Need help purchasing soundcard/midi equipment

A

agapetos

New member
Hi everyone,

delighted to see there is such a forum as this!!

Ok, I have been playing around with music and recordings for many years but never really in a serious way.

I have a roland V drum kit, a great pc with tons of memory and speed, got speakers, Monitors and mixers.....
However, a long time musician friend of mine now is inviting me in and wants me to play drums on his albums.

So, my built in soundcard is not enough, I need minimum 24 bit AND most importantly I need to get past
my eternal MIDI nightmare which always is latency, non working equipment because I purchased to cheap
like a $5 usb to midi cable and so on. I hate MIDI because I dont understand it. I do sound at conferences
and can easily do any normal audio PA equipment but when I touch MIDI I turn 2 years old hehehe

Sry for the wordiness but I needed to lay down my story first.

So on my Roland TD-6 module I have MIDI in and out. I was hoping to be able to get some good suggestions
on maybe a sound card with Midi in and out or...in the past I had a audio card sound blaster with a sound control
for front controls on pc and a small mixer attached......I am willing to purchase protools if thats the best.

Right now my biggest issue is adding a drum track through multitracking in adobe audition cs6 and as far as what the tech
support was able to explain to me it doesnt accept MIDI.....when I record I play my friends track and play directly along
with it but the latency is throwing me off badly and it is time to upgrade and get something worthwhile to make MIDI and analog
recording more hassle free.



So how do I go about this...any recommendations?


I hope I am not too "all over the place" and some what clear on what I want?

Thanks in advance for any guidelines to some equipment.

I also record my 12 stringed through my mixer and mikes and for some reason I havent had any latency
issues with that....maybe it is my Drum Module output?

I have 3 output on the TD-6 which is left and right out, out for headphones and MIDI in and out.

Again thanks so much for any possible help.

If I could use Adobe audition CS6 that would be great but whatever it takes.....I am not rich
so I do have limitations and ....it is time for me to get engaged with making some music....I love this stuff
even if nothing else comes out of it but some sense of joy and accomplishment :)

Peace,
Michael
 
If you have been using midi to drive a Soundblaster and on-board sounds, that would explain a lot of your midi latency problems.

Start looking for an audio interface that gives you the number of audio inputs you are likely to want to record simultaneously and has midi facilities.

You will, though, need a means of generating sound from midi, which you can do by loading virtual instruments into audition, or by getting an external sound module.
 
I agree w/Gecko Zed, but as you have already discovered Audition doesn't support MIDI. I recommend what I use, which is Reaper. It has a 60 day free trial period so if you download it and don't like it you're not obligated. If you want to import tracks and play along with them you can do it easily.

I agree that you should begin shopping for an interface that supports both audio and midi. And I have found the key to low latency is a audio driver like ASIO4all, which is free.
 
ssscientist said:
And I have found the key to low latency is a audio driver like ASIO4all, which is free.
Click to expand...

That sounds wrong in the context you placed it.

ASIO4all is a last resort choice when using either a cheap interface that does not have it's own ASIO drivers or when using a crappy internal sound card.

A decent interface will have it's own ASIO driver, which will be better than using a wrapper program like ASIO4All that fakes it.
 
Thanks everyone. Appreciate the imput.

I am ready to purchase....but I need to get the terminology straight.

When you mention "interface" are we talking sound card? Or a card that is hooked
into the computer as sound card with an additional "interface" with my ins and outs?

I would love to get a combo of sorts with great ratings...and in addition I hear all this talk
about pro tools that needs certain interfaces to work....worth it?

Thanks, gonna shop around and educate myself :)

Michael
 
agapetos said:
Thanks everyone. Appreciate the imput.

I am ready to purchase....but I need to get the terminology straight.

When you mention "interface" are we talking sound card? Or a card that is hooked
into the computer as sound card with an additional "interface" with my ins and outs?

I would love to get a combo of sorts with great ratings...and in addition I hear all this talk
about pro tools that needs certain interfaces to work....worth it?

