2-channel card for orchestral music

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JArthur

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Hi folks. I just upgraded my ancient celeron 433 machine and windows 98 to a pentium4 2.4ghz, asus P4B533 board, 512 megs DDR266 ram, maxtor 60 gig 7200rpm harddrive split into three 20 gig partitions, and windows xp home edition. And the sound quality of my current system is great considering the only soundcard I have at present is a soundblaster audigy.

My main interest is in composing orchestral music and jingles, with an occasional dance/trance tune that pops into my head ever now and then. I hope to one day write music for films and TV. At first I thought I would have to get a bunch of outboard synths with expansion cards and a multi I/O soundcard.......

And then I purchased propellerhead reason. And I'll be doggoned if that one piece of software doesn't do almost everything I have been imagining and then some. So now all I really need is a simple 2 in 2 out soundcard because I will be doing just about everything inside the computer. I have heard that the audiophile 24/96 is good and also that cards like the carddeluxe and lynx are outstanding. But the problem is I absolutely MUST have a headphone jack of some kind. And the only cards that have headphone jacks are ones with lots of ins and outs that I won't need and won't be using. Can y'all help me out please if ya don't mind?
 
JArthur said:
Hi folks. I just upgraded my ancient celeron 433 machine and windows 98 to a pentium4 2.4ghz, asus P4B533 board, 512 megs DDR266 ram, maxtor 60 gig 7200rpm harddrive split into three 20 gig partitions, and windows xp home edition. And the sound quality of my current system is great considering the only soundcard I have at present is a soundblaster audigy.

My main interest is in composing orchestral music and jingles, with an occasional dance/trance tune that pops into my head ever now and then. I hope to one day write music for films and TV. At first I thought I would have to get a bunch of outboard synths with expansion cards and a multi I/O soundcard.......

And then I purchased propellerhead reason. And I'll be doggoned if that one piece of software doesn't do almost everything I have been imagining and then some. So now all I really need is a simple 2 in 2 out soundcard because I will be doing just about everything inside the computer. I have heard that the audiophile 24/96 is good and also that cards like the carddeluxe and lynx are outstanding. But the problem is I absolutely MUST have a headphone jack of some kind. And the only cards that have headphone jacks are ones with lots of ins and outs that I won't need and won't be using. Can y'all help me out please if ya don't mind?
Click to expand...

Buy the Audiophile and a cheap 4 channel mixing board with a headphone jack. I think that would be cheaper than trying to find a card with actual headphone jacks.

I have not seen any reviews, but the USB version of the Audiophile does have a headphone jack as well as 1/4" inputs and outputs.
 
JArthur said:
And then I purchased propellerhead reason. And I'll be doggoned if that one piece of software doesn't do almost everything I have been imagining and then some.
Click to expand...

That feeling will fade after awhile and you'll realize that in general softsynths are not of the same quality as hardware synths and they have their own limitations. I wouldn't blow off hardware synths just yet, especially for classical arrangements.
 
Yes, but the convenience of not having to pay $200+++ for a synth when you can have all in software can't be beat. ;)
 
Re: Re: 2-channel card for orchestral music

TexRoadkill said:
That feeling will fade after awhile and you'll realize that in general softsynths are not of the same quality as hardware synths and they have their own limitations. I wouldn't blow off hardware synths just yet, especially for classical arrangements.
Click to expand...

I always thougth the same way, but Reason does kick ass. Especially in the sampler dept. From what I've been noticing, a lot of pc based samplers are starting to blow the doors off of their hardware counterparts. I don't know shit about soft synths vs hardware, but I'm finding "soft" samplers to be a godsend.
 
JR - Soft samplers are cool but they are only as good as the samples you buy. Most decent string libraries I've seen cost as much as a good hardware synth.

Moskus- Convenience is relative. I find it more inconvenient to have to boot up a computer just to do some simple song writing. Not to mention if anything goes wrong with the computer OS... I was over at friends place and he has a bunch of the latest synths and soft synths and Reason 2 is very cool but it just doesn't quite cut it compared to the hardware versions. When you listen to them side by side there is a noticeable difference.

I didn't mean to turn this thread into a softsynth bash. I think they are cool for dance and pop music but for realistic strings they can be a little lacking. I don't like to put all my production eggs in one basket. I would recomend getting a good workstation with all the main sounds that you need (Kurz K series w/orch card) and use the softsynths to augment that.
 
TexRoadkill said:
JR - Soft samplers are cool but they are only as good as the samples you buy. Most decent string libraries I've seen cost as much as a good hardware synth.

Moskus- Convenience is relative. I find it more inconvenient to have to boot up a computer just to do some simple song writing. Not to mention if anything goes wrong with the computer OS... I was over at friends place and he has a bunch of the latest synths and soft synths and Reason 2 is very cool but it just doesn't quite cut it compared to the hardware versions. When you listen to them side by side there is a noticeable difference.

I didn't mean to turn this thread into a softsynth bash. I think they are cool for dance and pop music but for realistic strings they can be a little lacking. I don't like to put all my production eggs in one basket. I would recomend getting a good workstation with all the main sounds that you need (Kurz K series w/orch card) and use the softsynths to augment that.
Click to expand...

I agree with you though. I felt I was waaay more productive 10 years ago when I didn't have a single computer in my studio. Everything was done from a hardware sequencer and a couple of synths.

There's still something to be said about creating music without having to look at a computer screen to do it.
 
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