with both PCI and PCI-E busses, but eventually PCI will be no more. This isn’t going to happen tomorrow, but it will happen. I personally can’t wait for companies to take advantage of the new PCI-E technology and put out some new super recording cards. Firewire This is a good option for laptops or if you need portability, but also works fine in desktop PCs. To use this you need to have a firewire port on your computer, and if you don’t have one you can get a PCI firewire card. This has high bandwidth, and works well in many applications. USB Similar to firewire, but slower. Also there are two standards, USB 1.1 and USB 2.0. Version 2 is MUCH faster than 1.1, so it is much better suited to recording applications. Also keep in mind that to take advantage of USB 2.0 your computer needs to support it. Bells and Whistles Some cards simply offer line level inputs. Others provide microphone preamps, sometimes with phantom power. The guitarist described above would not need a mixer at all if he bought a sound card that included mic preamps. Some interfaces are more than just a sound card as well. Some look like a ‘real’ mixer, with sliders and knobs and buttons. These are actually called control surfaces. It allows you to mix ‘in the box’, but instead of just using the mouse you can use the sliders and knobs to do the mixing, which is much more intuitive than trying to turn an on screen knob using a mouse. Remember that just because you got a great recording card with heaps of features, doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to use it to its potential. The more inputs, outputs, and higher bit depth and sampling rate increases the load that needs to be handled by your computer. Make sure your computer is up to scratch BEFORE you invest into a recording sound card. Hopefully that gives you a bit of information to get you started. I hope I haven’t confused anyone, if you don’t know what something means, Google it, use the search feature of these forums, or ask! Michael Marner But wait, you didn’t tell me what card to buy! Wow you noticed. I didn’t want to, remember! Have a read of this, decide exactly what you want to do with your recording, have a look around to find what suits your needs and is within your budget, then ask the big questions. Oh, ok. Here are some links to popular manufacturers: http://www.digidesign.com http://www.echoaudio.com http://www.edirol.com/ http://www.emu.com/ http://www.m-audio.com/ http://www.motu.com/ http://www.staudio.com/ http://www.tascam.com Umm, if I've got anything really wrong here please tell me and I'll edit my post. Last edited by MichaelM; 05-03-2005 at 09:00.. 
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#2
05-03-2005
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Nicely done. Perhaps you should add some links for potential "starting points" when it comes time to purchase the sound card.. the main brands' sites or something of the sort; so they can get a feel for features vs. pricing.
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#3
05-03-2005
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Hmm, yeah good idea, I'll do that now.
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#4
05-03-2005
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Here are a few questions I have for soundcard shopping
What non Soundblaster has an on-board synth for MIDI ? The SB's have an EMU synth EMU10K1 or EMU10K2 onboard I use a hybrid of soundblaster 8 meg samples (soundfonts) and my Roland synth form MIDI I use the SB for drums, 10 kits vs 1 kits on Roland D-70 Does any other company have on-board synths ? What Operating System is the soundcard compatible with ? Minimum Processor speed, RAM required ? I researched a few of the pro cards, and some only support Win 2000 or XP
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#5
05-03-2005
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michaelm
I love you Thanks For Info....... 
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#6
05-03-2005
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MichaelM, that was gold...pure gold.
I am in the market for a more pro recording card. I have been reading a lot of stuff. I think I will go PCI or PCI-E if my mobo supports it. Can you offer me suggestions here? I want to get a 2 channel card with 2 channel out. All I want to do is record acoustic guitar via a condenser mic, and overdub vocals and lead. So I guess I only need a 2 channel yeah? Can you use the line out jack on a pro soundcard for headphones? Or is that just not the thing to do? I have been closely looking at the M-Audio 2496. But it has no XLR connectivity. And I heard it is a nightmare to run on WinXP. Anyway, your suggestions have made me more knowledgeable. If you feel like offering me any advice, I would like that. see ya
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#7
05-03-2005
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Well Done Michael
Michael, you legend you, Thank you.
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#8
05-04-2005
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johnnymegabyte: A lot of the recording cards have midi out so you can use outboard synths. I don't know of any that have a synth on chip, but you can use softsynths that come with many recording applications for all your midi out. eg - Sonar 4 comes with the Cakewalk TTS-1, Home Studio 2002 came with Virtual Sound Canvas. Sorry I can't be much more help here.
As for computing power, again it depends on what you want to do. The general concensus in the Computer Recording forum is minimum 512MB RAM, processor speed really depends on how many effects you want to have running. I have an Athlon XP 2000 that serves me well. There are people here recording with much less and getting good results, and there are people with the latest gear. true-eurt: Umm, thanks mate........ Monkey Allen: I don't actually know of anyone making PCI-E recording cards yet. It will be the standard in the future, and mobos only started coming out with PCI-E at the end of last year, so you need a pretty new box to use it. A 2 channel card will work fine for what you want. You can't connect the line out to your headphones, but a lot of these interfaces also have headphone out. I can't really offer you any real suggestions, and I have no real experience with any M Audio products, but someone here will definately be able to. Glad you people have found this useful. WooHoo! 300 Posts... I rule! Last edited by MichaelM; 05-04-2005 at 01:38.. Reason: 300 POSTS!!!!