Thanks, gonna shop around and educate myself :)

Michael
Click to expand...

An audio interface is a device that replaces the on-board soundcard (and all its functions) of your computer. It can be a card itself, but more commonly these days it's a stand-alone piece of equipment that connects to the computer via USB or firewire.

The important difference between an interface and an on-board soundcard is that the interface is designed specifically for recording, which means it has a number of characteristics:

1 It allows the connection of a variety of musical equipment (e.g. microphones, guitars etc.);
2 It allows duplex audio (you can record and playback recorded material simultaneously);
3 It is designed to deliver high quality audio.

When you connect up an interface, you can disable your on-board card (and sometimes you may have to).
 
thanks a lot, I have been reading up on this info and is considering Avid Avid Mbox with Pro Tools Express | Sweetwater.com

I found a USB RCA conection type device in my box of many "mysreries" that I have collected over the years and
as I hooked up everything I noticed even without connecting anything that I have a lot of noise on my line in and this
was never the case in the past. So I am considering reinstalling windows, upgrading my BIOS and any other hardware drivers just to eliminate
that issue.....something is not right about all this.....in any case I am thinking the newer version of M box is the way to go for starters. I have a mixer that
I really like and if I can channel all my tracks through that I might be okay.

Primarily getting up to 24 bit and almost remove any latency issues are my main priorities at first.

Thanks for your support, it is sincerely appreciated,
Michael
 
jimmys69 said:
That sounds wrong in the context you placed it.

ASIO4all is a last resort choice when using either a cheap interface that does not have it's own ASIO drivers or when using a crappy internal sound card.

A decent interface will have it's own ASIO driver, which will be better than using a wrapper program like ASIO4All that fakes it.
Click to expand...

Let me reinforce this. ASIO4ALL is just a wrapper that lets you use MME devices and have them appear to be ASIO. It's a brilliant little piece of software but should be viewed as a last resort, not something to accept as a first choice.

When you're shopping for an interface, just check that it has dedicated ASIO drivers--any decent interface (and I don't necessarily mean expensive) will. Take the lack of ASIO drivers that an interface has been cutting corners and is probably not worth having.

I'm another Audition user and feel the pain about the lack of MIDI. I'm not a big MIDI user but when I need it, I need it.

My personal solution is to use a good sequencer (historically Sonar but I'm trying to convert my thinking to Ableton just now for my own reasons) for MIDI, then render tracks to Wave for editing and mixing in Audition. Yeah, I could do it all in Sonar (or Ableton) but I really like working on Audition. FYI a bunch of us regular Audition users are putting as much pressure as we can on Adobe to include Rewire to make this sort of thing easier...dunno how successful we'll be though!

I strongly recommend that you have a serious think about the M Box and Protools. Before I retired I was forced to use Profools at work for many years and never got to like it...I could use it but it never felt as intuitive to me as Audition. I'm sure I'd like even less the stripped down "Express" version. Similarly, I've heard varying stories about the M Box (though have no personal experience with the more recent ones). I try to avoid iLok devices like the plague and only ever had really bad experiences with Avid support even though the company I worked for had invested large amount of money and PAID for extra support.

Before spending your money, I'd seriously have a look at the previously recommended Reaper and just about any non-Avid interface.
 
Hi Michael,

One solution to the latency problem would be a good PCI sound card such as the M-Audio 2496 (or the AP 192 but rarer and expensive). These are getting a little hard to find now but The Bay should throw one up in the $50 range.

The card ins and outs on unbalanced RCA but if you are an old "sound guy" I am sure you will have no trouble interfacing that with your system! (max out +6dBV and very low Z)

For a very low latency external interface* I know of nothing close to its price ~$250 to beat the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6. It also comes with a copy of Cubase LE6 but Reaper might suit you better?

*Many interfaces are touted as "low" or "ultra low" latency but many are found wanting in practice!

If you are in UK Mike, PM me.

Dave.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top