ASIO +Soundcards

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul881
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Paul881

Paul881

Look Mom, I can play!
I use Home studio 2002 and AWE 64 Gold card. I am in the market for a new s/card. I mostly use HS 2002 for audio recording with a bit of midi downloaded from the web. Looking at the soundblaster Live! card I see a lot of negative comments on the web about the lack of support for ASIO drivers and poor latency. Before I part with my hard earned cash, can someone tell me what ASIO is and why I should be concerned about its poor performance/lack of support in the Live! product. Also, what is vst?
What other s/ cards would people recommend for the same money? The front loading break-out box is a big plus for me. That and a very attractive price. The new Audigy card is another possibility but nowhere can I find when it is due to ship.
 
ASIO(drivers for your audio card) is to steinberg as Direct X/Direct Show is to cakewalk....the issues it addesses are not of much importance unless you are planning to do a lot of soft synths and real time record....if all you are running is cake then don't worry about it. The VST is another Steinberg deal that can be efx or instruments....sounds cool but if you get sonar you will have most of these features anyway. If you have a powerful PC then you can take advantage of all these resource hungry applications...if not you can still record great music without it but you won't "have it all"..............if you are looking at a small studio using less than 4 inputs then M-Audio seems to be very popular....sound blaster gets a lot flack but i have heard good things created on them and the sound fonts are very well supported and have alot of useable instruments......do a little research and keep asking good questions ........I spent alot of time being to embarrassed to ask the dreaded ASIO question!
 
Soundfonts

One thought about using Soundfonts:
To use them you needed a soundcard that supported them
i.e. Soundblaster.
But now with Sonar and DXi you can play them on ANY soundcard with the DXi instrument LiveSynth Pro.
So if you have Sonar then I wouldn't base your purchase based on the soundfont issue.
I owned a SB64 and had alot of soundfonts, so when I upgraded my soundcard I got a SB Live. It has done a good job for me.
I do think my next soundcard will not be from creative labs as they are trying to be an "all in one" type of card. Which by its nature might not be as good as a dedicated card for music production.
I would make sure any card you buy has WDM drivers and supports WIN XP as I believe this is where everything is headed.
From what I hear, there really is no latency issues on this platform, but then again it's not out yet so what do I know!
Good luck, and most importantly, keep making music no matter what gear you have.
A1MixMan
 
Thanks guys for your input. Hmmm...it looks like s/b live is a good choice at the moment for me but I will look at the M-audio cards as well. The Creative labs Audigy card looks very interesting for us muso's - but they aint sayin when its being released for shipped :-(( You were spot on A1 Mix man about making music whatever gear you have. I only have a very basic set-up but have had so much enjoyment from what I have been able to record. All my own work! The main thing is to get stuck in and record stuff.;)
 
SB Live

If you're gonna buy a SB Live and won't be watching any DVD's, I recomment the Live Value. It doesn't have all the extra stuff from the other cards (Dolby 5.1, SPDIF inputs...). I picked mine up a week ago for $59 at http://www.jncs.com

It is the OEM version, so you get a CD with all the drivers and apps, but no games or stuff like that (sure don't miss that...)
 
As I'm not going to be upgrading to Sonar for a year or so, I will continue to use Home Studio 2002. It's fine for what I want. I have the AWE 64 Gold at present, so can use that for soundfonts. I am seriously looking at adding to my system the Delta 44 from M-audio as suggested by Mr Connor. That would give me the full duplex capability and the break-out box that I crave (my computer is in a position where access to the back is very difficult.)

BTW, what is an SPDIF interface?
 
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