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#9
05-04-2005
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Quote:
Last edited by warble; 05-04-2005 at 06:39..
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#10
05-04-2005
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I heard the M-Audio has RCA inputs. That means I can't connect my 1/4" or XLR preamp without adapters.
Also, the dealer told me there are no headphone outputs, and that I should not use line out for headphones. I'm going to have to keep on looking for a more suitable card. Apparently to listen viz headphones on this card I would need to output via a mixer. This just sounds like too many links in the chain to me. I'm a little miffed as to why these pro cards don't come with headphone jacks.
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#11
05-04-2005
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Quote:
You could go with a mobile/portable unit that connects via USB, but over the last couple years I've read a good share of good vs. bad using USB for audio around here. BUT, if you're going to record one/two tracks at a time, then do overdubs, a USB solution might not be a terrible thing for you. Last edited by warble; 05-04-2005 at 11:55..
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#12
05-04-2005
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Hi , I'm new here . I found my way via Michael M's web site .
Michael has helped me out thru the whole pc recording process which I'm truly grateful for . I'm currently looking to upgrade the system I now have in place . One which I might add works great but I'm looking for more options in the post editing stage being that I'm also recording drums and would like more inputs . The reason I jumped in on this was just to say to Monkey Allen that I use a Tascam US -122 USB interface that has everything your looking for . Choice of 1/4 line-in or XLR with phantom power on two channels , with inserts on each also . 2 channels out and zero latency monitoring and headphone jack with separate volume control . 24 bit converters . As far as performance , if I record with a left and right channel into 2 mono tracks with the Tascam and add a 3rd track from my new 24 bit SoundBlaster card , I have to set the latency in the Daw to MINUS 100 ms on the Tascam tracks to match the SB card .  Otherwise , with just the Tascam signals , I can punch in overdubs with no trouble at all . Personally I'm looking into a Mackie Onyx firewire mixer . Mainly so I can upgrade my old mixer and pc interface setup in one shot . I will do some more research into the whole firewire vs pci-e before I do since it is a lot of cash . The 8 channel mixer is about $800.00 us , the 16 is $1200.00 . Then the firewire card that works with either the 4 , 8 or 16 channel mixer goes another $400.00 . You almost have to save for the 16 channel set up since you get twice the channels for just 50% more . That's the logic I've been trying to explain to my wife !!  Anyway , that's my 2 cents !!  Nice to finally join and say " Hi " to you all since I've been lurking around this site every now and then for the past year or so !!!
__________________
Have sticks , will travel  Mike Keep on rockin' in the free world Neil Young
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#13
05-05-2005
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Good to see you over here Mike! Good luck convincing the wife!
BTW, I think I should restate. PCI is NOT the same as PCI Express (PCI-E). I don't think anyone has started making audio cards that are PCI-E yet, as motherboards that supported it only started being made towards the end of last year. PCI is what we use. johnnymegabyte > regarding your email. Like I said I don't know of any recording cards that have an onboard sound chip. You said you aren't really doing multitrack recording, so you might be better off buying on outboard sound module instead of a new sound card. Most computers will let you send midi data through the joystick port. You just need a cable that is joystick plug on one end, and has midi in and out plugs on the other end.
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#14
05-05-2005
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ok so if i understand this right, you dont actually need a mixxer? you could use your software or what ever to mix it and you wouldnt have to buy a mixxer with the slides and buttons you actually physicals move? wouldnt it be hard to use a onscreen mixxer though? uh...would a PCI card be good for recording a whole band, or is it more for just one or two instruments at a time? sorry if i sound stupid, but i thought i knew what was kinda going on, and this just opened so many more doors.
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#15
05-05-2005
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Thanks rudibass2, I think I am either going to go the M-Audio delta 44 or the E-MU 1820. There is about a $400 price difference in them for me. But I am not keen to have to buy headphone mixers/ amps. I want a PCI with breakout box, that has either XLR input or 1'4", and that has a headphone jack. I want to keep things simple. I don't want to have too many bits of hardware.
I am leaning toward the delta 44 because it has no preamp for the mics. I already have a mic200 preamp/phantom. If I got the E-MU 1820 then not only would I have more inputs than I need, but I would have preamps on the card, when I already have an external preamp like I said. The delta 44 is apparently very good. Ii is cheaper too. Even though it has no headphone jack I am sure I can still send the output through a home stereo and then listen to the sound either through the stereo speakers or through the headphone jack that the stereo will have. Does that sound about right you reckon?
