The intricacies of the SB LIVE: What's going on in there?

[Squashboy]

I have a computer that I'm using just for recording. I use Gadgetlabs 8/24, n-Track, and a good mic. Until now I've done mostly guitar and vocal tracks, and everything sounds great. But now I'm wondering about getting some keyboard sounds (specifically piano and percussion). The reason I'm posting this in the soundcard forum is that I've heard that the SB Live has a synthesizer built into it, and that all you need is a keyboard with MIDI in/out, and you can access drum and piano sounds from the soundcard. If that is the case, maybe I'll get one. So really I have two questions:

1) Is that true about the SB Live?

2) If it is true, then how does it sound?--I mean, say, in comparison to getting a sound module like Roland's JV-1010 and running a keyboard through that?

If you can help, please let me know. Thanks in advance.

Squashboy.

 

[drstawl]

True Lies

Yeah, it's true: BUT.
It sounds pretty cheesey for orchestral sounds. It really depends on what sort of sound you're after. I've heard some stuff at mp3.com done with much crappier synths that worked. Another factor is the noise floor of the analog out of the synth in the SB compared to the Roland. Play no MIDI at all and crank the volume and listen to each. This is important because the Gadget card is quiet enough to notice the difference. One more reason to upgrade is to get two ports of MIDI voices.

 

[AlChuck]

To me the best feature of the SB Live is the fact that it can load and play sample soundsets using the Sound Font format. This dramatically improves its usefulness. Some of the Sound Fonts I have sound quite fabulous considering it's all coming out of a $75 piece of hardware.

A good sampler or synth are bound to sound better, but for price and convenience an SB Live is hard to beat.

For more about this see these articles on the ProRec website:

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/articles/E8FC6F1272005BC0862568D700634565

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/articles/E5F90F70241EFF6D862566B20024C532

-AlChuck