Another soundcard question

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lazyboy

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Okay, so I just decided that a good soundcard is a better way to get into digital than a stand alone box. Now for the questions.
I see a lot of people like the gadgetlabs cards, how about Aark or Lexicon, or any others? I'll be upgrading rather slowly, but I'd like to start off using my tascam 424 as a mixer so I can be up and running in some capacity. For now it'll have to be on the family computer (celeron 466, 12GB, 64meg) until I can afford my own. Can I configure a dedicated audio HD into the system?
Oh yeah, back to the soundcard, I want 8 input and pref. 8 out. Will my system handle 24 bit?
I've experimented with some shareware programs, but can you group tracks to different outputs of the soundcard to mix at an external mixer? And then can I record my stereo mix right back onto HD at the same time its playing? Or should I get one of the bigger programs that will allow me to mouse mix (something that looks like a mixer preferrably)? I know, Lotsa questions, Any info will be appreciated. Thanks guys! LZB
 
Hey lazyboy,
I don't too much about which soundcard to get, I couldn't decide so I just bought a midiman delta 1010. It has 8 in 8 out. I use ntracks and sometimes I will mix down a section of my song (like the guitars, or vocals etc.) to one stereo track, and then keep going. I just save all the tracks, so I can always go back and remix if I want to. Then other times I will takes tracks and assign them to the 8 (or usually 6 outs because I need two of them for the monitoring) of the midiman and send them to my mixer and apply eq and effects that way, keeping everything in 24 bits, and make one stereo mix that way. I think with most soundcards and software you are able to assign the tracks to any of the outs of the soundcard this way.
It sounds like your system could work, but it might depend on how fast the drive is, and you might need another 64 mb of ram. I had a celeron 400 with 64mb and an emachine hard drive (I don't know how fast it was), but I could only record one or two tracks. I really didn't know what I was doing at the time, so someone else opinion would be best on that part.
Good luck and keep posting.
bobbo
 
Yo Lazyboy,

Make sure you check out the Event Electronics Layla also. It has 8 ins/8 analog outs, a digital in/out. I'm not sure if they're on the market yet, but they have a Layla 24 that has 24-bit analog inputs/outputs, digital via spidif coaxial and optical and a headphone output. The old Layla 20 bit analog inputs/outputs. The digital inputs are 24-bit capable.

I have the Gina. It's the little sister to the Layla and it works like a charm. I have no complaints. My friend has the Layla card and he is very happy. He does have 7200 rpm/UDMA 66 IBM Hard drives. So get the fastest drive that you can get within your budget.

Rev E

[This message has been edited by Rev E (edited 03-16-2000).]
 
Hey thanks for the advice guys!I forgot about layla.
I understand the theory of the drive speed, but i really don't know the first thing about it otherwise. You see I have one of these new computers geared for the most basic home use. The processor is okay, what i mean is that HP sends these suckers out with directions how to hook up your mouse & keyboard and your compuserve and aol disks and that's about all. It has little real info on the machine. Once i'm about ready to buy can I bother you guys about pricing too?
 
Now, I don't know how parallel the gear runs in the US compared to the UK, but a German company called Terratec has just released an 8in 8out PCI card with a good breakout box (which I think is essential). It's retailing at about 70 pounds (110 dollars)less than the Gadgetlabs at 400 pounds (630 dollars). I think the difference is the lack of balanced connections in the Terratec, but this isn't an important consideration if you're using a 4-tk for mixing. I would say that your system will handle a good few tracks if you get a fastish 7200 rpm HDD (and they're not much more expensive than 5400s now). I can tell you how to set up an audio HD with its own OS if you have a modern bios (email me or post another reply). Your system should be able to handle 24 bit recording but bear in mind that this takes up around 60% extra HD space per minute than 16 bit - with a 12 GB HD, you should have enough space. I agree with the previous posts, most modern multi i/o cards have internal routing, and even with a basic mixer, re-routing back into an input is possible and very useful!
All the big sequencing packages have downloadable demos nowadays, if you want to try them out. Try hitsquad.com.

Hope there's something useful in all that lot!

Matt Cake
 
I'll be happy to advise on buying stuuf and even installing new hardware - it's not so hard.
It's nice to have a clean install of windows for doing music stuff.

Ask away!
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Cakey:
I'll be happy to advise on buying stuuf and even installing new hardware - it's not so hard.
It's nice to have a clean install of windows for doing music stuff.

Ask away!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Dear Cakey,

I am considering buying a computer for multi-track recording. I am a singer/guitarist. I read somehere that you need 10 GB of hard drive for every minute of musical recording. Is that true? I also read that PC recording has more noise and crosstalk than digital console recording. Is that true? A friend told me that you can only listen to a portion of the tracks you've recorded thru most sound cards and then have to piece them all together somehow by rerecording them somehow. My opinion is that if you've recorded say 8 tracks of audio on the PC, if you want to listen back to them, all you have to do is mix them down to stereo before you run them thru the sound card. Am I right about this? Can this be done in real time as you're adjusting the levels of each channel while you're monitoring them thru the soundcard? I'd really appreciate your help because I'm CONFUSED!

Thanx,

Brian Ferrell (bferrell@intergrafix.net)
 
Search this forum and you'll find most of your questions answered, several times.

Good luck

/Ola
 
Brian,

First of all it's 10 mega-bytes per minutes NOT giga-bytes. That's for 16 bit. Add about 50% or 15Mb per minute for 24bit recording. Secondly, noise and crosstalk are relative to the quality of the A/D and D/A converters on your soundcard . . . you get what you pay for . . . you pay for the quality you want. Lastly, the software used and the muscle of your computer ( i.e. processor speed . . . hard drive speed . . . RAM ) determine how many tracks you can record or playback at once.

In a nutshell, if you buy a new computer today, say a PIII 550-800 with a 25+GB 7200RPM ATA/66 hard drive, 128+Mb RAM, It will handle multiple tracks with no problem. But like Ola says, do some research here on sound cards, make some decisions on what your quality are, and go for it.

Regards,
PAPicker

[This message has been edited by PAPicker (edited 03-30-2000).]
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Brian Ferrell:
[/B]I read somehere that you need 10 GB of hard drive for every minute of musical recording. Is that true?[/B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The calculations are fairly simple.

Consider 16-bit, 44.1KHz recording. That's 44100x2 bytes of audio per second, or 88200 bytes. Multiply that by 60, and you get 5292000 bytes per minute, or about 5MB. That's mono, of course, so double that for stereo.

You go to 24-bit and you add half as much again (as you can see from the calculations). Increase to 48KHz and you increase the amount of data slightly. Increase to 96KHz and you're more than doubling the amount of data.

So, 24-bit 96KHz takes about 16MB per minute mono, or 32MB per minute stereo.

Tim
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dingo:
The calculations are fairly simple.

Consider 16-bit, 44.1KHz recording. That's 44100x2 bytes of audio per second, or 88200 bytes. Multiply that by 60, and you get 5292000 bytes per minute, or about 5MB. That's mono, of course, so double that for stereo.
Thanx a lot! You guys and this forum are awesome! You've cleared up a lot of my apprehension and misconceptions about buying a computer and soundcard for recording. I've been searching in vain for months, but feel I'm finally on track---- multi, that is!
You go to 24-bit and you add half as much again (as you can see from the calculations). Increase to 48KHz and you increase the amount of data slightly. Increase to 96KHz and you're more than doubling the amount of data.

So, 24-bit 96KHz takes about 16MB per minute mono, or 32MB per minute stereo.

Tim<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
 
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