Better soundcard = better recorded sound?

[bolu]

Hi,

I've recently bought a Blue Yeti USB microphone for recording some acoustic guitar. I previously just used a cheapo PC mic, so I'm impressed with the big improvement in quality.

The computer I use for recording is an old IBM Thinkpad X31 laptop, and the software is Audacity and Mixcraft.

My question is pretty straightforward: If I used a computer with a better soundcard would the recorded sound be of better quality?

Thanks.

 

[JimmyS1969]

Read THIS

Then THIS

These should answer some questions for you.

Welcome to HR!

 

[mjbphotos]

Yes, by all means read the threads Jimmy pointed you to. And the answer is definitely 'YES'!

 

[mdainsd]

No, the recorded sound would be the same. The sound card is not involved in the recording process using a USB mic.
The playback on the other hand can be affected by the quality of the sound card.

 

[mjbphotos]

A better soundcard (USB audio interface) AND a decent non-USB mic!

 

[bolu]

Thanks everyone for the replies. So when using a USB microphone the soundcard won't make a difference to the recorded sound. That's pretty much what I wanted to know. Cheers.

 

[rob aylestone]

A better card gives better replay, and better recording from analogue inputs. USB mics (spawn of the devil) don't even need the sound card to record - the data coming in via USB is already digital. The pain of course is that your recording software has to continually mount the right driver. If you want to replay a track through speakers then you need to have the sound card mounted - can your DAW playback on one device and simultaneously record from another (the mic?) I use Cubase 8, and it can't!

 

[ecc83]

Whilst I would ALWAYS suggest an separate AI and mic you can run a USB mic and monitor it in Audacity.

See the screenshot. The mic is a 30quid "ProSound" (yeah! I know, but I picked it up mainly just for tests such as this) and I have cans plugged into the headphone out of this HP i3 laptop.

Bit of jiggling with sources etc in Audacity and I have levels going in and coming out.

Dave.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

...can your DAW playback on one device and simultaneously record from another (the mic?) I use Cubase 8, and it can't!

It may be a matter of using a different driver. On XP machines you can generally use one of the Windows drivers (probably Windows Classic Wave Driver) to access all your devices at once. The latency may be bad but that's unavoidable when using different devices for input and output. I would be that on Macs you could use Aggregate Device to do something similar.