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#16
05-05-2005
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#17
05-05-2005
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Which reminds me. You left out PC Cards. I'm not sure if there are still any PC-Card-based offerings anymore, though.... Quote:
Quote:
And the CPU overhead is much higher when doing bulk data transfers (like audio) over USB than FireWire. Might be worth mentioning, as that can have a significant impact on the number of plug-ins you can use.
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#18
05-05-2005
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OK, I didn't know you could get PCMCIA > PCI boxes, but for most people wouldn't the extra money be better spent on a nice firewire card. And yeah I'm not sure if anyones making PC card audio interfaces anymore. I didn't mention PCI-X because I haven't seen it in any consumer motherboards. Everyone seems to be adopting PCI-E at the moment, you can do everything with the one bus. Most of the mobos coming out have a PCI-E 16x port for graphics, 2 1x general purpose slots, and then 2 or 3 PCI slots.
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#19
05-09-2005
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Quote:
Do your homework before you consider the E-MU 1820 . The basic card that sells for about $200.00 US , can only record one channel ( SIGNAL SOURCE ) at a time . You have the physical inputs but the virtual patch bay and DAW , Steinberg Cubasis I believe ,needs to be upgraded before you can record more than one SOURCE . You can patch the same source into multiable tracks but that's pretty useless . No where in the packaging does it say this . It appears that with multiple inputs you should have that much tracking capability . Not until you install the non returnable electronics and software is it evident . When you go to assign a source from the virtual patch bay is when a little balloon or something informs you that you need the daughter card and software upgrade for about another $300.00 to get what you came for . It's in the manual in the step by step of assigning channels , but not in the basic run down of the nuts and bolts of the equipment were it should be on the front page !! My brother in law has it . He uses it , but just one track at a time lined in from the pa that has one mic on his cab . He uses the PC's sound card for playback and just physically aligns the tracks rather than adjust the latency in the software . He's the crudest home recorder you'll ever meet !!  He basiclly gets drafts started and then later we record everything over after I do the drum tracks at my house .
__________________
Have sticks , will travel Mike Keep on rockin' in the free world Neil Young
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#20
05-10-2005
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???
Mike,
Are you talking about this card? http://www.emu.com/products/product....incategory=754 This has 2 xlr ins and 6 1/4" ins. If it only could record one channel, why would it have 8 inputs? Even the 1212M has 2 1/4" ins(plus 2 more ins via S/PDIF, and 8 more ins via ADAT, 2+2+8=12). Again, why would it have 12 in's if you could only record one at a time? I have been looking at this card for many months and haven't heard anything like this. I seriously think you bro doesn't have the drivers installed right or he isn't using the Patchmix correctly. Look here for more info: http://www.productionforums.com/emu/default.asp
__________________
I have been and always shall be your friend. Last edited by mbenny123; 05-10-2005 at 15:36..
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#21
05-10-2005
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#22
05-11-2005
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I stand corrected !! It's the 1212M . And everything I said is a fact . The Patchbay is capable of 32 odd inputs . The daw software and the card are not . Trust me , it will tell you as soon as you go to route it . You can record in one track in stereo with a left and right channel from separate sources in the two 1/4 jacks but you CAN NOT split them into 2 separate mono tracks . I'm 1000% positive of this . It doesn't work with the DAW software that comes with it , Cakewalk Home Studio or Cool Edit Pro v 1.2a I just read thru the manual on their site that combines all the cards and can't find the footnote about this , nor does it say you can do it either . I will scan a copy of the one my brother in law has and show you in black and white . If I'm wrong about this , please tell me how to get around this .
__________________
Have sticks , will travel Mike Keep on rockin' in the free world Neil Young
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#23
05-11-2005
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Good luck with it anyway.
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#24
05-11-2005
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Maybe I am missing it....
Ok, so I have wanted to do this for some time. I did some basic home recordings in a radio studio at a college I went to with CoolEdit Pro and a studio set up to do radio program recordings. I am trying to understand how to set something up at home that I can do multitrack recording - I would love to be able to play and sing at the same time rather than recording the two tracks seperately.
Now, I understand the need for a multi-input card, and the preference of having a mixer/mic preamp as your "middle man". What I am missing (and I will feel pretty dumb if it is here and I just missed it) is how you can still record multi-track if you go through the mixer. I am going from my rather small experience, but I was not aware that you could have multiple sends from the mixer (not counting moniter vs. main sends, I guess) and thought I would then just have a single signal coming into my computer. If I want to record simultaneous tracks, what is the physical setup to be able to do this? Again, sorry if this seems like a newbie question, but hey - we all have to start somewhere. I just hope this hasn't already been answered here and I simply missed it.
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#25
05-11-2005
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All that I feared has come to pass.....
I started to look through the product links provided at the beginning of the thread, and I am beginning to understand a bit better. Of course, if you still feel like answering, my feelings certainly wouldn't be hurt!
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